Karl Jobst versus Billy Mitchell: The fallout roundup (part 1)

Howdy, folks! It’s time for what I’m calling “The fallout roundup”. No, I’m not talking about the game Fallout.

I’m talking about the fallout from disgraced cheater Billy Mitchell’s successful defamation claim against enduring legend Karl Jobst. I said if Billy Mitchell released a second response video full of bullshit and lies – which he did – I’d publish a point-by-point response to both as a two-for-one. So what has this poor bastard done? I wrote way too much for a single installment, and had to split it into two parts anyway, LMAO!

But you see, the lawsuit fallout goes way beyond Billy Mitchell’s knack for overcompensation. Billy’s peanut gallery are part of this story as well. Lots of tomfoolery will be had. On a more serious note, you also will probably be genuinely shocked by one thing in particular I’ll have to say – although, you’ll have to wait for part two for that. (Heck, with Jirard the Completionist suddenly kicking up old dirt, even I might be surprised by what I’ll have to say!) However, aside from whatever impact my personal commentary may be worth, there’s no urgent breaking news here. No new court testimony, no double bogus plaques. So in the pantheon of all-time great Billy Mitchell updates, I can’t say whether this one will have the same… stature.

Before we go one single centimeter further, if you haven’t watched the entirety of Karl Jobst’s “Final” lawsuit update video, published in mid-August, you are required to do so before proceeding:

I’ll discuss the contents and aftermath of that video toward the end of part two, but I’m not going to reiterate everything Karl says. The people who didn’t bother watching that certainly aren’t going to read my lengthy screeds. I’m also not going to relitigate the initial impression many people had following the verdict – specifically those who felt they were misled about the nature of the lawsuit. While that has been a critical element of the fallout of this legal battle, I’ve already discussed it in detail here:

https://perfectpacman.com/2025/04/02/did-karl-lie/

And if more backstory interests you, I would also recommend reading my thorough dissection of Judge Ken Barlow’s ass-flavored diarrhea enema of a ruling, and my analysis of the mistakes made by various parties (especially Karl’s lawyers) which led to our community’s court defeat. But again, all that stuff is outside the purview of what I’m covering today. We’re not here to discuss the lawsuit itself for the umpteenth time. We’re here to look at individual and community reactions, and to have a laugh or two doing so.

If you’re terrified that I’ll be going in boring chronological order, don’t worry. I would never, ever do that to you all, except for the many times that I do, which officially are merely the result of regulatory compliance or benign bureaucratic errors.

“ALWAYS HAS A PLAN”

Let’s start with Billy’s first video. On June 3rd, Billy Mitchell used his self-titled YouTube channel to post a video titled “A Statement From Billy Mitchell: Karl Jobst (Part 1/2)”.

What’s funny is, YouTube commentary is clearly not Billy’s forte. Nor is it a strength of Billy Junior (Billy’s son), who I would assume is the silent participant behind the camera. Billy may have a lot of experience suing innocent people, but now he’s stepping into Karl’s domain, and… he’s not very good at it. Just a boring black background, and a droopy-faced Billy reading from a prompter. Engaging stuff! Maybe he thinks that because he used to get credited for “world records” without any work, he can put the same low effort into everything else he does?

Billy does include clips from Karl’s video, and from his own deposition in the Twin Galaxies case – you know, the deposition he tried to falsely copyright strike into oblivion. What’s interesting to me though, they didn’t bother to use the actual raw deposition footage – which they no doubt found in their quest to scrub the evidence from the Internet. Instead, for the segment they couldn’t lift directly from Karl’s video, they used the sole surviving copy on YouTube, while blocking out the “True Crime Television” branding.

They took the time to add chapter breaks to the video, and on-screen captions for this deposition segment. You can tell these weren’t auto-generated, because they properly capitalize “Apollo Legend” and correctly spell “Karl Jobst” each time. But they didn’t bother blocking out “TCT” until after the captions were added? So one is overlaying the other? What was this, cut together in an outhouse? Man, get your shit together.

I already did a Twitter thread covering the most obvious lies from this video…

Again, watch Karl’s chef-d’œuvre for more context. Looking back, Billy’s attempt to malign Karl’s GoFundMe is so hilariously boneheaded, it should probably be taught in public relations classes as an example of what not to do.

At 9:40, Billy gives a disdainful overview of Karl’s position. I’ve added italics here to emphasize the portions Billy delivered in a mocking tone:

His argument is that he opened the GoFundMe campaign because my lawyers told him that I provided instructions to commence a second lawsuit. His position is, if Billy lawyers said so, then why should I not believe them? [sic]

Hey look, I’m just writing what he said. Check for yourself, he definitely uses the words “if Billy lawyers said so”.

The problem is, Karl’s position is entirely reasonable. It’d be like if someone went “OHHHHH, just because I ate food with YOUR NAME on it, you think that means I STOLE from you, huh!?!?” It’s like a Homer Simpson skit. Billy’s only attempt to counter this narrative was citing court testimony where Karl affirmed “I don’t believe anything Billy Mitchell says.” As Karl pointed out, this is the kind of argument a literal toddler would make – especially when dealing with life-altering lawsuits, and when “Billy Mitchell says” is not at all the same as “Billy’s lawyers told my lawyers, and have drafted paperwork with stated intent to file”.

But this is even stupider than that. And here’s what I mean when I say this is an own-goal worthy of future curriculum.

I know this was only a few months ago, but do you remember what the hubbub was over Karl’s GoFundMe in the immediate aftermath of the trial verdict?

I linked my write-up earlier, but I’ll do so again here:

https://perfectpacman.com/2025/04/02/did-karl-lie/

That’s right, the narrative was “Karl Jobst scammed everyone by running a GoFundMe while misleading everyone that the lawsuit was about cheating allegations and not over statements about Apollo Legend.” This was a misrepresentation of course. Yes, many people were misinformed, but someone out there (or several someones) had to actively push the narrative that this was deliberate on the part of Karl, and that everyone who donated to his defense were thus scammed. Now, when I suggest that this story wasn’t entirely organic, I do so based on the fact the evidence doesn’t bear out that narrative, as I demonstrated in thorough detail at the above link. When there’s a lot of confusion, it’s easy for the first voice with a convincing story to gain traction. And while it might be fun to pin the seeds of this bogus narrative on Billy directly, my impression is that it sprang more from drama-feeding sloptubers, and a fringe community with a pre-existing axe to grind against Karl. (More on them in part two.)

Either way, and even if the narrative did somehow spring up organically, Billy had a free ride. So many people bought into the “Karl Jobst scammed everyone” story, because that’s the thing they were hearing everywhere. I and others tried hard to quell this nonsense with good ol’-fashioned facts and reason, but there’s only so much you can do to fight the tide.

Billy Mitchell got what he wanted. Everyone hated Karl. All Billy had to do… was keep his dumbass mouth shut.

But what does he do instead? He basically argues, “Yeah, I told you the GoFundMe was a scam! It was a scam because Karl knew I wasn’t really gonna sue him a second time. But he wanted you to think I was, merely because my lawyers sent his lawyer draft paperwork of a second lawsuit, and told them they had instructions to proceed and file.”

So all of that other bullshit, that we had to work so hard to dispel? Fuhgeddaboudit. Now, thanks to Billy’s own framing, it’s a fight over “Did Karl have reason to believe a second lawsuit was on its way?” And as Karl demonstrated, the answer is “Yes, absolutely, he had reason to believe that.” And when people think back on this whole contrived GoFundMe “scandal”, some will choose to focus on the details of the Apollo stuff, but many will recall it as “Billy threatened to sue Karl twice, then lied a bunch about Karl’s GoFundMe and made childish arguments, and Karl rightly exposed his lies.” Billy Mitchell basically moved the goal for us.

Oh, and let’s not forget that Billy had been insisting for years there was only ever “one complaint”, which suckers and drama farmers bought up. And now, of his own free will, Billy chose to volunteer that, yes, there really was a second legal complaint all along. Why would he admit that now? BILLY MITCHELL WHY ARE YOU SO DUMB!?!?

Being as prolific and unrepentant a liar as Billy is, it’s inevitable that some really stupid shit will slip into his narrative. “Dwayne Richard made fake tapes to frame me.” “Robert Mruczek submitted my tape against my wishes to spite Steve Wiebe.” Anything he can say to avoid having to admit the obvious truth. “There was a secret second plaque naming me Video Game Player of the Century, and nobody ever saw that version until now.” At some point, I’ll do a review of the Todd Rogers Dragster drama, and the times Todd is pressed on his obvious lies and has to make up new shit on the fly. But for Billy, this one was completely unforced! Literally all he had to do was stay quiet and ride his good fortune. Dude couldn’t even do that.

I will admit, I used to be at least a little tense when Billy Mitchell produced some bit of new media relating to his cheating or the lawsuits. The more information we have, the better – even if that “information” is merely more Billy lies to refute. But you know, there’s always the chance you got something totally wrong – which has happened. So there used to be this moment of “Uh-oh, does he have something this time? Are we in trouble?” But now, there’s no fear. When Billy Mitchell issues a statement, I watch comfortably believing it’ll be full of easily refutable lies, and Billy unnecessarily shooting himself in the balls while trying to pose like it was all a 5D alpha move.

“BiLlY MiTcHeLl aLwAyS hAs A pLaN”

Yes, thankfully, it seems he does lmao.

SETTLEMENTS

Oh right, I guess there was more to Billy’s first video. Okay, let’s keep going.

As we’ve previously covered, Billy gave directly contradictory answers in the Australia trial than he had given in his U.S. deposition. In this video, Billy fibbed about how the answers were different because, according to him, the deposition questions related strictly to video games. Again, anything he can say to keep his lies going. But like… We can just watch the deposition? And we can see that’s not true. Karl debunked this in the video you were required to watch, so I’m not going to do more than point out that this lie happened and move on.

One bit Karl didn’t bother addressing – which Billy gave the chapter title of “Mr. Jobst Lying Example #2” – related to statements Karl made about the impact of Apollo’s settlement. (Here’s where I gotta throw in the self-harm content warning as usual.) First, Billy plays a segment from Karl’s “I lost” video, which you can find there at about 5:30:

To be clear though, I never said Billy caused Apollo’s suicide, nor have I ever believed that. No one is responsible for Apollo’s decision other than Apollo.

Billy in his own words emphasized Karl’s position here:

That is a very clear statement from Karl there. He never believed that anyone was responsible for Apollo’s decision except Apollo.

But then, in what was apparently supposed to be some big gotcha, Billy shows what he claims to be a court transcript from the trial, where Karl said “the settlement terms had some impact”:

Right away, I want to be clear that I don’t simply accept Billy’s framing of a portion of a document he shows for a few seconds in a video. And that’s because Billy has a demonstrable track record of lying about this stuff. And yes, I will sometimes accept material posted in a similar fashion by Karl, and I do that because Karl is diligent and he lacks Billy’s track record of dishonesty. (Also, sometimes I have the entirety of said document, which I’m not at liberty to share. But please don’t assume that’s the case in any particular instance.)

With that said, I do believe the above exchange to be a genuine reflection of the court transcript, with the questions being posed by Billy’s barrister, and the quoted answers coming from Karl. I tracked down this sequence in my “Day 5” write-up, which was summarized a bit:

When BB asked [what] Karl’s opinion was on the impact of the settlement on Apollo’s passing, Karl indicated that his opinion has changed over the years. When asked for that opinion, Karl said [“I believe that the settlement terms had some impact on his life.”] BB asked to clarify that this meant Apollo’s decision to take his own life. Karl agreed, saying “I believe that it may have, yeah.”

Yes, I snuck in a correction to my sloppy transcription, lol. At the time, I was rushing to get all those live court updates out the door, and I’ve decided to leave the originals as they were published. Recall that bracketed quotes were inexact, and plain quotation marks were used for exactsies. And hey, look at that! My bracketed quote was a fair paraphrase, and the plain quote was direct. I’m not perfect, but I’m good at what I do.

Anyway, Billy attempts to wrap a bow on his gotcha:

Here, Mr. Jobst is saying to the court, to the judge, that he did in fact believe that I was a factor in Apollo Legend’s decisions. And before you ask, yes, Mr. Jobst said this while under oath.

Except… That’s not what Karl said at all!

I know, I’ve made this point before. But I’m going to make it again. Karl said “the settlement” affected Apollo’s decision to end his life. Not Billy. “The settlement.” And you know what? Of course it did! Obviously, the settlement, and the way it played out, would have had a huge impact on Apollo, and would have played a part in his later decision. You’d have to be utterly detached from reality to think the level of humiliation and social blowback Apollo put himself through carried no weight in his drastic end-of-life plans. To put it more plainly, you would have to lie to say otherwise, and typically, lying is discouraged when under oath.

Now, you can choose to think Billy bears responsibility for that settlement decision, if you want. Obviously, he’s the person who sued Apollo, and who consummated that settlement with Apollo. And Billy’s prior jokes about Apollo’s death surely give the impression that at some point Billy desired that outcome. I personally don’t assign blame in cases of suicide unless the intention and action are absolutely fundamentally clear, and they’re not clear in this case. I genuinely believe that, after the settlement, Billy was happy to move on without further harm to Apollo. But that’s the point, is it not? If “The settlement” was unambiguously a factor, and if Billy’s involvement is up for debate, then the two are necessarily different things. To make a comparison, just because a freak accident directly causes a tragedy in a way you would be unable to deny, that doesn’t mean a given person behind a given steering wheel is at “fault” or is “responsible” for the tragedy.

Let’s be clear about something. The lawyer was doing his job. This is what cross-examination looks like. You take a statement you’d like to interpret a certain way, and you pick and gnaw at it, with all kinds of angles and semantics at your disposal. You can’t just ask the same question twice – that’ll draw an objection of “Asked and Answered” (or whatever terminology they use in ‘Straya) – but you ask every twist and slight variation you can think of. In this case, Billy’s barrister wanted Karl to indicate a belief in Billy’s involvement in Apollo’s decision. To that end, he poked and prodded about “The settlement”, hoping to get the soundbite he needed. Karl can’t just decide not to discuss a topic involving difficult-to-communicate nuance, and he isn’t supposed to lie and say “No, I’m sure the settlement had no impact on him.” And if he did lie in that way, that just opens a different line of questioning. “OHHH WAIT, so you believed Apollo paid Billy a bunch of money, you believed he humiliated himself in front of the world, but you think that didn’t play a factor in his decision? That’s what you believe?” Or “Ahh, but that’s not what you said on this other occasion, is it?” The whole point of cross-examination is to trip up an opposing witness into saying the wrong thing. And everyone will stumble at least a little in that situation, on the spot, under that pressure. But if Karl talking about “The settlement” is the biggest gotcha Billy can find from his transcript, suffice to say, Karl handled it quite well.

Speaking of settlements, some folks have asked for my take on this one. Following the out-of-court resolution between Jace Hall and Twin Galaxies in January 2024, Billy and his lawyers took the matter back to court, claiming that TG was misrepresenting their settlement (which, in fact, Billy was the one doing). Primarily, this was over the question of whether Billy was “banned” from Twin Galaxies going forward. Importantly, Judge Wendy Chang did not find that either party had materially violated any terms of the settlement. Although Billy’s attorney-at-the-time Kristina Ross moved the court to “order Defendant to comply with all terms and conditions of the Settlement Agreement”, no such order was given, nor were any material sanctions levied against TG. Instead, Chang granted Billy’s side permission to publish two passages from the otherwise confidential TG settlement:

The Plaintiff is granted authority to publish exact words of section 1B and section 1D of the settlement agreement.

I guess the idea is that these passages would help publicly clarify the exact state and flavor of Billy’s ban-ocity, thus eschewing any need for the court to rule on semantics. Despite Billy’s liberty to publish these passages, neither had been made public for over a year. But at long last, in his response video this past June, Billy finally published what he purports to be section 1D:

Twin Galaxies will work to include any future score submissions by Mitchell to Twin Galaxies’ leaderboards with such submissions having to go through the normal Twin Galaxies adjudication process.

Again, I don’t automatically accept whatever Billy throws on a screen and claims represents what he says it does. But in this case, I suspect this genuinely is passage 1D from the TG settlement, as it seems to match the discourse surrounding Billy’s “Motion to enforce”, and I will proceed with the discussion here under that assumption.

You may recall, portions of the legal filings from that sub-fiasco were redacted, as they related to the confidential settlement. Still, Twin Galaxies owner Jace Hall legendarily prefaced a giant wall of black redaction with the assurance that, yes, Billy Mitchell is still banned:

Later, when not discussing the particulars of the settlement, Jace clarified TG’s position on future score submissions from Billy:

The original ban was imposed due to a breach of trust — cheating. The integrity of Twin Galaxies’ leaderboards and the fairness to other users are at the heart of their decision to ban the Plaintiff. To ensure the maintenance of this integrity and fairness, any consideration for lifting such a ban would naturally require a thorough process of reassessment and verification that the reasons for the initial ban have been addressed and rectified.

Thus, you get an idea of what passage 1D really means. If Billy was unbanned, the settlement would just say so, and Jace and TG would’ve gotten in material trouble for continuing to treat Billy as if he were banned. Instead, TG agrees to “work to include” “future score submissions” by Billy, pursuant to TG’s usual adjudication process. This also reflects the perspective of TG’s attorney Tash seen above, where he was quoted as saying that there were “avenues for [Billy] to come back in the fold” “at some point”.

So what is this “work” that needs doing? What are these “avenues”? Well, I’d venture a guess that “Admitting to having cheated and apologizing to the community” would be on the list. I mean, Jace has been plenty magnanimous with other high score offenders, subsequent to contrition. Obviously, the cheated scores can never be reinstated, but it wouldn’t be out of character for Jace to rescind Billy’s other sanctions even now if Billy simply rectified the thing that got him banned in the first place. Also, as Karl pointed out, this “work to include” language already sets Billy apart from the rest of the TG community, who can simply submit scores of their own accord. Of course, those people aren’t banned, either from adjudication or from social participation on the TG website.

Perhaps a better question is, why does this clause exist at all?

Obviously I wasn’t a party to the settlement negotiations, but they appear to be critical to this argument. Going back to the brief legal battle over this point, in both TG’s opposition filing, and Tash’s accompanying declaration, large redacted sections are prefaced with headers “Background to settlement negotiations” and “Negotiation of [REDACTED]”.

Here’s me spitballing what the negotiations over this passage probably sounded like:

Billy: “Hey, I want you to unban me in the settlement.”

Jace: “Uh, we can’t unban you. You were banned for cheating. Everyone will flip the fuck out if we unban you.”

Billy: “I don’t care what they think. I didn’t cheat. I want you to unban me.”

Jace: “Dude, you cheated, and we’re not unbanning you. That’s just not a thing.”

Billy: “Okay, how about this? What if you could unban me one day, and you just acknowledge that as a possibility?”

Jace: “I’m listening.”

Billy: “How about like ‘Twin Galaxies is open to accepting future score submissions from Mr. Mitchell.'”

Jace: “But when it’s put that way, it sounds like we will definitely do that, when we won’t necessarily. Also, even if we did, it’s not only up to us. New TG doesn’t unilaterally ordain scores like in the referee era. Your shit’s gotta go through community adjudication like anyone else.”

To be clear, these are 100% made up quotes to help illustrate my point. But you can see how it becomes this contrived “work to include” bit, as the proposed verbiage bounces back and forth between the parties. The passage doesn’t read as legally actionable – and the fact that Judge Chang didn’t take corrective action on this point speaks to that. And that’s probably why Jace agreed to it. “Sure, I’ll sign off on this thing that imposes no obligations on me whatsoever.” I would also suggest the fact Billy settled for this toothless clause speaks to a desire not to seek unbanning for its own sake, but for the ability to tell the public he was unbanned with some nominal degree of plausibility.

On that note, Billy uses carefully selected language to describe all of this in his first video:

So what Twin Galaxies and Mr. Jobst claimed was that even though Twin Galaxies said it would permit future score submissions from me, I remain banned from the Twin Galaxies competition. That just doesn’t make any sense. As a result of these claims, I filed a “Motion to enforce settlement agreement” on Twin Galaxies on May 30th, 2024. The court ruled in my favor. And the judge directly addressed this claim by Twin Galaxies as false.

Well, let’s see. “Would permit” is a mischaracterization. Also, the “Motion to enforce” was filed on March 11th, and not May 30th, because yes, I am a nerd and I do check those things. (May 30th was the date of the hearing, but I suspect the reason that date found its way into Billy’s script is because they casually glanced at their own filing and that was the first date they saw on page one.) It is true that the court “ruled in [Billy’s] favor”, but only when Ellrod gave up on the retraction he had sought. Billy says it this specific and peculiar way because he wants you to think it was a decisive, material victory when it was not. Lastly, Judge Chang’s remark which according to Billy “directly addressed” TG’s position was awfully tepid:

Oh wow! “The intention was to at least allow for the possibility for the plaintiff to submit his scores.” What a resounding semantic implication.

The only way for us to know for sure Billy’s ban status would be for him to reach out to TG to attempt to submit a score – literally any score, on any game. But of course, Billy attests he won’t do that one thing that would settle the matter, ell oh ell. Regardless, we all know any Billy Mitchell score that goes up for TG adjudication would be rejected by the community faster than a Todd Rogers Dragster run. So he’s de facto banned anyway. And Billy knows this.

But I’ll tell you what else Billy knows…

I will not be submitting any scores to Twin Galaxies, because it has no authority. It has no purpose. At this point, Twin Galaxies is only relevant for its history. Today, Twin Galaxies has no physical place of business. It has no office. It has no in-person competition. No employees. No referees. No industry experts. In fact, Twin Galaxies today is one guy with no industry experience that runs a website from his apartment. He stands on nothing but the hard work and achievement of those who came before him, and thinks money can buy him credibility.

LMAO Dude is so bitter. This is not the voice of satisfaction. To anyone who still believes Billy “won” the settlement with TG, Billy himself doesn’t seem to think so.

As a side note, having the purported text of section 1D at my fingertips, I used it to inquire with some confidential sources who I thought might have access to passage 1B. (No, I didn’t ask anyone who I believed was legally forbidden from sharing it.) Here’s what I can share:

Twin Galaxies agrees to publish a statement (“the Statement”) on its website as a standalone piece for at least seven days at twingalaxies.com on January 16, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time regarding its decision to reinstate Mitchell’s video game scores onto the Original TG Historical Database on the Twin Galaxies website. A copy of this Statement is attached as Exhibit 1.

Some big caveats. First, what I received likely originated from Billy’s camp, and so the usual caveats apply. More importantly, this is NOT – I repeat, NOT – the exact text I was given. I have scrubbed and altered it a bit, in ways that do not change the meaning. Granted, I did this in consideration of potential ploys that are waaay too clever for anything Team Billy have ever demonstrated, but I decided I’ll take the added precaution anyway.

With that said, the language I received makes sense. The statement was part of the agreement, as were the terms under which it must be posted. That means the exact text of the statement was also up for negotiation, with Billy wanting it to say certain things, and TG wanting it to say certain other things. All of this is standard. While Ellrod’s haphazardly unredacted motion from a year ago did not contain passage 1B, there is a reference to its requirements:

Pursuant to the Settlement Agreement, Defendant was to issue an agreed upon public statement as a standalone article on its website on January 16, 2024.

Note also that, despite TG only being required to host the statement for seven days, it’s still on their website today. They’ve just chosen to leave it up, forever I guess. Make of that what you will.

LOLBURGERS

No, we’re still not done with video one.

Karl, I’m six-foot-six. I don’t need to do anything to look taller.

You heard it, folks. He doesn’t need to do anything to look taller.

But apparently, he can’t stop himself from doing it anyway hahahahahaha.

Maybe the key words here are “to look taller”? Like, sure he stands on things – we can all literally see him do it – but maybe it’s for other enigmatic and presumably innocuous reasons? After all, how could we be sure he’s doing these funny poses out of insecurity over his height specifically?

lmao Oh, Billy.

Again, why would Billy Mitchell proactively bring this up? He knows he does this. Does he enjoy getting dunked on? Does he think “Hey, at least they’re talking about me”?

Or did he think his court victory would insulate him from all further mockery? Has his one litigation success gone to his head? Did he think “Ha, now that a bunch of people are on my side, I can say whatever bullshit I want and people will believe it”?

But oh, as these Billy Mitchell things so often do, it gets even worse. You see, Billy recently moved away from Twitch in favor of streaming on YouTube. And in one such stream, a chatter posed a question about Billy’s documented photographic chicanery. And as heard at about 2:17:50, Billy felt he couldn’t just let it go:

I’m six-foot-six. I don’t need anything to look taller. I have taken thousands, maybe tens of thousands, but I feel very comfortable saying thousands of photos with people, fans, events, props, everything. Thoouusands. And in not even one percent, not even one tenth of one percent or less, have I stood on something. So he could take a half a dozen times out of thousands, maybe ten thousand photos that I’ve taken, and he can show where I stood on something. And then he can make a video out of it, that captures your attention, maybe your emotions, maybe not, okay… Really? Are you kidding me? Really? That’s a question?

lmao Very sensitive! Remember, Billy’s taken lots and lots of individual photos, so if he stands on toolboxes and paint cans and tall ladders and duct tape rolls in a few group photos, it’s a small percentage overall, right? Standing on duct tape is surely not a bizarre thing to do literally even once.

But then it seems Billy decided that answer didn’t cut the mustard, so like a comedian testing new material at open mic night, he spins off into an entirely different, and unintentionally hilarious answer:

The truth is that there was one time that I… Well, there was a number of times, but there’s one time in particular that I stood on something. And one of the original crybabies, crybabies, put right in the chat “Billy did this and did that and stood on this. I hate it when he does that.” Man, lemme tell ya. Every time after that that I did it, I did it just for him, just to stick it to him. So you can bet ya, because he said that in his video, okay, el shorty at five-foot-seven, way down under, I’m gonna stand on stuff again, just to keep it in his face. Okay. And whether I’m standin’ on somethin’ and I’m six-foot-six, or I’m standin’ on somethin’ and I’m three inches taller, okay. He can lose sleep. Really? Give me a break. He has nothin’ better to talk about than that?

Now, let’s be fair… I could maybe entertain the notion that Billy’s choice of this answer here is a troll. Like “Haha, instead of being straightforward about anything, I’ll just tell them a bunch of bullshit and watch their heads explode.” Although it still doesn’t make sense. He wants to own the haters by being made fun of? Again, it seems like he struggles to recognize the difference between mockery and what he attempts to illustrate as frustration – or at least, he hopes his idiot hangers-on fail to see the difference. “I hate it when he does that.” Are you kidding me? Billy Mitchell standing on random bullshit is the best motherfucking part of the show!!

Even if we tried to accept this premise, why would Billy keep doing something that makes him look stupid and ridiculous? Because some made-up “crybaby” successfully goaded him into it? And he’s still doing it years later? That’s his Alpha Power Move?

But of course, none of his story adds up. For better or worse, I’ve researched Billy Mitchell heavily. I won’t say I know everything there is to know, but I and my colleagues have found a lot of stuff, including material that just seems irrelevant or out-of-bounds. And I had never, not once come across any indication of Billy standing on things in photos until a colleague brought the toolbox to my attention in 2022. And all the other examples from the original thread obviously predate that, as does the 2016 tippy-toes photo seen above. Literally the only one to occur after this became a topic of public discourse was the paint can photo. Who was this “original [crybaby]”? And why does he say exactly what Billy wants him to say? Is this guy off hanging out with the original “You think you know” guy? And where was this “chat”? How did Billy find it?

And he’s gonna keep doing it, but now it’s to stick it to Karl? And not the other guy he was doing this for?

“If I keep doing the stupid thing, and keep insisting it’s not stupid, then it’ll look like it was the plan all along.”

Honestly, I feel like this is how most of Billy Mitchell’s “plans” come into existence.

But getting back to Billy’s “Part 1” video, when I first watched it, him insisting he doesn’t stand on things to look taller wasn’t even the most hilarious part to me.

This dude… This motherfucker… He STILL wants everyone to know that he absolutely positively did not cheat at Donkey Kong lmaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooooo.

Does this mean he finally has an answer to the damning MTV evidence? The bit that proves someone produced MAME Donkey Kong play and submitted it as Billy’s new “world record” all the way back in 2006?

lmao No, of course not. What could he even say? There is no universe in which that interview exists and Billy Mitchell didn’t cheat, so his only hope is that you forget what your lying eyes told you.

Instead, Billy Mitchell is still butthurt over those red joystick videos.

Mr. Jobst and Twin Galaxies stated many times over the years that this photo shows a rule violation on one of my Donkey Kong world records, because the joystick was red. That’s not true.

Well, for starters, the words “because the joystick was red” are doing some lifting there. It’s not really that the joystick was the wrong color – although, don’t forget that in deposition Billy confidently asserted “If it wasn’t black, then I wouldn’t have played it.” The real problem is that it’s a totally different joystick. In his video, Billy glosses over this by saying original hardware can be replaced with a “like-for-like exchange” (which seem to be his own words), hoping you don’t notice that this was not a “like-for-like exchange”:

I’ve talked briefly before about how these photos came into my possession (though some details were vague on account of confidentiality). While they were held back for years as “a close secret in the Donkey Kong community”, as I put it at the time, many in that community still had never seen them. So for some top Donkey Kong players, I got to see their first reactions to “Big Red”. A common reaction was basically, “How could you even play Donkey Kong, let alone hit a world record score, with a joystick that tall!?” Think about the excess movement you’d have to make, compared to an original joystick so low to the panel. Wouldn’t that throw off your muscle memory? Wouldn’t it be like trying to play Mega Man with an Atari 2600 style controller? To use a very exaggerated comparison, imagine trying to play Donkey Kong with like a car’s gear shift.

Again, that’s a comedic exaggeration. Big Red isn’t that much taller than a standard joystick. But you get my point, don’t you? They’re still not the same.

Remember, Billy Mitchell knows what he did. He knows he and Todd showed up, pulled a publicity stunt, and submitted a pre-made MAME tape claiming it was done live. He knows he didn’t actually play a kill screen game using “Big Red”. He knows he announced his score in the span of about fifteen minutes, per the testimony of event organizer Valerie Saunders. He knows no direct feed tape of game play was produced at that event, which tracks with the testimony of the guy who set up their equipment. Billy Mitchell is looking you in the eyes and distracting you with questions over whether there were written rules permitting replacement joysticks because he knows his whole story is a sham.

But even if we set all that aside, Billy’s story still falls apart. He claims in his video that, at the time of this 2007 “mortgage brokers” score, there were no written rules for competitive Donkey Kong. And sure, the rules in 2007 were a bit more general. But by the time of Billy’s claimed 2010 score at Boomers, Twin Galaxies arcade rules were formalized and solidified:

The joystick itself MUST be an original stock 4-way Donkey Kong arcade joystick, or a replacement 4-way joystick of exact size and shape as the original Donkey Kong arcade game joystick.

Ironically, these rules came about because of “King of Kong”, and Team Billy’s own insistence on casting doubt on the recorded scores of Steve Wiebe and later Hank Chien. Now, you might say “Okay, but these rules still weren’t in place in 2007 for the red joystick score Billy’s talking about.” But the problem – the one Billy knowingly fails to address – is the accompanying testimony.

Billy’s referee friend Todd Rogers testified that Billy used “original unmodified Donkey Kong hardware”, adding that it was “an original Nintendo Donkey Kong Arcade machine as I have known since 1981.” Their other claimed referee, Morningdove Mahoney, testified that the game was “a legitimate Donkey Kong arcade machine with original unmodified hardware”. And Billy himself has testified many times that his scores were done on “original unmodified hardware”. Note that the circuit board itself was locked up and secured, and so neither “referee” could be testifying to that ever crucial board, rather than outwardly visible elements such as the control panel. Of course, it was all lies. It’s always just lies with these people.

Instead of literally anything to counter the deluge of evidence against him, Billy offers a bit of lazy rhetoric:

If Mr. Jobst’s joystick claim was true, then both him and Twin Galaxies would have walked into court, would’ve shown the photo, and won their case. Instead, neither Mr. Jobst nor Twin Galaxies ever attempted to use this photo at any point in the trial or even in preparation. Despite the claim from Mr. Jobst that this photo was some kind of a smoking gun, his decision not to use it speaks volumes.

This is laughably unhinged, any way you slice it. It might actually be Billy’s most insane lie to date.

First of all, just to be clear, you don’t walk into court and simply show everyone a photograph you found and win anything. That’s movie bullshit. You have to call witnesses to testify to authenticate it, etc. But let’s set that aside as a rhetorical flourish, one which I’ve probably used at some point.

Karl Jobst wasn’t attempting to prove Billy cheated. That’s not what the case was about. All Karl had to do was show Billy had a reputation as having been exposed as a cheater. That’s why the trial had all these questions about what Billy’s reputation was at various points in time. The photo relates to that point, but doesn’t prove anything. And Dogshow Barlow, for all his flaws, ruled that Karl had successfully demonstrated this reputation in passage [395]. So the thing Billy suggests would be proven was indeed established, with or without the photo.

But the real pants-on-head insanity was this:

Instead, neither Mr. Jobst nor Twin Galaxies ever attempted to use this photo at any point in the trial or even in preparation.

Bro…

That deposition?

The one everyone saw?

The one you filed all those copyright strikes over?

The one where you were grilled about the color of the joystick? Before you were promptly snared in your own lie by that very photo?

That was trial preparation.

TG was setting you up for what would eventually be your cross-examination at trial. And if you tried to wriggle out and change your story on the stand, Tash would’ve pulled out that deposition like he was Harvey Dent, “I got you saying the opposite in sworn testimony right here, you lying shit.”

Why did Billy add the clause about “preparation” in the first place? What sort of “preparation” did Billy have in mind when he said this? Jury selection? Case management? Was Tash supposed to staple the joystick photo to his witness list? Deposition is literally the place where this happens.

If Billy was trying to be honest, and had thought about what he was saying for two seconds, he would have realized he can’t say that. But that’s apparently not how his mind works. This dude will tell you anything, any combination of words he think will resonate. Billy Mitchell is lazy, and he thinks you’re dumb, which is the saddest combination of all time.

What kind of defendant spends hundreds of thousands of dollars, even over a million dollars according to his lawyer, litigating a case for four years, to settle three months before trial? A defendant that expects to lose.

Twin Galaxies’ story is easy to explain. They’d been ready to go to trial for months. Billy’s side kept filing nonsense like an attempted disqualification of TG’s lawyer, delaying the trial over and over. And finally, TG got Billy to agree to an out-of-court settlement which included neither an unbanning nor a reinstatement to the real leaderboards. (And presumably, no money.)

Billy’s story is much harder to justify. You spent four years litigating this case, only to settle with having none of your demands satisfied? No real reinstatement? No public retraction? So tell me, Billy: What plaintiff litigates a case for four years, at a claimed cost of about half a million dollars (based on an extrapolation from his lawyers’ asserted costs in 2022), only to settle three months before trial, with none of his demands satisfied?

Once again, I have to ask the question: Why is Billy Mitchell bringing this up? It’s proven beyond any doubt that he cheated. Anyone with two brain cells can see the evidence. Why relitigate the cheating stuff, when people have largely moved on from it? Why wouldn’t Billy just revel in the one thing he was able to win at – lying in court – and just let this sleeping Donkey Kong dog lie? As I put it back in June:

He can’t fucking let it go. He knows he cheated and lied about it for years, and yet his broken brain can’t allow himself come to terms with those facts. It’s like he needs your admiration and respect as well. He always needed it.

Billy Mitchell is the lolcow of the Century. He’s been lolcowing his way through life before some of these motherfuckers today were even born. Of course this doesn’t stop his Twitter (which we’ll discuss more later) from comparing himself to Karl Jobst, because that seems to be his main shtick now:

Let’s be clear: Karl made a few mistakes, which he has acknowledged and rectified, and he lost a major court case he had bragged about. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s lolcow territory – if it is, it’s a low bar. (I hate to break it to y’all, but anyone can lose a big court case.) But even if so, this résumé barely registers a blip compared to some of these bozos out there. (“Pirate Software”, I’m looking at you.) Billy’s impenetrable aura of terminal insecurity isn’t even in the same universe as anything Karl ever did. And anyone gullible enough to let themselves get suckered by Billy into thinking otherwise deserves whatever mockery they receive.

SPEAKING OF SUCKERS

We’ll get to Billy’s second response video in part two. But this seems like a good opportunity to pivot to that peanut gallery. Since these aren’t Billy videos, I’m not going to do a full point-for-point rebuttal – People say some wild shit on the Internet, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Also, some of this will involve peering into a bottomless abyss of stupidity, so it’s a good idea not to stare at any one object for too long.

We’ll start with a relatively tepid one – “Karl Jobst: A History of Dishonesty”, by Michael Alberto.

So here’s the thing: I don’t watch every bit of Billy- or Karl-related slop that comes my way. I endeavor to archive it all, but I’m just one guy, and believe it or not there are other things in my life that matter. Not enough time in the day to stop and watch all the Play-Doh being squeezed out by jokers like “LUS” (a law YouTuber who ironically named their channel “Law Understood Simply”). However, I’ll set aside time for things that give off a certain vibe of professionality. Maybe this person’s genuinely trying? Maybe they actually give a shit?

And that includes material critical of Karl. I don’t just defend Karl because he’s on “my team”, or because I’m blinded with rage at some Donkey Kong douchebag. Karl’s a fantastic journalist in his own right who spends diligent amounts of time producing high-quality and highly accurate content. Yes, he makes mistakes (as do we all), but he takes risks reporting on important stories, and he doesn’t let fear of consequences or even social backlash dissuade his pursuit of the truth.

But that doesn’t mean Karl should never be called into question. I’m pretty quick to spot bad faith nonsense, and politically savvy enough not to give it the time of day. But hey, you know, something could come out that could drastically alter my perception of him. It’s sort of like how no speedrunner is necessarily immune to the impulse to cheat, and thus, nobody should be exempt from scrutiny on the basis of “I know this person, he’d never do that” – at least, not in the face of hard evidence. Honestly, this is the very thing that separates us from the “bad guys”. Bozos like Steve Sanders will say “Well, I’ve known Billy Mitchell my whole life, he’s a good man who’s incapable of lying about a video game.” (That’s paraphrased.) But here in truthistan, we’re willing to hold our own accountable when necessary.

So I saw this Alberto video and I thought “Okay, a history of dishonesty? You’re not just upset over the current round of bad faith lies over Karl’s GoFundMe? You’re alleging a long-standing pattern of some kind? Okay, I’ll give this one a shot. Here’s your chance. Convince me!“

I rewatched it for this write-up, and I immediately caught all the same flaws I did the first time. Alberto repeats a bunch of lies about Billy’s 1999 Pac-Man story, and even plays a segment of Billy himself telling more lies without challenge. Listen, if credibility is important to you, maybe don’t give a free pass to Mr. Lies All The Time About Everything. Alberto’s values are also all messed up. He portrays Karl’s inclination to report on Billy’s lawsuits as a character flaw, as if we’re supposed to shut up and let bullies sue people in silence. He suggests Karl was obligated to reach out to Billy for input before reporting on his lies. And as for Billy’s choice to sue over his cheated scores (which the video frames merely as “allegations”), Alberto says at 3:50, “Billy was put in the position where he would have to sue to protect his titles.” Ah, so Billy’s the victim!

But things get especially pretzeled when Alberto switches to talking about the Completionist saga. Alberto misrepresents the timeline by pairing Jirard’s big public donation with comments made by Karl prior to that donation. He provides cover for Jirard by saying it’s normal for charities to spend money on events – a point which is not at issue, and was adequately addressed by Karl. Alberto says tax documents “prove” the missing money was sitting in a bank account when they do not. Oh, and once again, a stretch of Jirard’s dishonest non-apology is played without context or commentary.

And that’s it! That’s your “History of Dishonesty”. Based on the title, I was expecting more… history? Curiously, there was no mention of Karl’s coverage of the Wata Games / Heritage Auctions stuff. So either Alberto endorses Karl’s reporting there as fully honest, or else Mikey didn’t quite have the guts to stan Jim Halperin.

Either way, I give Michael Alberto a big joystick-red “F”, and a “Try harder next time”.

On the opposite end of “vibe of professionality”, we have this guy who goes by “Gen-X Gamer YouTube”:

That handle is dumb, so I’ll just call this guy “X-Gamer”. X-Gamer’s done about half as many videos on Karl and Billy as LUS has, which itself is an utterly preposterous number. And his thumbnails and all-caps titles are unhinged brainrot. “KARL JOBST IMPRESSES MIA KALIFA, BRO NEEDS JESUS!” “THE LEGEND OF KREAMY KARL”. “KARL JOBST IS ON WELFARE SAYS KING BILLY”. “SHANNON SHARPE NEEDS KARL JOBST APPROACH HER NOW”. Also, if you scroll through all of X-Gamer’s videos, you’ll find “WOKEST GAME REVIEWE EVER” and “RADICAL LEFT BREEDING GROUNDS”, because of course.

X-Gamer says in one video that English is his second language, so I can overlook some idiosyncrasies, like the title “KARL JOBST OVER CONFIDENT IN BILLY MITCHELLS CASE”. But stupidity is still a universal language. Dozens of videos kissing Billy Mitchell’s ass is only the start. X-Gamer did a video unfavorably comparing Karl to “First pro gamer” Todd Rogers, in which X-Gamer actually said the words “You wish you had Activision for a sponsor, Karl”. If you scroll way back through X-Gamer’s contemporaneous coverage of various online dramas, you see a tendency to vociferously agree with whoever made the most recent statement or video at any given time. So, you know, he’s probably not a fan of complex things like object permanence.

Again, we’re not going to stare into this eclipse for too long, to avoid permanent damage. Probably the most incomprehensible part of the judgment fallout generally was a push to favorably reevaluate Jirard the Completionist. I guess some people never bother evaluating evidence? They just say “Oh, Truthy Person A says Person B is liar, Person B must not have any Truthy, oh wait, Person A lost a court case, Person A’s Truthy factor went down, so that must raise Person B’s Truthiness”? Like, the actual evidence on Billy’s cheating and Jirard’s charity fraud has been settled for a long time. Nothing that happened in Brisbane changed that.

Either way, it’s braindead nonsense, so you better believe X-Gamer was all about it. In addition to his praise of Todd Rogers, you get post-verdict video titles like “THE COMPLETIONIST LOST EVERYTHING AND DID NOTHING” and “JUSTICE FOR JIRARD THE COMPLETIONIST”. The “logic”, if one wanted to use that word, seems to be that Jirard doesn’t appear to have gotten into any legal trouble, and Karl did, therefore Jirard must be less guilty. But X-Gamer wants to leave no doubt as to the consistency of his verbal diarrhea, and so he produced a special video – here in 2025 – declaring that Moon Channel “WAS RIGHT ABOUT” Karl Jobst. (Moon was the lawyer whose video on Karl and the Completionist was so bad, he himself had to withdraw it and apologize to Karl.) And of course, X-Gamer throws in an “I told you so” by citing one video he made back during the window of time when Moon’s ridiculously half-baked criticism of Karl was the most recent Completionist commentary to glom on to.

Hilariously, X-Gamer then seemed to get into a YouTube spat with someone named Persephone van der Waard. Persephone has her own YouTube channel, as well as a blog accusing Karl Jobst and many others of being currently both racist and fascist. Unfortunately, someone broke into my home, put a gun to my head, and forced me to read that entire litany of hot garbage. But lucky for you, that means you don’t have to. I intend to discuss a couple of Ms. Persephone’s points in part two, but for now, a sufficient tl;dr is “Judge ruled against Karl, therefore Karl lied to and defrauded his audience, therefore he’s fascist. Also, Karl is a gamer, and even worse, he knows other gamers, making him extra-fascist. Also, I don’t like that Karl doesn’t respond to random made-up bullshit.”

Regardless, between her blog and YouTube channel, Persephone called X-Gamer a “race-traitor”, “Token Bigot”, and “Mask-Off Fascist”. And so the two of them took more YouTube shots at each other, and somehow LUS got roped in as well. And let’s be honest, it is kinda fun watching nutjobs fight it out.

Ah, but this is only the periphery of YouTube’s stupidity singularity. In the immediate aftermath of the judgment, I did try my best to bring some reason over to Reddit. As you see, my efforts were met with limited success:

Whatever you say, person who obviously didn’t read the thing he’s responding to. Once again though, I felt compelled to give someone a chance to convince me. No title or thumbnail this time. Just a URL and an assurance that this is the thing that will change my mind.

Alright, here’s your shot.

I… What?

Was Karl also a basketball?

This was my introduction to a channel named “Arkamatt: Games & Scandals”, but you can guarantee I’m not saying that mouthful every time. The above words were snipped from passage [237] of Judge Barlow’s ruling. That passage in its entirety reads as follows:

Consequently, while most of Mr Jobst’s evidence was truthful, I conclude that, where the truth is inconsistent with his view of Mr Mitchell or with his understanding of his defences to the claim, he is unreasonably and, at times, untruthfully, defensive of the positions he has taken and of his own reputation, as he sees it, to the extent that, both in his videos and in his evidence, he is prepared to elide the truth and to ignore some of the relevant facts.

Okay, let’s set aside that Arkamatt has clearly not finished his direct quote certification courses. Basically, in Barlow’s opinion, Karl’s mostly honest, but sticks to his guns too much, and doesn’t want to admit error. Funny thing, I didn’t respond to passage [237] directly in my big write-up, because believe it or not I don’t nitpick every little detail that comes across my desk. But I did respond to most of the passages from [216] to [236], which seem to be Barlow’s foundation for the quote. This included such gems from Bobblehead Barlow as:

• Karl “rarely admits that he is wrong” because he still believes Billy is a scumbag – although Karl would no longer call Billy “evil”, which would seem to imply Karl does indeed change his mind after all;
• Karl’s “obsession or vendetta” against Billy started no later than June 2020, even though at the time Karl had made exactly zero – yes, zero – videos on Billy;
• Billy hadn’t really “started legal proceedings” as Karl had claimed, even though Billy had indeed sent a Concerns Notice, which is literally a legal threat and is a required first step toward legal proceedings;
• Karl had a bunch of reasons to remove the offending words, all of which at the time boiled down to “Billy says it isn’t true, and won’t show any proof”.

This video was all downhill from there. Arkamatt presented everything in this weird clip show format, relying almost exclusively on snippets from other videos with little on-screen commentary of his own. The least he could’ve done was include a subplot where Riker catches an alien mind virus or something.

Cited works include LUS, Asmongold, Maris Memes, and random no-context screenshots from Discord, with perhaps a crack pipe or two thrown in for seasoning. Of course the Barlow video is in there, falsely reinforcing (among other things) the idea that all of this was over a single Reddit comment. Then some random guys from some podcast say basically “Oh, Karl definitely misled everyone into thinking the lawsuit was about something else”. Because remember, this was the video that was supposed to convince me. Some dudes said it, must be true!

I’m not going to correct every bit of nonsense, but there was plenty of it. Arkamatt clutched some pearls over Karl’s use of generated wrestling reel between him and Billy, which was produced by someone else entirely. Arkamatt also tried to paint Karl as a hypocrite for saying he wouldn’t go after family, while trashing Billy’s son. Arkamatt either doesn’t know, or doesn’t care, that Billy Junior isn’t just “family”, he’s a grown ass adult who has spearheaded Billy’s lawsuits (the ones subsequent to the cheating allegations) since day one.

Suffice to say, Arkamatt was failing to convince me of anything.

But here’s the “best” part. Arkamatt spends much of the video lazily implying Karl was misleading everyone into thinking his lawsuit was primarily about cheating allegations. In this context, at about 17:00, he throws in a snippet taken from the first couple minutes of Karl’s video titled “Cheater Billy Mitchell Is Running Scared”. See if you spot the issue:

Naturally, if Billy had a case, you’d think they’d want to get this sorted out as quickly as possible. I mean, Billy supposedly wants to prove to the world that he didn’t cheat, and that Twin Galaxies were lying. Trial is his opportunity to do this.

This was apparently important enough to Arkamatt that he doubled-up the second half of the quote. As if to say “Look at that! Karl’s telling everyone the lawsuit was about cheating!”

But you see the problem, right?

Yeah, Karl was talking about the Twin Galaxies lawsuit! Karl even cites Twin Galaxies in the clip. And everything from the original video prior to that passage is strictly about the TG lawsuit, and Billy’s efforts to delay trial in that case, with no mention of the Australia proceedings.

See, I caught that immediately…

… without having even watched that original video in a while. But that’s because I know these cases very well. Casual viewers don’t know the context, and so they get suckered in, thinking (perhaps foolishly) that this drama YouTuber isn’t straight up deceiving them.

And I know, I know. “Oh, Karl shouldn’t be talking about the TG case when he’s also defending another lawsuit from Billy.” Look, you’re wrong, and you’re dumb. It’s good that Karl continued reporting on Billy’s wide trail of litigation. It’s Billy’s fault that he files so many frivolous lawsuits against innocent people that bystanders can sometimes get them all mixed up with each other. Karl made sufficiently clear which case he was talking about at any given moment.

Believe it or not, this point gets even worse. Arkamatt ended up doing another video, this time with a special guest star:

Oh no! It’s me!! I’ve been destroyed!?!?

Arkamatt does the same lying switch with the same quote, but this time even more brazenly. At about 8:50, he inserts the previous quote about the TG case directly into the midst of other quotes from Karl about his own case. Again, the topic of all this context was whether Karl presented his own lawsuit as being about cheating, a premise which Arkamatt desperately wants you to accept. Arkamatt then completely clipped out the rather crucial part where Karl refers to Twin Galaxies, so all it refers to is “trial”. And as if that weren’t bad enough, Arkamatt threw this now completely bastardized “””quote””” on the screen as text:

Pro tip: If you’re trying to convince anyone who knows anything about this case, you aren’t gonna do it by telling blatant, bald-faced lies.

I mean, by the same practice, of course you could say Karl never told anyone the lawsuit was about Apollo, if you cut out all the times he did exactly that.

But hey, grifters gonna grift, right?

I was well past giving this clown any credence, but since I wanted to include this in the write-up, I had to sit and watch all this other bullshit. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve already addressed from Billy’s first response video. This doesn’t stop Arkamatt from playing long quotes from Billy as if they’re worth a thing. Then, literally out of nowhere (at about 17:00), Arkamatt…. randomly throws me off a building?

I don’t know, man. I’m just reporting what I’m seeing.

The video then returns to its regularly scheduled lies and misrepresentations about Karl. Again, we’re not gonna spend all day staring into the sun here. But probably the most outrageous new lie comes at about 23:20:

Wow, Karl said this “in Apollo’s goodbye note”? That’s pretty callous! And you know it must be true, because Arkamatt is showing the message accompanying Apollo’s goodbye video.

Except that’s not what happened at all! Karl’s comment was a reply to Apollo’s announcement of his settlement with Billy – an entirely different thing, posted months before Apollo died. Apollo’s goodbye video, with the “I love you all” note, wasn’t even up that long – not nearly long enough for the timestamp to say “4 years ago” – and Karl wouldn’t have made a tasteless comment in that context anyway. This is just a fucking lie, an offensive one, and an inescapably deliberate one.

Remember, this is the guy some loser on Reddit said would convince me. “Oh, you’ll feel differently after you watch this.” Yeah, thanks jackass. I do indeed feel differently, thank you.

At about 26:30, Arkamatt gets into a section about me. He uses a clip from X-Files I guess, posing me as a guy entering a room wearing hazmat protection, which is an accurate depiction of how I felt watching this atrocious video. He then plays clips from the aforementioned Maris Memes, who lazily concludes Karl was sabotaged by myself and Cat DeSpira, apparently working in tandem. Maris also accuses me of being DeSpira’s friend, which frankly is just defamation, and he suggests everything I post is secretly from her.

At about 28:40, Arkamatt shows a clip from someone identified only as Andrea, cackling uncontrollably over my Discord userpic:

Is this like… What is this like… Hold on, hold on… What is this profile picture, man? There’s no way… [laughs wildly] Sorry, I’ve never seen this before. What is this? Is this AI-generated? [laughs more]

I guess Andrea doesn’t play Magic: The Gathering? It’s the original art for Simic mastermind Momir Vig, illustrated many years before “AI-generated” was a thing:

I’m not sure why this was necessary to include in Arkamatt’s video, or whether lying Arkamatt himself knew what the art was. Frankly, I wouldn’t have bothered adding it here, but something didn’t sit right…

Who is this “Andrea” person…? She seems familiar…

Wait…

It can’t be…

NO WAY…

OMGLOLOLOLOLOLOL IT TOTALLY IS HER.

Okay, just put a pin in that for part two.

Moving on, Arkamatt then shows various innocuous Discord remarks from me, including one where I link to my TG wall post about the Apollo settlement evidence. Arkamatt tosses in on-screen text claiming I “erased this link”, and that it must be accessed through the Wayback Machine. I wish I could make a joke about how Arkamatt doesn’t realize he needs to log in to TG to see it. But the truth is, TG reorganized their site, so the old link doesn’t work any more. Either way, I haven’t erased anything. It’s now located right here.

Arkamatt continues his slide show of random, meaningless Discord comments of mine, like he’s Aunt Cathy making you sit through all her vacation photos. And finally… Arkamatt plays a clip congratulating himself on having successfully destroyed me.

lmao So literally just the meme.

And then after that, as if this video wasn’t already enough of a schizophrenic sugar rush, he shows a Pac-Man board with… my face running around it?

I know, I’m kinda kicking the bee’s nest here giving these clowns any focus, but idiocy will exist whether I acknowledge it or not, and this is all part of the lawsuit story. Arkamatt is clearly desperate for attention and traffic. His channel includes an outdated edit of one of these Karl videos, and one would ordinarily unclutter their page of such product. But those public YouTube view counts are precious, so instead of removing or unlisting it, he just overlaid the thumbnail with the words “DO NOT WATCH”:

Best advice I’ve gotten all day.

One last bit to close out this section. And this goes for Arkamatt, X-Gamer, Mikey Alberto, and all the others…

Why are you so quick to side with and celebrate the dude who sues YouTubers over factual inaccuracies?

Especially when your own videos are fucking loaded with them?

Like, what kind of brain fungus do you have to suffer from to think Billy Mitchell of all people is on your side?

Is it more of the usual “Surely the leopards who eat faces won’t eat my face”? There’s definitely a lot of that going around.

Or is it that you’re bullies who punch down at people like Karl, who you know won’t take legal action? While kissing the asses of other bullies who do sue people? And somehow you think this framework elevates your own stature?

I dunno, man. I just don’t think Billy Mitchell is the friend you think he is.

JUNIOR AT THE WHEEL

We’re gonna round out today with a quick look at some of Billy Mitchell’s activity on Twitter, or whatever Emerald Baby calls his site today. (Billy also has an Instagram I guess, but I don’t have an account there.)

Before I continue, I should be clear that the account is Billy’s, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all of the activity is. The page is Billy’s public profile, and he is ultimately responsible for what’s posted there. But that doesn’t necessarily speak to which specific person is handling daily business at any given moment. For what it’s worth, we do have some relevant testimony from the Australia trial, as recorded in my daily updates. On day one, Billy said his wife and son handle all the social media accounts. On days three and four, Junior told stories of operating the Twitter account for the old man, but said his mom mostly does the Instagram stuff. Obviously, nothing these people say should be taken at face value, and even my attempt at chronicling live testimony may be treated as inexact. I mean, of course Billy himself would want to disavow anything said on Twitter, even if it really was him.

With that acknowledged, let’s set authorship aside for a moment. I’m not going to make the same mistake again of assuming everyone remembers the circumstances around this story from a few years ago, even if it was well known at the time. As a refresher, in the 2021-2022 range, it was a hilarious open joke that Billy blocked anyone who even breathed the wrong way.

Search those years for “Billy Mitchell blocked” and you’ll see plenty of examples of what I mean. People surprised to discover they were blocked over no interaction they could remember. People disappointed to discover they weren’t in the popular “blocked by Billy Mitchell” club. People speedrunning how quickly they could be blocked, or how few letters it would take. At the time, I saw plenty of people pondering how they could be blocked over actual zero interaction or commentary on him. The best theory I heard was that Billy (or more likely, Junior) used a bot to auto-block anyone who liked certain tweets from Karl Jobst, back when Twitter likes were publicly viewable. Eventually, Billy went on full Twitter lockdown, lifted only momentarily for special events like the TG settlement.

I’ve been blocked by Billy Mitchell since eternity. But that didn’t stop me from having fun. I could only see him on incognito mode, and I couldn’t interact with him directly. But under the old Twitter rules, I could still ratio his ass by replying to his followers, lmao.

Ah, times have changed. That “Gotham Gamer” has become a straight up Billy fan account, because why hide the stupidity now? The lockdown is lifted. They got their court victory. Billy is on what he (Junior) himself declared “a generational Twitter run”. Because that’s the sort of thing you declare when running your father’s account.

As expected, there was lots of gloating over the Australia judgment. They finally figured out how to run a hot sauce website, so there’s been lots of focus on that, as well as plugs for Walter Day’s shitty movie. Junior loves posting recycled hype quotes he stole from somewhere else, which he was doing well before their Twitter lock. He also does the Elon thing where someone replies with an image, and then he posts it as his own with no credit (but it looks like our pal X-Gamer appreciated the “honor” anyway). Lots of AI-generated bullshit of Billy and Karl, of course. Junior also posted a clip from King of Kong where Brian Kuh tells everyone about the upcoming kill screen, except the dialogue has been altered so he’s telling everyone “There’s a Karl Jobst bankruptcy coming up if anyone wants to watch.” Honestly, that one was fairly clever, so I assume someone else made it.

Oh, and of course, there was this:

Yes, this was a real thing Billy (or Junior) posted. You can still see it here at this archive site. For some reason, the art of Billy hanging Karl to death is fashioned as a fake YouTube preview. To be clear, Billy (or Junior) did not take this image down voluntarily. If you click through the original URL now, you get a stock “this page doesn’t exist” message. But in the immediate aftermath, a more specific message was given:

So basically, someone reported it, and someone else at Twitter saw it and said “Yeah, obviously you can’t post art of yourself murdering people you don’t like.”

As you probably noticed if you checked Billy’s Twitter, there are also lots of references to people being sued over Internet drama. “IDubbbz will be sued.” “DSP will be sued.” “Hasan Piker will be sued.” “Pirate Software will be sued.” I don’t know who half these fucking people are…

… and I don’t think Billy Mitchell does either.

Remember, both father and son testified that it’s Junior who runs the socials. I’ll grant that Mr. Mullet probably has the app on his own phone, and that some minute percentage of comments probably are from him – like when he announces that he’s traveling. It’s a nice system, since if anything they post goes awry they can both disavow any knowledge.

But all these remarks about Internet bullshit?

See, something doesn’t add up here. Yes, Billy (the father in particular) will just say whatever he thinks makes him sound cool at any given moment. You know the type – everything they did was the biggest, they personally know all the coolest people, they went on all the secretest missions, etc. With that acknowledged, we are talking about the guy who historically avoided discussing politics, and always prided himself on how he doesn’t mess around in the mud of online drama and forums. He did this so frequently in interviews, I’m not sure I even need to bother sourcing that. (But if you want examples, here you go.)

In his aforementioned YouTube stream, he names online content creators he’d worked with such as ConcertCruizer and Nicholas DeOrio (as he’s done for years), but at no point is he talking about the individuals splattered all over his Twitter. Then, at 3:32:20, he’s asked about “the cringy dating videos of Mr. Lobst”, to which Mr. Mullet answers “I never saw ’em. I’ve heard about ’em, but I never saw ’em,” despite those old “Approach Her Now” videos also being featured on his Twitter, over and over and over and over and over and over. And yet I’m supposed to believe it’s the dad who’s posting all this? That it’s old man Mitchell who’s giving the occasional wink-wink to say “Pssst, I’m totally on Kiwi Farms”?

Not for a second do I believe that anything less than the vast majority – if not the entirety – of that stuff comes from Junior.

Ultimately, there’s nothing wrong with that. They’re adults. And a lot of way more famous people have handlers who operate their public-facing socials. But here’s where things get weird.

First of all, imagine literally being Billy Mitchell’s son. I mean, really close your eyes, and envision a world where that fate is your lot in life.

You are the progeny of the dude who lied for decades about high scores on Donkey Kong. That is your family heritage. You and Captain Insecurity are forever joined at the hip. Even worse, you’d be walking around this world with your father’s face, his name (since they’re both legally “William Mitchell”), and his perpetually aggrieved disposition. However – and this is key – you would have none of his charisma or interpersonal savvy.

But when you’re running your father’s Twitter… you get to pretend you’re him.

Lest you think I’m reading too much into this, I’m far from the only person who has noticed some inconsistency with the Mr. Mullet they have met and worked with, and the activity seen on his public Twitter profile. I’m not going to name names or put anyone on the spot, but the people who have had the misfortune of personally dealing with both Mullet and Junior (through “Kong Off” events and such) spot the differences between their styles immediately. Which makes specific declarations like this one – presumably from Junior – all the more bizarre:

Weird people, man. I’m tellin’ ya.

And as you may have gathered, much of this activity has a right-wing political slant. This led to some of my personal favorite moments when out of nowhere, I began coming across some of the wholly unrelated political accounts I follow, who were mocking Billy Mitchell like “Dude, WTF is the Donkey Kong cheater doing talking about this?” It’s like finding out your aunt and your coworker are both in the same revolutionary book club.

Do you enjoy discussing politics? Or social media? Too bad, because we have more of both to discuss in part two. If we’re serious about analyzing the fallout of the Australia judgment, there are some loose ends we have to cover along the way. And on that note, I’ve decided it’s finally time I address this…

So yeah, you can tell some of our next installment will be a little on the serious side. But don’t worry, we will get back to roasting Billy as well, including his lazier second video response. And we’ll also take a look at how he and Junior have handled more recent revelations. Hope to see you all then. And as always, thank you all for reading!