670
submitted 10 months ago by deconstruct@lemm.ee to c/news@lemmy.world

In the years following the 2013 debut of Adult Swim’s cartoon phenomenon “Rick and Morty,” its star and co-creator Justin Roiland became a titan of the animation and video game industry and a rock star of youth counterculture. His artistic style and caricatures became ubiquitous in cannabis culture, and his career expanded into producing other animated series, creating NFTs and leading a virtual reality gaming studio. In 2017, a “Rick and Morty” collaboration with McDonald’s led to such a viral frenzy that police had to be called to at least two locations.

But as he partied with Los Angeles’ superstars and traveled the country for conventions, he also found he could use his fame to strike up conversations and develop relationships with young fans, including some who were underage. This is according to interviews with 11 women and nonbinary people who shared thousands of messages with Roiland from 2013 to 2022 — with nine of the people saying he turned the exchanges sexual. Of those nine people, three said they were 16 when they started talking to Roiland. To corroborate their stories, the 11 women and nonbinary people also shared pictures, videos, social media posts, emails, and plane ticket and Uber receipts with NBC News.

Warning: Lengthy and graphic details

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 213 points 10 months ago

"Young" could be misinterpreted as 18. "Underage" is the right word.

[-] detalferous@lemm.ee 87 points 10 months ago

Yeah, this story needs way more precision than it has.

"Were 16 when they started texting him". Ok, well how old were they written the allegations occurred, and what is he alleged to have done?

[-] JasSmith@kbin.social 68 points 10 months ago

The imprecision is by design. Modern journalism is trash.

[-] BillyTheSkidMark@lemm.ee 19 points 10 months ago

Not to defend it, but in situations like this I think they have to be vague for legal reasons. There's a fine line between reporting the news and defamation (regardless of how true it is).

It's bullshit, and people will use defamation and lawyers to attack people accusing them. But I can see why you'd want to be extra careful how you worded the title.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 45 points 10 months ago

Seems like he waited until they were 18 before meeting them, although he would send sexually-charged texts to women as young as 16.

Roiland usually asked people how old they were, if they were single, and if they were “into girls.” In three cases, when the person said they were under 18, Roiland would message them again months or years later. Those three conversations started with people who said they were 16 at the time, and continued for years, until they were 18 and older.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (16 replies)
[-] Pips@lemmy.film 14 points 10 months ago

Literally in the second paragraph of the article and the summary at the top of this post.

But as he partied with Los Angeles’ superstars and traveled the country for conventions, he also found he could use his fame to strike up conversations and develop relationships with young fans, including some who were underage.

The article then goes on to discuss his conversations with underage fans. The article uses "young" because his conversations with of-age but teenaged fans were also bad.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 148 points 10 months ago

From the article, really buried: "Roiland usually asked people how old they were, if they were single, and if they were “into girls.” In three cases, when the person said they were under 18, Roiland would message them again months or years later. Those three conversations started with people who said they were 16 at the time, and continued for years, until they were 18 and older."

After reading the whole article it doesn't seem like he did anything sexual with anyone under 18. My takeaway is that he's a creep, abuses his fame and power (part of a big club there), he's manipulative, and he plies underage people with alcohol to get them to sleep with him, but it appears he's not a pedo. Or at least smart enough not to get caught.

[-] lemmylommy@lemmy.world 59 points 10 months ago

Not a pedo, just a regular rapist. Talk about low bars.

[-] CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world 145 points 10 months ago

Don't mistake my comment as a defense of him as a person. He's been accused of domestic violence, forced oral sex, and taking advantage of intoxicated women under the drinking age. Despite him getting off on the DV charge, where there's smoke, there's fire. He's obviously a pretty terrible human being.

I just don't like people throwing around 'pedo' unjustly, because it waters it down and takes away the impact when used against even worse monsters.

load more comments (18 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] negativeyoda@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago
load more comments (5 replies)
[-] treefrog@lemm.ee 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

And continued for years is the key.

He made sexually explicit comments to minors for years. And solicited pictures? That's solicitation of child pornography

The guys a pedo. Rather or not he gets charged with something related to under age girls, we'll see.

load more comments (9 replies)
[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 117 points 10 months ago

Man, why’d he have to be such a fuckin’ gross creep? Why couldn’t he just have been creative and weird and depressed?

[-] willis936@lemmy.world 45 points 10 months ago

If you add funny to that list you get Dan Harmon.

[-] kbotc@lemmy.world 62 points 10 months ago

Dan Harmon was super problematic in his own way. His difference was he apologized to the people he wronged in a way that they accepted, and seems to have changed his behavior. His change in behavior seems to be part of what left Justin out to dry as Dan no longer came to work intoxicated, but Roiland just kept doing it.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Well the subtype of funny that Rolland had (and Harmon still has to a degree) had was from being creative and weird and sad. Smart, dark, absurdist, existentialist humor. I think that’s a pretty reasonable way to roll it up.

Edit: crossed the names up, derp

[-] Soundhole@lemm.ee 97 points 10 months ago

Of those nine people, three said they were 16 when they started talking to Roiland.

That sick son of a bitch! There needs to be repercussions.

his career expanded into producing other animated series, creating NFTs and leading a virtual reality gaming studio.

GET A ROPE!

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] popemichael@lemmy.sdf.org 55 points 10 months ago

This really has me wondering how many people are doing the same thing but haven't been caught.

[-] Pillarist@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

A person who otherwise wouldn't be noticed suddenly getting attention they never received thrown at them can easily abuse it if they don't control their behavior with a moral compass, which is becoming less and less a priority. When something feels good, many indulge. When you overindulge, you justify. When you get good at justifying, you can make anything okay in your head. If you don't have a line drawn, it's wild how far people will go... he went way too far and he should endure the consequences.

[-] agent_flounder@lemmy.one 27 points 10 months ago

I think getting to be super famous is much easier if you have no moral compass to begin with.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[-] Iwasondigg@lemmy.one 55 points 10 months ago

Aww geez, Rick.

[-] maniajack@lemmy.world 43 points 10 months ago

Glad to see more reporting on this. The way they swapped out Roiland's voice in Solar Opposites was absolutely perfect, it really hasn't lost anything imo.

[-] Custoslibera@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I still fucking laugh thinking about it.

It was so unexpected for me that they would make a change to a hoity British accent and just run with it like nothing happened.

Brilliantly handled. I’m actually looking forward to how they are going to make the change for Rick and Morty now.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[-] chaogomu@kbin.social 41 points 10 months ago

Grooming is more than just convincing a minor to not tell their parents.

The actual definition is grooming a minor for a later sexual relationship (not fully restricted to them still being a minor)

As with any scummy/horrible behavior, there are levels of scum/horribleness.

[-] Fades@lemmy.world 25 points 10 months ago

Fucking disgusting, I will never understand people like this.

load more comments (8 replies)
[-] Tenthrow@lemmy.world 25 points 10 months ago

What a cringe lord.

[-] dethb0y@lemmy.world 24 points 10 months ago

I just assume anyone remotely famous is some kind of foul person behind the scenes.

[-] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

No, Paul Rudd, nooo! You're too pure!

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Velociraptor@lemmy.world 20 points 10 months ago

Imagine being so lucky that you become a household name off of animation of all things but then deciding to do exactly what John K did. At least Rick and Morty won't go the way of Ren and Stimpy. Not yet, anyway.

[-] xc2215x@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

He knew he could take advantage of the fans. What an ass.

[-] CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

I just watched a great documentary on YouTube about Ren and Stimpy and it's fucking sad how similar the story with John K is as well. I should think there's some obvious lessons about not giving immature manbabies unlimited power in here, but it'd be nice if somebody actually learned them!

[-] rab@lemmy.ca 17 points 10 months ago

Didn't this story already come out like a year ago? Adult swim fired him

[-] Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 10 months ago

that story was to do with him being charged with assault and unlawful imprisonment

[-] ilex@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

The summary did that thing like when FBI agents find a 800 TB harddrive containing a possibly CSAM photo and the media says they found 800 TB of CSAM.

Did he take a conversation with a sub-18 year old to a sexual place? (or not excuse himself from an email gone sexual with someone under age?) I literally mean yes he did take it sexual or no he did not take it sexual or It was not clear from the messages.

There is a difference from acknowledging sex is a thing and propositioning a teenager for sex, but at this point, I don't care. If you are a man or a woman, etc., just devalue the experience of younger people and don't talk to them. They'll be fine with it eventually.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago

I never liked him much, but I had no idea he was a pedo.

[-] DarkGamer@kbin.social 22 points 10 months ago

According to the article he would text underage women but would refuse to meet them until they were 18. Seems like he was operating within the law.

load more comments (24 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
670 points (95.5% liked)

News

21860 readers
3251 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS