On Saturday, YouTuber Alia Shelesh, a reactor known as Sssniperwolf with 34 million YouTube followers, posted a series of photos on her Instagram Story of the home of John Douglass, a comedian known to his 4.9 million YouTube subscribers as JacksFilms,
“Should I go visit JacksFilms? He lives five minutes away from my shoot,” Sssniperwolf wrote.
Though the photo was quickly deleted, it quickly spread around her five million Instagram followers and eventually to Jacksfilms, who wrote on X that Sssniperwolf “just doxxed me on her IG.” In follow-up posts, she claimed she had no “ill intentions” that Jacksfilms had been “harassing” her, and that accusing her of doxxing is “defamation.”
Over the weekend, Sssniperwolf started trending on X, and calls for her to be de-platformed echoed throughout the social media platform. YouTube’s Community Guidelines prohibit harmful or dangerous behavior, which includes “threats or doxxing.” What started as a conversation about what reaction content means on YouTube, has now developed into an internet-wide feud and a mob of viewers that wants to see someone be held responsible.
For the uninitiated, reaction content has become the de facto way for creators to feed the algorithm. There are reactors that ask the original creator for permission and credit them, transforming the work so that it falls under Fair Use.
For his part, Jacksfilms has been making content for 17 years, consistently speaking up against reaction thieves and the concept of freebooting, or downloading copyrighted content and posting it elsewhere. Though Sssniperwolf started in the gaming space, her audience exploded when she started posting compilations of freebooted videos…
