By: MarcoYolo
[Hey, ersatz_cats here. Until now, I’ve been the only author at perfectpacman.com. But a friend of the site recently remarked they’d love to write about their observations from having watched the online proceedings in the Karl Jobst / Billy Mitchell trial. And I was like “Bro, I know a site that’s covering that!” Anyway, no plans at this time to make the site open to general submissions on any old topic, but since this is a subject folks are coming here for anyway, and since more information is always better, I figured we could give this a whirl. Don’t worry, I am still going to get my own “Day 7” update out… eventually. Note that I believe some quotes below are paraphrases and not direct quotes from the trial, which is okay as long as you know. Anyway, I’ll step aside now. Please give it up for MarcoYolo!]
This is a long-form opinion write-up. This holds no official bearing on anything. I am an outsider nobody.
I remember Saturday morning cartoons. I remember downloading songs illegally on Napster. I watched the rise and fall of MySpace. I created my Facebook account when it was still limited to college students. I probably downloaded a car at one point.
I come from the dawn of the internet.
I’ve also spent my entire life playing video games. We’re all fortunate to have the wealth of video game options that we have today. In 1992, I was 4 years old and the only video game option I had was Super Mario Bros. played on the NES; I played it every day. I still play it frequently, 30 years later. I have a young child who passionately enjoys this hobby that I’ve passed on to him and which some of us consider a lifestyle.
This is where I came from.
I could go on but I want to emphasize that I’m an outsider nobody and this isn’t my story. However, here is my humble perspective of the events concerning Karl Jobst and Billy Mitchell:
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The original Arcade Donkey Kong is a hard ass game. It’s brutal and I suck at it. I’ve played it many times over my 36 years of existence and I will submit that I just suck at the game. The patience required is wild. It is insanely hard. Look at the below legend who has some strong patience + perseverance.
I watched The King of Kong somewhere around 2017 after seeing it posted on Reddit. It was absolutely fascinating. This was my introduction to the existence of Billy Mitchell. I had no idea who he was prior to the documentary.
Without rehashing the entirety of the film, I’ll just say that my mind was completely blown by the story and interactions between Billy and Steve Wiebe. My own assertion was and remains to be that regardless of the cheating allegations, Billy was simply behaving like a villain. Personally, I try to be kind to everyone and the type of behavior I witnessed from Billy in that film was mischievous and borderline evil.
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My favorite YouTubers and streamers are all kindhearted and sincere people. My absolute favorites are CarlSagan42, GrandPooBear, and of course Mister Karl Jobst, the legend. These are my favorites because they cover topics that are interesting to me, and there is sincerity in their delivery.
When I started watching Karl’s videos, it was all speedrunning content. I was aware of Billy by the time I encountered Karl’s channel, but I was mostly interested in Karl’s own unique content related to speedrunning. When my little boy was just a baby, I would throw Karl’s videos on in the background while I took care of him; it was peak entertainment and helped me get through tough times.
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When I saw the initial videos from Karl where Billy was referenced, I was of the opinion that Karl was riding on the same anti-Billy train as everybody else. It was already well established that Billy was a cheat and unfavorable by the time Karl decided to chime in; personally, I thought it was made very clear in the King of Kong film that “Billy is not a good person.”
Note: regardless of the fact that Billy is pretty much certainly a whiny cheater, he would still mop the floor with me if we ever competed in Arcade Donkey Kong. He is absolutely talented and there is no denying that. I have opinions but I’m also honest and realistic.
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Another piece of my background is that I do finance and legal work. I’ve attended several trials in my career and legal stuff is simply fascinating to me; this case is especially so!!
I’ve seen the Karl and Billy saga unfold from what I would call day zero and the current events are the ultimate climax.
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So I’ll talk about the trial now:
Mister ersatz_cats has some incredible play-by-play coverage of the trial. I’m amazed that he flew out to witness everything and he kept some very detailed information. I’m not going to bother putting out any redundant information and I probably couldn’t state it better than him if I tried anyway. If you want finer details, please check out his previous recollections because they are remarkable:
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/15/karl-day-0/
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/16/karl-day-1/
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/17/karl-day-2/
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/18/karl-day-3/
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/19/karl-day-3-4/
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/20/karl-day-4/
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/09/24/karl-day-5/
https://perfectpacman.com/2024/10/11/karl-day-6/
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What I really want to share are my experiences from the last two remote sessions of the proceedings that I was able to attend – in sort of a tl;dr kind of way. I’ll do my best to keep it short.
I’ll be upfront about my stance: Billy is probably not going to win this; I think he’s done. That’s my opinion and it doesn’t matter because I am nobody. I can be wrong. Billy could still win. I just don’t think it will happen.
Now that that is out of the way. I want to talk about the interactions I’ve witnessed in the trial. I’m going to speak to them from the 3rd party perspective that I have and focus on how I’ve seen things unfold over the years. I’ll keep it short cuz I’m not going to send redundant information previously mentioned in ersatz_cats’s writeups and waste people’s time.
I want to again emphasize that the following statements are personal reactions of my own. Think of it like some YouTuber creating a reaction video… except… I am not a YouTuber and I am nobody.
I’ve simply followed this for a long long time and have some reasonable insight – especially considering that I witnessed the last two court sessions, live.
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The first day that I witnessed (day 6), was like Christmas. Karl’s witnesses were wild.
MoistCr1tiKaL… this was a pretty big wtf moment for me. It was brief but great. Also – he was all dressed up lol; I haven’t seen him like that before. (My man-bun is almost as good as his.) He had some good things to say but honestly, his statements didn’t seem as influential as the others. It was pretty short-lived. The whole thing about his fart being submitted as evidence is honestly one of the funniest things I’ve seen.
Pineiro was, in my opinion, the best witness for Karl. His testimony set a major precedent that “there are people who used to be close with Billy who now have disdain for him.”
I’m going to actually just glaze over Jeremy Young cuz he gave great commentary and it’s pretty well documented in the day 6 article from ersatz_cats. He did well. (As did the other witnesses.)
Apollo Legend’s brother was an unfortunate spectacle. I can’t imagine losing a brother. He seemed very sharp and willing to provide the truth. Out of respect, that’s all I’ll say about him.
Elliott.
Oh, Elliot!
I’ve never seen somebody so red in the face. He did a perfectly fine job but I’ll say, I’ve never seen somebody look so embarrassed and distressed in trial. He started out amazing but when the technical issues happened, his face got beat red and it remained. My humble opinion is that his testimony was coming from a stance of “perceived authority” but he was still fantastic.
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This is where I took a break from writing all of this to think about what I really wanted to say. I also rewatched The King of Kong in between writing the above text and writing the below text and I’ll share why in just a moment.
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Day 7 – closing arguments
The closing arguments tend to be the most influential part of any trial. It’s the final moment to speak broadly about your stance and why the questions that were asked were asked and why certain arguments that were made were made. Evidence is evidence but the closing argument is what ties it all together; like a high school student’s final paragraph that begins with “In conclusion…”
SO! IN CONCLUSION! …just kidding.
Let’s talk about the closing arguments:
This was an interesting process because there was a huge amount of back and forth between the judge and each side – questioning the logic and reasoning of the statements and arguments that were made.
The judge was extremely impressive. He is a highly intelligent individual and exhibited some very solid common sense. I witnessed several moments of humility from him where he would admit that he was unfamiliar with some of the topics that were being discussed. He also said a lot of funny stuff that I’m sure will be mentioned in ersatz_cats’ day 7 writeup.
Economic Loss
I had already read all of the previous summaries of each day prior to attending the last two days remotely, and I completely expected that a major focus of this portion of the trial was going to be about the economic loss; this proved to be true. There were a lot of attempts by Billy’s team to say that he had significantly less paid public appearances as a result of Karl’s content.
My own interpretation of this portion is that, quantitatively, Billy did have fewer appearances. However, there wasn’t anything to specifically tie this claim to Karl’s video and it felt more like it was coincidentally true.
I think one of the silliest details of this claim is that if the judge were to rule in favor of Billy, it would be $450 thousand in damages. The reason I call it silly is that Billy’s team provided a spreadsheet showing past paid appearances from Billy and included an implied lack thereof in recent years; however, the volume prior to Karl’s video was already very small and I believe Billy’s team said that he received roughly $7,000 per event.
You wouldn’t need to be a finance person like me to do some pretty simple math here. If you roll it back all the way to 2018, he’s essentially saying that he lost somewhere in the ballpark of 10 paid offers per year to appear in person because… let me check my notes… because Karl made a video. Tying that specifically to Karl’s video is basically impossible, especially considering Billy’s, very public, past behavior.
On the topic of behavior, this is where I want to insert a genuine question of my own – why didn’t Karl’s team lean harder on the most obvious portrayal of Billy’s character?… The King of Kong. I do enjoy that it was officially inserted as evidence but I feel like that movie is very damning for Billy and there probably should have been more references to it during the trial.
As I mentioned above, I just rewatched The King of Kong. I fell asleep to it last night and finished it when I woke up this morning. I have no shame in sharing that I shed a tear when I saw Steve Weibe crying on camera. Billy is clearly portrayed as a bully and a villain in that film so it’s amazing that the film wasn’t a focal point for the defense team to establish that Billy is simply not a good person.
MoistCr1tiKaL said exactly what I was thinking in his reaction video about testifying: Billy’s reputation was already long gone and, if anything, was probably the result of the King of Kong film. This is a good segue into my next topic because at this point the largest emotional distress that could come from this would be Billy’s loss of reputation – his most cherished possession.
Oof.
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Emotional Distress and Reputational Harm
This piece will be very short. The arguments made by Billy and his team regarding this portion of the allegations are hilariously stupid.
Billy made claims that he suffered mentally and physically from Karl’s video. He claimed to have been unable to keep his food down; furthermore and roughly speaking, the claim is that “because this video was created, I puked up everything I consumed for a week or two.”
Karl’s team had a brilliant response to this:
“If you don’t want people to hear what Karl said, why are you broadcasting it and promoting what you deem to be defamatory toward yourself?”
Ultimately the statement here is: “If this is making you sick, why are you promoting it?”
It’s like… reverse-defamation. He’s trying to drag Karl down with himself at this point.
Billy also tried to say that there was strain on his marriage as a result of Karl’s content. I’m not even going to humor this with my own opinion.
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Social Media Interactions & “SAY SORRY”
This part is a little strange to me.
What does Billy use to identify himself when he achieves a high score in a video game?
Is it “TIE?” No. It’s “USA.” (Watch King of Kong.)
I would only assume that somebody who habitually wears American flag neckties would be pro freedom of speech… so why is he acting like a crybaby when people voice their minds?
My point here is that Billy seems to have a tendency to broadcast that he has righteous values and understands what it’s like to be a competitor… etc. Some of the things he says are compelling and sound great on paper! Except, he doesn’t live by any of these virtues; it’s hypocrisy in its fullest form.
Karl uploaded a video to communicate that he put out false information about Billy receiving money from Apollo Legend. I do actually agree that this wasn’t really an apology to Billy but rather an apology to his audience. That said, I do respect Karl’s stance here because Karl did not owe Billy an apology. It’s simply not something that is required – especially when Karl complied with Billy’s requests to modify his previous videos regarding the matter.
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Here’s my “dark humor” interpretation (IYKYK) of the entirety of the Billy vs Karl saga:
“Billy is such a crybaby that he decided to officially identify himself on the record in court as being a crybaby…”
That sounds like a mean thing to say but I wouldn’t really know how else to describe it. It’s one of those moments where one would say, “you couldn’t pay me to say that.”
Billy’s actions are consistently mystifying from the point-of-view of an outsider nobody.
Much love and have a great day <3
MarcoYolo
An outsider nobody, more like an outstanding legend!
Thank you, Mr. Nobody! This was a good read; nicely written and fine humor 🙂
When do they announce the verdict?
@ersatz_cats can you shed some light on the settlement offer rumors? Also, how long does it take on average for judges to decide on verdicts in similar cases? I read from a random comment that it can be months, is it really true?
It was assumed that there was a direct payment from Apollo to Billy based on rumors and a couple of direct statements, if I remember correctly.
There was allegedly no direct payment, according to Billy. That could mean a couple of things, as he is anything but direct or honest.
All further revenue from those videos apparently Bitchell is taking, and potentially the revenue that They initially produced.
That’s apparently not a direct settlement payment, and may not be accurate. As far as I’m aware, only Bitchell and Apollo would know the specifics. One is Bitchell, and the other is dead, so we have to rely on the word of a weaselly little lying worm.
Whatever Karl said when he corrected the issue is probably all we could know accurately, as there’s so much misinformation and slight inaccuracies floating around about all of this, going back to the Todd Todgers thread on TG.
It would have been pointless for Karl to apologize to Billy in the video because Billy claims that he never watches any of the Youtube videos about him. Since Billy doesn’t watch the videos, he would never have seen the apology. We know that Billy is telling the truth about his video habits because he is an honest and trustworthy individual.
Thanks for the utterly redundant little ersatz echo – the circle jerk will love you forever.
“Redundant” he wrote about closing arguments, which to date, have no coverage anywhere. Hard to call the first instance of something redundant in good faith, no?
Just a small correction here, there is an Australian news site that did cover the final day of the trial, and in quite a bit more detail than this article.
Still a fun read, not sure why he’s so upset about it.
Great write up! On the topic of King of Kong, from my understanding (I am very much not a lawyer btw) it seemed like Billy’s team was playing heavily into the narrative of “he was playing a villain character that was not actually representative of himself” throughout the trial. Karl’s team may have avoided leaning on King of Kong for their case as a result of that.
Tomorrow is my birthday. For the past number of years a dear friend of mine has encouraged me to ask muh followers to send me a happy birthday drink. And boy I could sure use one right now. As a reformed alcoholic (I was an alcoholic in reform school) I probably should not be drinking but what the hell. This is Texas and I am a Dallas Cowboy fan of some repute.
If you travel on over to muh socials, you will see a link to muh paypal-aroonie. Just press the button and send me to booze heaven.
I have had a rough few years thanks to getting sued by a travelling salesman. Turns out you are not supposed to bring them to your storage locker / apartment and keep them there as a valuable treasure.
I hope Billy Mitchell loses his trial. I lost every time I was sued, so why should he be a winner?
Say hello to my little friend! (That’s me!)
I am that cuban guy that knows how to use phone phreaking scripts to dial prank calls to people like David Ricecake and Tim Scabby, and even Where in the World is Carlos San Diego.
I didn’t appear to help Billy’s side of things because I was busy making inappropriate phone calls to his enemies and then hanging up. Ha Ha! That’s the best thing in the world.
Happy Birthday Patrick! You are getting older while I am staying the same. Why are you begging for money? Oh that’s right. Because you are a section 8 scam artist with no life who sits on social media 12 hours a day begging and boosting and promoting.
I might be down here where there is no A/C but you still live in a smelly trailer that smells like chicken, feet, and probably duct tape.
It’s interesting to see your reaction to the performances of Pineiro and Elliott vs that of Ersatz.
Oddly enough, I didn’t come away from KoK thinking Mitchell was “a bad person”. I just presumed he’s a good self- promoter and cocky and the KoK filmmakers made him a villain. Even the cheating wasn’t EVIL – had the guy come clean in April 2018… heck, if he denied it and just called everyone a bunch of losers and slithered away to run conventions in the Southeast most would’ve forgotten about the cheating by now. It’s that the guy tried to Lance Strongarm people out of telling the truth by taking advantage of a flawed legal system that has earned him the rep of being a scumbag. Honestly if he loses his family fortune and never got invited to a convention again I would t shed a tear for him.
Thanks for your effort and your post. I have struck crybaby as inappropriate. How defamation affects the plaintiff’s health may be important. The claim of cheating is not under the jurisdiction of this court. It is likely no defamation occurred, yet both parties will pay their own costs. Who wins is a matter of opinion.
@judge Judy
The Australian court has the ability to award costs. If the judgement is no defamation occurred, Karl’s team can apply to have their costs paid for. The judge can see the amounts and look at what’s relevant and have Mitchell pay that cost.
Great observations, and thanks for sharing !!
I honestly do not believe that it even remotely occurred to GBF that he could, at some point, experience a downturn in appearance income. That “gravy train” was going to come to an end sooner or later. Short of being a former PoTUS, appearance fees tend to diminish over time, same for appearance opportunities. Pop culture being what it is, this is inevitable.
It reminds me of the first of the two “Ted” movies at the very beginning after the bear comes to live and narrator Patrick Stewart stated as a matter of fact that sooner or later no one gives a sh*t !! Well, same applies to former video game world record holders…no matter HOW much of a big deal they once were.
GBF needs to get over himself. His “glory days” are over. He’s no longer sitting on the top of the arcade world with his various records (the few of them that there were). His former DK WR is now no longer even in the top ten. His DK Jr record was far surpassed, and he can’t hold a candle to David Race on “Pacman” for fastest perfect game. As for his “multiple” world records…that was then, fort years ago, SINCE then there are players that simultaneously hold 10 major arcade WR’s and in some cases MANY more. Keep in mind that his few simultaneous WR’s came at a time when TG only tracked records from AT BEST plus or minus a thousand gamers in the arcade genre, and nowhere near the vast talent level of today’s playfield. I think his ego pretty much discounts that inconvenient truth anytime he thinks back to his “glory days”.
Yep, he may have been the king of his little pond back then…he likened himself to being the “sheriff” of his local arcade as Walter chronicled in his first published BoR. But it’s forty years later…more, in fact…and the pond is a WHOLE lot bigger, and a lot more fish have swam into it, and some of those fish are quite talented !!
I wonder…if GBF loses, will some venues try to claw back any “appearance fees” much as some did after that cyclist was found guilty of lying about his steroid usage for his entire career ? Wouldn’t that be ironic…first he sues Karl for loss of income, and then (if he loses) he might have to give some of that income back. Stranger things have happened.
I also wonder…if GBF loses…will Guinness do an about face, to save face, from that stupid decision that they made ? They might…they just might…if they jump on the bandwagon rather than going the distance linked to that unfounded publicized decision to grant him his records back. But, likely not…they have no spine and have proven so time and time again. So if GBF loses, no matter what people think of him, he will forever cite being a recognized Guinness WR holder.
However I don’t envision him posing with his cherished plaque anytime soon. Either plaque, for that matter 🙂
Guinness has zero credibility in my eyes, as well as many others. Buy a record is really all they are.
Thanks for the write up! You’re not nobody!
Honestly, this seems like a SLAPP suit in its purest form. Billy Bitchell doesn’t like what someone with less financial means says about him, so he tries to silence via lawsuit. I am amazed he let it go this far, but I think that’s more to do about reputation and narcissism than the strength of the case. I could see in his mind or subconscious the thought of “if I don’t push on until the end, then I’m saying it’s fine for the gaming public to think that I’m not hot shit”.
As I told my partner when I was explaining the case to her – and I’m basically the exact demo Karl’s video was for – it didn’t affect my opinion of Bitchell at all. My opinion of him was already as low as it could get before the video.
All that said – if I’ve learnt anything over the years – a few things in life are unpredictable, and trials are one of them. My lay understanding is that Billy’s team likely failed to meet their burden of proof, but the judge has to abide by the letter of the law, and if the technicality of the law says that they did, then they could win.
The Fraud is cooked.
I hope this case gets Willy Inchel to stop using people frivolously. It’s gone on long enough.
I’m not sure how people are reacting to this post, but for me it feels like I’m reading an extended comment from some randomer rather than a main article.
That’s in no way an intended put-down, im just giving an honest reaction to the article, but the fact that the author is also an unknown takes away from it’s merit or clout.
I genuinely don’t understand the reasoning in regards to people wanting to be anonymous for simply reporting on a trial, especially if that person isn’t even well known (news flash: Billy cant sue you for recounting what happened in a courtroom).
Either way, I felt this post dilutes the work of Ersatz. It’s like having to sit through a LUS report on Sky News 😆
I wouldn’t mind an article written by Weibe, Race, or someone attached to the gaming world, and in fact, i like that Robert T is here in the comments, maybe you could give him an opportunity to recap his thoughts from day 0 to 7?
Seconded. I don’t know what I am supposed to take out of this. Light on detail, yet full of lay opinion – anyone can have that. I mean, I could have written something like this, and I am just a passive viewer from afar who relies on online reporting (including on this site) to stay informed. This post seems to add nothing of substance.
Am I mistaken in thinking the entire lawsuit relies on people believing the singular statement about a judgement payout from Apollo to Billy? And that Billy’s team has to prove that singular mistake cost Billy all these damages? If so they seemed to have proved virtually nothing of the sort. The most they even made were a few comments from the Youtube comments of people mentioning it. And who’s to say they couldn’t formulate that opinion on their own, with or without Karl? This whole thing feels like a big waste of time.
Sorry mate, but you lost all credibility when you suggest using a heavily edited documentary made for entertainment purposes is the best way to show Billy’s character. It would be like showing episodes of Jersey Shore and saying that is exactly how life is in New Jersey.
Look up Apollo Legend’s suicide note. He specifically named speedrunners EZScape and DarkViperAU for “giving him the final push”, but you don’t like the truth so you sweep it up like a good little internet janitor. Karl is a total jobber that edited his video accusing Billy of killing Apollo because it “isnt worth going to court over.”. You can find that specific comment on his “The Biggest Conmen In Video Game History Strike Again!” video. Karl Jobber lost, and so did you top janny cuckold.
You can cry all you want but Karl isn’t guilty of defamation. Hypothetically speaking, even if Karl was wrong about Billy being a contributing factor to Apollo’s suicide, Billy still has to prove that Karl made the statement with malice and that the statement significantly harmed his reputation. Billy’s own witnesses confirmed that Karl’s video didn’t really affect their outlook on him and there’s proof that his reputation was already terrible long before Karl’s videos. He also has to prove that Karl knew about the contents of the suicide note but still lied with the intent to ruin his reputation. However, that’s assuming that Karl’s statement was false and just because Apollo blamed EZScape and DarkViperAU doesn’t mean Billy wasn’t a contributing factor.
Trevor, don’t you think he would’ve named Billy in the video attached to the note at the very least if he was a contributing factor? But what did he do in reality? Oh yeah he named the speedrunners that chewed him and spit him out, his medical issues and mental illness. What’s Billy gonna do, sue a dead man? Jobber fucked around and found out.
Also this deranged Rodney guy is coping and seething. How much money did you set ablaz… I mean donate to Karl under a false pretense? Or are you one of the people that’s only now finding out why this lawsuit is happening in the first place?
Yeah, who did kill Apollo Legend…Has no one actually told you to your god damn face how brain dead useless you are? Its a catch 22 isn’t it? If people had been doing that, maybe you’d have thought twice about everything that ended up happening. Which means you destroyed your own reputation. The end. Who fucking cares what the laws said.
Since you’re so interested in talking about people that died, why don’t you kill someone with an actual firearm? That would ONLY IMPROVE your reputation at this point, because it would at least show you have some level of bravery. It would still be self defeating, OBVIOUSLY, (to everyone but you). but I’m completely convinced that doesn’t matter to you. Real men, no, real WINNERS fight their own battles. So BILLY, because you’re so unbelievably useless, don’t ACTUALLY kill someone with a firearm. You won’t remember this in a week anyway. You don’t even write down the amount of money you make. I “WONDER” why. Seriously, you’re the easiest fucking target in the world at this point.
Maybe we should posting about all this insanity on random game forums so Billy has to threaten to sue EVERYONE. We don’t need to be lying about anything, it just needs to be on topic, and it’ll propagate itself regardless. You know the saying, make them be prepared everywhere, so they’re prepared nowhere? He can’t guard every single pylon. Its getting REALLY FUCKING tempting I swear. And inspite of all of this, part of me is thinking “JUST STOP SUCKING ALREADY!” I’ve never been this conflicted about someone before.
I really do wonder if you could make an actual living off of getting a malicious lawsuit from someone like Billy, or his loser brigade. Most people don’t provide the content in the process. Its a self imposed challenge for sure, but one I’ve jokingly been entertaining for some time now.
I got hooked into this story from watching the King of Kong movie on an overseas flight about 2 years ago. I was curious because I walked away from that film with a very negative opinion of Mitchell. I looked up stuff to see what had happened since given it was 10-15 years old at that point. I found Karl Jobst’s youtube page a few months after I watched the movie. Jobst did literally nothing to change my already developed opinion of Mitchell. If anything, my opinion of Mitchell has gotten lower through his own actions, not the actions of any others. I think the public perception of Mitchell sailed long before Jobst had anything to do with it given what I’ve seen on other media.