First of all, I need to talk about the YouTube polyglot community. As you can see, there are a group of YouTubers who make videos of themselves on YouTube speaking foreign languages. Some of the more famous ones are Luca, Glossika, Laoshu, and Loki. Of course, there are many more. I am subscribed to all of these (although I rarely watch Luca's videos) and really enjoy there submissions. They all have the passion and commitment to learn multiple languages. I'm thinking about becoming part of this community in the future, although I will not show my face for fear of my appearance or weight being made fun of.
There is another YouTuber, NaomiChambers, who has a series titled "Anyone Can Be a Polyglot" in which she, a graduate of George Mason University with a degree in French Studies, encourages other people to try to learn a language, or even several languages. I also like her videos and tried to help her with new material for her blog when she asked on the HTLAL forum (her blog is thepolyglotexperience.blogspot.com) by suggesting she interact with two other bloggers who I like, pagef30.com & thejoyoflanguages.blogspot.com. Both bloggers deal with IALs (international auxiliary languages) although they are also learning or know natural languages. I think she liked the idea, since my post received a vote.
Enter chezrocksall. He's an 18-year-old autistic from Canada who claims to speak 59 languages and can learn a language in a day. Needless to say, I don't believe him, and think he exemplifies the worst parts of the YT polyglot community: that languages are incredibly easy and we should make videos trying to entertain others. Unfortunately, that is where the drama comes into play. Since he's autistic, it's difficult for him to interact appropriately with others, he's preoccupied with himself, has anxiety, and (I guess) can be obsessive about a few activities (for him, music & languages). Needless to say, on a highly interactive form of media like YT, this is a recipe for disaster.
Honestly, with him being the way he is, I thought there would be a breakdown eventually. I thought it had come in a video he titled "Do I Suck?" where he appeared depressed and wondered if he was a fake, like some people thought. I was going to comment that he should take time off from YouTube, but I didn't do it and in a later video said he wouldn't do it. He may have been a little down, but he kept doing what he usually did: uploading 30 second videos to prove he speaks a langauge. I usually rarely just ignored these types of videos (I subbed him and accepted his friend request, before I knew who he was) and honestly found him annoying. I thought about unsubbing and defriending him a few times since I thought I was mislead (in one video, he made a claim that he could be fluent after finishing a Teach Yourself book).
Unfortunately, some of his activity, although I think some of it was inadvertant, could be considered trolling, spamming, and even e-stalking. For example, he asked everyone who subbed him, as well as others in the polyglot community, to make videos about him. He apologized and things seemed to return to normal. Things finally reached a head when he did this to Naomi's channel & kept commenting on it when she wanted to be left alone, and he even found her e-mail address and sent her an e-mail! His interactions with Naomi and another YouTuber eventually lead him to make a video saying he would leave YouTube for a while and only watch videos.
Anyway, Naomi, after Chez made his video, made a video outlining his activities and demanded to be left alone. I thought the video was fair, although I thought some of the video comments weren't. He DOES have a serious psychiatric problem and his activities and interactions with others should be monitored. I was moved when someone who only called himself or herself "an advocate" used Chez's account to make comments talking about his struggles with autism and making Chez seem more human and not just a troll. I commented that I was glad there was someone like advocate in Chez's life and that his Internet usage must be monitored to make sure this would not happen again.
I don't know what will happen to Chez's account in the future, but I hope he learns a lot from this experience. Yes, his interpersonal and group entry skills suck, but that what happens when you have autism. I think he was just trying to be part of a group that would accept him, but he mistreated people and paid a price for it.
I don't know what I can do to help him, and it is probably impossible to monitor everything he does on the Internet. I do think he has potential, but he can't just claim to know a high number of languages to impress people. I don't know what to say to him that he will listen to, but I think I should try.
That is the reason I stay subbed to him: to help him after the breakdown.
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