THE STORY SO FAR...
What the hell, I'll make a post.
On June 30th, youtuber Jenny Nicholson uploaded a Patreon-exclusive video about Halcy-Con, a fan convention for fans of the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. Jenny did not attend this event and did not seem to speak to anyone who did. I did attend the event in its first year, because I also went on the Galactic Starcruiser.
I'm sure most people know about the Starcruiser through Jenny's four hour video, which was full of inaccurate and exaggerated information, and led to her fans harassing many fans of the Starcruiser, including employees of Disney who worked on the Starcruiser. Several Disney cast members deactivated their social media after the video gained traction, some due to harassment. I was personally harassed by fans of hers, with people aggressively scrutinizing my own experience with the Starcruiser, calling me a liar, and some even hurled slurs! I had people demanding personal photos and video footage of my vacation with my family in order to "prove" extremely low stakes things, like "people called me by my chosen name", because Jenny Nicholson, millionaire youtuber, said she didn't have that happen to her, so obviously it happened to no one.
That all happened 2 years ago or something, right before my birthday hilariously enough! Luckily, the harassment from her fans died out after a couple weeks. It was all really interesting, because I was also a fan of Jenny's and a Patreon subscriber!
Basically over those 2 years I haven't been able to have a conversation about a fun vacation I had without people mentioning that video, and I've had to correct the same inaccurate information over and over. It is very tiring to have someone go "I watched a video made by a rich person, clearly I know more about this thing you actually experienced than you do!"
So fast forward to this June and the Halcy-Con video. Halcy-Con is what I'd consider a humble and very niche con. Obviously. A weirdo party made by weirdos for other weirdos. We know we're weird! We really like a thing! But people seem to be gloming onto Starcruiser fans as the only weirdos on the planet. It's exhausting, annoying, and dumb as fucking hell so knock it off. Please thanks. I know it's really fun to bully groups of largely neurodivergent adults who are passionate about theme park stuff, but consider becoming employed! I'm not going to sit here and act like it's not all connected to the extremely unhinged hatred of anything related to the Sequel trilogy, which is often rooted in the general "anti-woke" attitude of right-wing hatemongers. I am not calling Jenny Nicholson any kind of right-wing, I'm just saying, she doesn't seem to really mind if a lot of her fans behave in a similar way.
Anyways, a friend watched the video before me, and let me know that photos of mine were used in the video. I had never been contacted by Jenny in any way. These were personal photos, of my personal belongings, that I took with my own phone, and posted to my twitter account. Yes, my twitter is public, but I thought it was kind of common courtesy to at least... ask before displaying someone's whole unredacted twitter account to your extremely parasocial fanbase, especially if that tweet contained photos, which I legally own the copyright to.
I didn't watch the entire video, but got maybe 70% through. I was reading through the comments (my first mistake, I know); it was mostly "wow these people are so sad and delusional", with Jenny herself using the word "sad" to describe panels at the convention (which again, she did not attend). Her video was almost entirely reading the con's website and watching other peoples' footage and photos of the event to go Look At That! I wouldn't exactly call that transformative commentary.
One comment stuck out to me that was very lightly critical of her. The commenter noted that Jenny's tone was "uncharacteristically mean" about the people attending the con, panel subject matter, etc. They gave Starcruiser fans a bit of grace, saying, well, I think it's really weird to assume these people are being "delusional" or lying if they really enjoyed a vacation experience that was super special to them.
There's this prevailing attitude that Starcruiser people only say they had a good time because they "spent a ton of money", and that every single person except Jenny Nicholson, the person whose "career" is based entirely on snarking about things she didn't create, is lying to make themselves feel justified in spending money. And like, ok. Sure. You can be insane and believe that.
I replied to the comment thanking them for wording what they said so well. Jenny got press coverage for her Starcruiser video and started appearing on podcasts and shit, which is fine, but she's clearly found that this will give her attention (and money!) for the rest of her life and is milking it. I didn't say ANY of that in my comment though lol - I thanked the person for their comment, and happened to mention "oh, that merch post she used in the video was mine, and I was a little surprised to see it because she didn't reach out in any way". I also made the apparently grave mistake of mentioning that her fans have harassed me in the past, which makes me feel weird as both a Jenny fan and Starcruiser fan. It makes me feel odd to talk about my vacation experience sometimes.
I didn't check for replies or anything. The next day, I woke up to find my Patreon subscription to Jenny Nicholson had been canceled, because she blocked me.
She had basically just blocked me from viewing my own content she used without permission.
I contacted Patreon support and got basic non-answers: Creators can block you for whatever reason to "protect" themselves, if it's a copyright issue you can submit a DMCA and give your full name, address, and phone number to a millionaire youtuber with a very weird parasocial fanbase, or you can ask for a refund!
So I tried a refund. I paid a whopping $2 a month for Jenny's extra videos. It's obviously not about the money, but I said in my comment on the refund form, hey, you blocked me after I said you used my content without permission, and that's super gross and now I can't see your stuff. Refund please?
My refund was rejected today. This adult woman who pretends to not live in a mansion couldn't put her pettiness aside for even $2.
I'm probably not going to go ahead with a DMCA. I don't have millions of dollars. I don't have lawyers. She definitely does and will absolutely be able to argue that it's fair use, or at the very least that my takedown request would be "retaliation", IE not in good faith.
Legitimately, this could have been avoided if she had sent me a single DM asking if she could use my photos. I am a chill person, I swear. Evidence of that comes from how I still gave this woman my money every month after one of her fans called me a "fucking lying retard" for saying "I went on the Starcruiser and had fun with my family". I would've said oh hey sure, I would actually love to give you more info on Halcy-Con if you want, because I went there, and you didn't which is kind of weird that you're making a video about an event you did not in any way attend, but hey. Sure!
But no. She didn't ask, she just used my photos, I went "hey you used my photos without asking", and I got blocked and can't even have my fucking $2 back.
So, uh, what do you do when an extremely rich and famous Youtuber takes your personal photos to use in paywalled content? This video is exclusively on Patreon. The DMCA form would require a link to it, and timestamps for the infringing content, neither of which I could provide. Because I was blocked from seeing it.
It's just a shitty situation all around. I am a single millennial woman in my 30s. I have 2 jobs and work about 50 hours a week to make ends meet and pay off the debt I incurred doing severe repairs on my family home (don't get excited, it's a single floor ranch, lol). I don't make any real content. I am no one! But, my content was apparently good enough for a very rich person to take and use without permission. She could not be bothered to give me any kind of time of day or courtesy. And when I pointed out the issue (not even directly to her), I got blocked.
And she couldn't even spare 2 fucking dollars to try to make amends.
I don't really know what the point of this post is. I don't have any reach. I don't have an audience. I don't create anything and I'm kind of just a person. I don't have a dramatic sob story about being in fifteen consecutive house fire robbery murders. I have literally nothing to gain or lose by posting this, I guess.
It's just frustrating. It's frustrating to be a moderate fan of a creator who does something like this, not even a Huge Fan or anything, I just liked her stuff and gave her 2 bucks every month because she made fun videos about stuff I liked. I gave her a lot of benefit of the doubt with the Starcruiser shit and blamed it more on parasocial fanbase nonsense than her, herself. I had no illusions about Jenny Nicholson being my friend, even though I have met her in real life and she gave me a bracelet lol. She was kind and cordial and normal when we met while I was trying to carry four drinks at once at Pokemon Worlds.
Basically, I don't know what to do other than make a comprehensive post. I've been posting about the situation as it's been happening, but this is all the info gathered in one place, I guess. I'll add tags, I'll ask people to share. I know nothing will come of it, because nothing ever will.
So yeah. There's a thing that happened to me. Jenny Nicholson, a creator I've been a fan of for years, whose work I really enjoyed, fucking sucks and continues to make thousands of dollars a week and can't be bothered to send someone a single fucking DM asking to use their photos.
God forbid she take any kind of accountability. She's never made any sort of statement about her fans harassing Starcruiser people, so I can honestly say I'm not surprised.
Stop giving these people your fucking money. The only Patreon I financially support now is Hudson Valley Reptile & Rescue, a local-ish organization to me that I actually adopted my crested gecko, Sirius, from. I recommend you give them $2 a month instead of a rich loser who has never needed money from anyone else in their life.
Good fucking riddance.
I'd appreciate shares but it's also the length of a 17th century novella so like, it's fine if you don't I guess.
