Talk:Etika/GA1

YouTube career

• Here is the biggest issue: I do not like the "Mental decline" subsection header. I think it's the one seriously bad call in an article that otherwise handles the issue reasonably well. It's a very harsh, presumptory phrasing. You could pick something relatively nondescript like "Later career", or remove the header and treat it all in one section. You could also try for a milder phrasing of the same idea (something like "Erratic behaviour"), but I'm not super sold on this, because it raises questions of editorial judgement -- the decision to include or exclude things from a section with such a heading is going to be pretty big. Again, a few ways to handle it, but it needs to be handled.
  • Wholeheartedly agree. Would this work: "Origins and popularity (2012–2018)" and "Channel terminations and breakdowns (2018–2019)"? The latter sans the dates was the original section name before "Mental decline." If not, I'll rewrite it to "Erratic behavior" based on your suggestion.
    • I saw in the edit history that "Channel terminations and breakdowns" was the previous heading, though I'm not super sold on "breakdowns". I think a consolidation to something like "Channel terminations and erratic behavior" gets the idea across well without going too hard on it. Vaticidalprophet 05:30, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • I like that too. Are the dates okay as well? If so I'll mark it done.
        • Dates are fine. Vaticidalprophet 10:02, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
          • Then  Done.
• The "November 2016" and "June 2017" mini-paragraphs should probably be scrapped entirely. They're the kind of
  WP:PROSELINE
  minor-controversies that tend to populate pop culture articles without ever being of much value; on something like this, they're just bathos when offset by actual, huge controversies later.
  •  Partly done - Actually I rewrote both in order to show their encyclopedic value. The fake Switch incident was the origin of the "JOYCON BOYZ" phrase that reliable sources noted, showing it did have an impact to his career. For the donations I appended it after the $300k statement because of how it relates to his finances, and the Kotaku source was quite comprehensive and factual. Also, the fake Switch event was one of my ideas for a DYK quote.
    • Good to see :) Vaticidalprophet 05:30, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• Initially centered around gaming news, Amofah's video output consisted of Let's Play videos of Nintendo games alongside reaction videos of gaming announcements, mainly of Nintendo Direct presentations. Many of his reactions to such presentations usually involved him screaming and falling out of his chair in elated shock and tossing objects around his room. While this is trying admirably for a show-don't-tell phrasing of 'exaggeratedly upbeat reaction videos', it sounds a bit...jarring. Amofah's video output, initially centered around gaming news, evolved over time to a focus on Let's Play videos of Nintendo games alongside reaction videos of gaming announcements. His reaction videos, mainly of Nintendo Direct presentations, were noted for their characteristic exaggerated and energetic style; they featured elements such falling out of his chair in elated shock and tossing objects around his room.
  •  Done - prefer this much more :)
• Amofah's channel garnered popularity in 2014 due to should in this context have a comma before 'due to'.
  •  Done.
• Amofah's channel continued to grow in popularity as he made more videos centered around his reactions to gaming news and YouTube drama, and according to him, he was earning over $300,000 a year through stream donations. Given that this is multiple clauses that could be multiple sections, 'and according to' might read better as '; according to'. Having said that, perhaps more importantly: any specific dates for when he said this?
  •  Done for the most part. Revised with your suggestion, but the NYT source doesn't give a specific date sadly. Would it still be okay to include?
• Despite focusing on Nintendo-related content, Amofah also made playthroughs of various video games "Also" is usually superfluous, and "despite" a bit presumptory, with weird "did he have a non-compete clause or what?" implications to a reader not super-familiar with fandom YTers. Though he primarily focused on Nintendo-related content, Amofah made playthroughs of video games from multiple publishers, such as [examples].
  •  Done - initially wrote "Despite..." to contrast how he was typically more recognized for his Nintendo-based content as opposed to playing other games, but I prefer your change.
• I linked
  WP:PROSELINE
  above. In the "mental decline" section (pending section retitle): read this essay, and internalize it. This is an article for which PROSELINE styles are kind of understandable, because we're often talking about things that happened in quick succession, and unlike many other situations a lot of those things do remain individually relevant; nonetheless, there's work that can be done here to restructure this section in a more cohesive manner. I'll be able to make more detailed comments on it later, but it needs at least a first pass to see what can be done to make it less PROSELINE-y and not so much of an "on date X, Y happened and people got mad about it". We can present this as a cohesive 'thing that happened', and not a series of actions and reactions.
  • Thank you so much for linking this essay. I'll try to keep this in mind when revising this section, but this portion will admittedly take a bit of time for me to revise so I can do this as properly as possible. I'll start work on this tomorrow. PantheonRadiance (talk) 03:10, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • Started a little on fixing the prose tonight, but I'll take care of it tomorrow (it's almost 1 AM PST for me). PantheonRadiance (talk) 07:40, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • EDIT: I tried to reduce the PROSELINE today but came up a bit short; a bit harder than I anticipated. I think that I would definitely benefit for your feedback on this, so I'll await your comments on the rest of the article. PantheonRadiance (talk) 04:45, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

More to come. Vaticidalprophet 12:13, 29 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Origins and popularity (2012–2018)

Just looking back over this part before continuing.

• I'm not going too hard on minor prose errors, because I anticipate doing some copyediting myself in the post-GAN pre-FAC phase. Having said that, for the Despite his earnings, Amofah had revealed in a June 2017 video that he had dealt with multiple "chargebacks", or "fake donations" of large amounts of money sent to his PayPal account via stream donations, which would jostle Amofah with hundreds of dollars in processing fees sentence -- is 'jostle' really the best word here, and is 'via stream donations' a necessary addition given it's known to be his primary income source?

Channel terminations and erratic behavior (2018–2019)

• This section is tricky for sourcing. Of the various sources used in the article, the hardest sells at FAC will be Heavy and Newsweek. Heavy seems mostly excisable, but Newsweek is used a few times in this section for fairly important content. In an article on a living person currently embroiled in such a controversy, this would be full-stop inappropriate -- the exact reason people oppose Newsweek is because it tends towards a lot of "insensitive celebrity gossip". However, in this context, I think at least minor use is arguable; the same in-depth coverage of controversy that makes it an unusable source for negative claims against living people means it provides useful detail here. (FAC reviewers may disagree. I'm less strict than some of them are.) Having said that, it should really be kept to a minimum, so it's worthwhile going through this and seeing what can be re-cited to a better source.

I'm leaving just that comment for now -- it's a fairly big one in terms of the section's structure, so it'd be more worthwhile seeing if anything noticeably changes before commenting further. Vaticidalprophet 17:33, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I trimmed down Newsweek usage to only two instances, using sources like Vox, HuffPost, and People to replace such sources. Also, I CEd the "chargebacks" statement. PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:20, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Continuing this section. The proseline copyedits have really improved flow and readability -- good job on that :)

• The link to anxiety in "anxiety medication" is not ideal. We have an article on those drugs at Anxiolytic, so instead 'anxiety medication' should be a piped link to it, especially to clear up to readers that this describes many different classes of drugs.
  • Wikilinked.
• I absolutely understand the sources might not specify, but...is 'pornography' ever called out further? Like, did he upload 'nudes' or 'screwed up possibly illegal porn' or what? Those have pretty different implications. Again, definitely get this might not be sourcable, but it's weirdly general. (I was aware of all the Etika drama when it was ongoing, but didn't follow close, and he's not the kind of YTer I watch otherwise.)
  • Power Unlimited says hentai, but regardless I personally think just pornography gets the point across (banned for posting inappropriate content). I can add later though in my next edit. PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
• In the quotebox -- I mentioned this as the one kind of quote where
  MOS:LQ
  doesn't apply, because it's a large paragraph offset by quotation marks, rather than the relatively short quotes in the article text. I also vaguely wonder if the image and quotebox should switch places, but this is arguable either way.
• The (that were promptly deleted) parenthesis is of unclear relevance -- it's best not to have parentheses in articles too much anyway. Is the implication meant to be that he deleted them himself, implying regret or similar, or that they were deleted by Twitter's moderation team? The latter is probably too trivial to include. The former might be worth clarifying. If the sources don't specify, we should probably remove.
  • Specified that he deleted them via Daily Dot source.
• alarmingly erratic may be editorializing. (We say the exact words 'erratic behavior' a lot in this section, which is probably worth looking over, but also understandable as a least-bad phrasing giving the issues with calling people 'mentally ill' in wikivoice. I'll expand on that in the next section, given it comes up again.)
  • Removed and rewrote.
• Him being detained on livestream just kind of...sneaks in there. Given so many of the sources are about this specific incident, and it was so much of a Big Deal, it's probably worth making more prominent -- its own paragraph, detail if applicable, etc. In terms of
  WP:DUE
  , if it comes down to it, trimming down the 'other things that happened' to write more about this is probably the better balance in a zero-sum situation.
  • Expanded a bit more on it, but decided not to make into separate paragraph.
• Following the interview, Amofah was detained again that week for assaulting a police officer. This paragraph as a whole is very strong, but 'that week' is a bit superfluous/drags a little. It's clear from the rest that the second detainment happened shortly after.
• Did he ever have charges pressed against him for assaulting a cop?
  • Clarified that he was not arrested but taken to the hospital as stated in the sources.
• symptomatic of genuine mental ailment is sort of awkward (especially given the aforementioned 'tricky to call people mentally ill in wikivoice'), but...understandable. "Symptomatic" is probably the word to strike there, given it again implies specific things we really don't want to imply (e.g. having any particular diagnosis of a specific mental illness with known symptoms).
  • Would "indicative" work better?
• During the majority of Amofah's livestreams in 2019, a large cohort of viewers would frequently spam clown emojis as a way to mock his behavior. This is overwritten. During Amofah's livestreams in this period, many viewers mocked his behavior by spamming clown emojis.
  • Sorry for the late reply (4th of July), but I believe that all above are for the most part  Done. PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'll come back to the mental illness point, which again, the next section deals with a lot. Etika described himself as 'probably mentally ill', and acted in ways that people informally ascribed labels to, but saying much more than that becomes tricky real fast. Wikipedia is, for better or worse, authoritative; saying 'in wikivoice' that Etika 'had mental health issues', 'was mentally ill', etc. strongly gives specific impressions. In particular, the most problematic impression is that he was diagnosed with a specific psychiatric label, or needed specific treatments. The article never says as much and I'm certainly not accusing you of that, but this is something many readers come away with when they read those, and it's very difficult to write these articles in a way that doesn't give such impressions.

I recently wrote Marie Sophie Hingst, which is a GA with some similar qualities (internet-culture person who committed suicide around the same time and age, with lots of speculation about her mental health) that I'm preparing for FAC in the near future. The contexts are very different, but you can see from that article the caution I've used around terminology. Outside the lead -- which I'm still trying to find the right phrasing for -- I've been very careful about not saying things that imply Hingst was mentally ill, or could be diagnosed with a specific label. (German Wikipedia and Wikidata have been less cautious, but that's their problem.) Even the lead just says 'her mental health', without going into further detail. It might be useful to go through and see the ways I've tried to handle that problem myself. Part of why I picked up this review was the firsthand experience writing around similar subjects of "people coded as 'mentally ill' by most sources and their actions, but never actually openly diagnosed with anything or otherwise able to be called such in wikivoice". It's hard, and you've done a pretty fantastic job of it for a first major article contribution, but it still needs some work in the next section especially. Vaticidalprophet 15:50, 3 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• Fair enough; I'll try to keep this in mind when editing, but I do wish to note that a few articles in the section include mental health researchers and journalists who weighed in on Amofah's behavior and perceived that he showed signs of struggling with mental health (but of course not diagnosing him with any label). I believe it should be due weight to keep such perspectives in the article, but I'll definitely revise based on your suggestions. Already rewrote parts of what Amofah said in the video based on the sources. PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Disappearance and death

• Recording for posterity that I'm aware of the disputes surrounding the video inclusion and have no particular opinions on it.
• stated that he was dead at the point of recovery -- 'discovery' is less awkward here than 'recovery'.
  •  Done
• sent information to Amofah's account which related to national suicide hotlines Did they do this before (when he was visibly behaving oddly) or...after he uploaded the suicide note?
  • The NYT source said YouTube typically sends an email that includes hotlines to channels that post videos which express suicidal ideation, after removing such videos per their policy. Partially rewrote to make it more verifiable to the source.
• The "list of people who reacted" paragraph is a little stilted. Partially this is a matter of overuse of 'also'; partially it's the combination of extensive quoting with a sort of random-seeming selection of people involved. 'Also' is a frequently superfluous word, so maybe just pass over here quickly to check the phrasing.
  • Copy edited, I think it should be good now but I'll revise just in case.
• The aforementioned mental health researchers stressed the need to inform more people on social media about the signs of mental illness, depression, and suicidal thoughts so that they can better recognize when people in a mindset similar to Amofah's are in danger and need support is probably the part of the article that crosses most problematically into "strong impression of a specific diagnosis". I'm not really comfortable with the way it alludes to a specific authority quoting specific symptoms and making specific comparisons. In general, I think you could more naturally combine the paragraph including this and the one that follows it, and omit the parts (like this) that make the most specific statements about information we don't actually have. Things like the quote from his friend, and the quote from Patricia Hernandez [Wikidata] (that link might be warranted here), get the idea across more than well enough.
  • Hmm, I would've thought to add a bit more commentary from the mental health researchers, such as those in the NBC article, but I can see how it could be construed that way. In the process of rewriting it. EDIT: Combined paragraphs together and rewrote based on NBC source that they emphasized the need for more research on social media's effects on mental health. Marking as  Done for now.
• I worry that this section is absolving Keem of responsibility a little/strays out of NPOV. I'm not saying he's responsible, but many sources and many reactions represented him more negatively than this. You've got, for instance, this article in Persona Studies (a fairly legit academic journal) mentioning Klein's coverage of the situation and how it impacted Keem's career.
  • Pardon my language, but... LMFAOOOO. When I submitted this to GA, I was actually worried about the exact opposite - whether it was worth keeping info about Keem's backlash in the first place and if it veered too much into non-NPOV and undue weight (not to mention the
    scope
    of the article too). But I decided to keep it because there were some reliable sources that discussed it, and even more that described Keem's interview. I've added info from the journal into the article now.
• I'm not sold at all on the relevance of the Ouija board bit -- it feels like a holdover from the "written in real time during ongoing dramatics" stage.
  •  Done - Decided to remove for now unless anyone objects to it. PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Legacy

• Jamie Lauren Keiles has an article and can be bluelinked.
  •  Done - Thanks HappyBoi3892 :)
• I am not sold on the relevance of the last two paragraphs, especially the last paragraph. (This was going to be 'last three', but I think something got removed.)
  • I actually moved the "2021 Nintendo Direct" statement to the third Legacy paragraph to avoid PROSELINE once more. Also, I had an extra source from Multiplayer.it (reliable per VG/RS) that wrote about the NFT incident, but I'll remove both paragraphs if they seem too trivial. PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:15, 8 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See also

• List of solved missing person cases
  is a bit, uh, blunt. A see-also section might be indicated here, but that doesn't seem like the right inclusion.
  • Removed. Couldn't think of any other article to link so I left "List of YouTubers" there. PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:50, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That should be...much of it? I'll do another pass-through for things I missed. Vaticidalprophet 08:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

• At this point, I think I got almost all of your suggestions added, but in the meantime I'll do some more CEs while awaiting your final comments. Please let me know if there are still any issues with the article and I'll fix them ASAP - I'm going to work on this all day tomorrow (7/9). PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:50, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  It's in pretty good shape now! (And yeah, I suspected the Keem paragraph might have been a "tried not to go anti-POV, accidentally skewed the other way" situation.) I still don't think the NFT thing is relevant -- consider the

  ten-year test

  , another essay people bring up a lot in recent-events articles. I'm honestly 50-50 on whether NFTs pass the ten-year test at all, let alone for this specific article. It's probably worth looking a little critically at the legacy section thinking about what will stand up as really relevant in a few years, even if it received short-term media coverage.

  Otherwise, I think my only remaining comment is up in "Early life" -- his date of birth is also cited in Obituaries in the Performing Arts, so with the secondary source to confirm it, we don't need the primary source. Vaticidalprophet 10:05, 9 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I think that's all she wrote. Removed the extra primary source, decided to add some Social Blade sources to the infobox, removed the last two legacy paragraphs for the time being, and made some more slight copy edits. If there's anything else I need to fix, once again, please let me know. Otherwise I hope it's finally ready for GA status! Thank you so much for dedicating time to review this article. I know that Etika's story touched upon sensitive topics, some of which I still struggle to cope with to this day, so I empathize with other editors who may have felt uncomfortable with reviewing the article. That being said, I genuinely appreciate all the advice you've given me throughout this review! :) PantheonRadiance (talk) 09:45, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm very happy to pass this. I think in the long term FA is both possible and worthwhile (this would be the first FA on a Youtuber in the project's history, putting aside all the other good reasons it's desired here), but I'll have a lot more to say about getting there later. For now -- congratulations on your first GA, especially on such a complicated topic. Vaticidalprophet 13:52, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]