Everyone has that one singer that lives in every one of their playlists and that one actor that they watch every one of their movies. In the world of social media and the internet, we all have someone who we follow, look up to or even admire.

It’s a bummer when they turn out to be a terrible person.

If you were in any way a part of the Minecraft and Twitch community in recent years, you would know the name Wilbur Soot pretty well. If you are more of an indie music fan, you know him as lead vocalist William Gold of the British indie rock band Lovejoy.

And now, we all know him as a perpetrator of domestic violence.

On Feb. 21, Shubble, an American Minecraft Twitch streamer and YouTuber, spoke out about her experiences with abuse from one of her ex-boyfriends, without explicitly naming him.

In her 30-minute-long stream, Shubble detailed some of her experiences throughout her relationship. She recalled having to create a safe word because of his persistent biting that would leave bruises on her arms and legs, and him joking about how she looked abused. She recalled his lies, manipulation and financial abuse.

She talked about him ignoring their safe word and even biting down harder whenever she’d use it.

Shubble’s reason for speaking up now, months after their break up, was, as she put it, “silence has always brought me peace, and this time it feels like my silence is not keeping my peace, it’s only keeping somebody else’s peace.”

However, on X, formerly known as Twitter, fans immediately started speculating, despite Shubble’s wishes, who she might’ve been talking about — and Wilbur’s name came up more than once.

A week later, on Feb. 27, Wilbur posted an apology — if it could even be called that — on his X page, admitting to the allegations.

Wilbur was a popular and well-loved figure in the community — with 4.7 million followers on Twitch, 6.05 million subscribers on YouTube and Lovejoy amounting 2.1 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

He was a part of many Minecraft SMPs — survival multiplayer servers — including the Dream SMP, which quickly rose to popularity in 2020 and QSMP, the world’s first multilingual server created by his fellow content creator Quackity.

He was a role model for many young and impressionable fans, which made the situation even more surprising.

Soon, Wilbur’s replies were flooded with responses from other content creators, YouTubers, Twitch streamers and anyone else who has publicly interacted with him.

The surprising part was that many of them spoke up about their own experiences with the British streamer. The replies to that apology post have now reached more than 20,000.

Wilbur’s so-called apology contained the word “I” 26 times and he did not mention Shubble by her name once. As Dream, a Minecraft YouTuber and singer, put it in his response: “She had reason to be afraid to say your name, but you shouldn’t have been afraid to say hers.”

Shubble has since replied on her alternate X account, “I could not have imagined what I would wake up to today. My ex pretending he thought I enjoyed being hurt … and all of my friends immediately coming to my defense.”

She replied to that post saying, “and for the record, I don’t accept the apology.”

The internet being the internet, some believe that Shubble is lying, saying that Wilbur is just getting “canceled” and that this will blow over in a week or two, as it has done in the past with other content creators who have been accused of abuse or grooming.

To that, Shubble’s friend and British streamer Aimsey, who is close friends with Wilbur’s close friends, spoke out to their fans.

“This is not some petty drama, this is not some Twitter thing,” Aimsey said on their livestream. “This is abuse. There are victims involved in this and you guys are treating it like it’s a Twitter drama, it’s not. This is a serious thing. Stop acting like this is something that’s gonna be blown over in a week. Stop saying ‘Wilbur is canceled,’ he’s not canceled, he’s an abuser! It is a crime!”

I used to watch Wilbur’s streams during the COVID-19 pandemic and continued to do so after, even after I dropped so many other content creators.

Lovejoy has had a permanent place in my playlists for years now. The songs “Perfume,” “Concrete,” “Consequences” and “Normal People Things” were among my favorites. Now I can’t bring myself to listen to them.

Wilbur has been silent since posting his response and so has Lovejoy. The band was set to play at big festivals in 2024, including Summer Sonic in Japan and on the first day of Coachella. So far, there has been no news regarding whether they’ll perform or not.

Content creators’ online personas are just that: a persona. The fans never truly know the person they are following and who they are looking up to. But it hits hard, to know that who you admired or listened to is not a good person.

This situation is not about Wilbur though, and it’s not about the fans’ feelings. It’s about Shubble, and everyone else who spoke out about their experiences.

As Ranboo, American Twitch streamer and Wilbur’s former close friend put it, “anyone who tried to downplay or discredit a victim’s stories for ANY REASON, especially for the sake of being able to watch a creator’s content is an idiot … ‘separate art from the artist’ listen to a different fucking song.”