I was a legacy subscriber of MamaMax on YouTube, from back when his channel was funny, but then I dropped off when he started commentating on bad hentai. Since then, the algorithm itself seldom floated any of his stuff to me.

However, that changed today, after happening upon a new offering, which was when I discovered that he now goes by a new handle, GODCULT. And not only that, he reiterated his cause, which is to encourage vigilante activity, outing child predators.

While the cause of stopping child predators is something I don’t object to, there are problems with having someone like GODCULT being the one to champion the cause. And I don’t just mean because of his hentai commentary.

For those who are interested, the video is embedded below. Watching it is helpful for establishing the context of my critique, but is not completely necessary. It’s about 25 minutes long.

GODCULT spends much of the video answering critics who have left him comments. Many of them are legacy subscribers who would agree that his new super-serious content is not what they subscribed to, and GODCULT takes them to task for not being on board with the change of his channel’s focus.

Reminiscent of the days of Maddox, to cherry pick comments that you can easily answer is highly expedient to expressing your intellectual superiority. Also of note is that he altered his voice in an obvious effort to be taken seriously, which is a nice throwback to “We are Anonymous, we are legion!”

But what’s especially disturbing is that GODCULT presumes to psychoanalyze these critics, as if to suggest that criticism of his channel’s new direction indicates a sort of permissiveness of child abuse. Whether he’s explicit in this implication, it’s easy to hear in his tone.

If one were to turn the psychoanalytic eye back on GODCULT, it would be plain to see that he derives pleasure from expressing superiority over other people. Of course, this would be difficult to reconcile with a culture that has a distaste for abusive relationships. Except, when that same appetite for domination is expressed against those who are abusive, it becomes easier to justify. When answering his critics, it’s plain to see that his deep, booming voice disguise is intended to intimidate. Whether his intention to protect children is sincere or not, it’s evidently a convenient outlet with which he could play the intellectual tyrant, fulfilling his own appetite for domination.

As explained by GODCULT, he has spun a dystopian fictional narrative of a future time in which child abuse is normalized. Because GODCULT is of the opinion that fictitious depictions indicate the sensibilities of the authors, GODCULT shouldn’t consider it scandalous to say that this indicates a sincere belief that humanity, if left on its current course, would normalize pedophilia within years.

I have my doubts. As of this typing, child abuse is highly illegal. It tends to carry a harsh prison sentence. What’s more, anyone in prison for child abuse is usually singled out for abuse by other prisoners, because even ordinary criminals can’t stand their presence. What’s more, child molesters tend to be harassed anywhere that their reputation follows them, which is usually everywhere, considering that they’re usually required to submit to a registry that would indicate where they live. Most people can’t stand the company of child molesters.

Considering all this, I think it should be understandable why I would be skeptical of the idea that child abuse would be normalized anytime soon. Having said that, I’m aware that QAnon would differ on the matter, why they would differ, and the kind of information that they habitually limit themselves to and how it informs their worldview.

While it was a throwaway line near the start of his video, we can bring attention to his calling out of Japanese media for sometimes sexualizing minors. Which would make Japanese media like most media one can find anywhere in the world. While it’s true that Japanese media has a relatively high occurrence rate of humor that would be considered insensitive to victims of sexual abuse, it’s also true that a person doesn’t have to consume media that they don’t want to. And, in any case, Japan enjoys low crime rates in spite of how racy some its media can be. It’s almost as though media is not strongly indicative of cultural norms, right MamaMax, reviewer of bad hentai?

Because we’re sensible adults, we should know that any fictitious depictions of crime does not equate to a desire on the part of the authors to commit such crimes, nor does the consumption of such media indicate such desires from consumers. Otherwise, we could assume some pretty nasty things about the people who play games from the Mortal Kombat and Grand Theft Auto series’.

Having been through all that, as much of a problem as child abuse is, there are better things we can do about it than using our positions as influencers to recruit your viewers as vigilantes. Vigilantism is counterproductive. There has been many a case where a predator has actually gotten off because some vigilante bozo disrupted an investigation in progress.

If child abuse is occurring, you notify law enforcement. Unless the crime is in progress in your physical presence, that is the extent of what you can do to be helpful. Even if you want to do more, in informing law enforcement you’ve accomplished everything you could do to be helpful. Let the police do their jobs, they actually do want to stop these guys.

Having said this, I have a suspicion that in the event that GODCULT discovers this page, he might distort my criticisms of his approach as being adversarial towards efforts to stop child abuse, similar to how he answered his critics.

Still, GODCULT has a freedom to further whatever cause that he may wish to, so long as he can do so lawfully. And if he can rescue at least one person in so doing, then this would make it easier for him to avoid confronting his own methods for how counterproductive they may be.

I know I may be laboring the point by bringing this up again, but vigilantism is usually counterproductive, as it has the potential to disrupt investigations that are the job of law enforcement, resulting in people who commit crimes getting off scot free. Don’t want child molesters to get away with it? Then don’t be dumb.