- YouTuber and "
Minecraft " streamer Carson "CallMeCarson " King has been accused of "grooming" and sexting two underaged fans. - One accuser tweeted a thread of Discord screenshots that she says contain sexually suggestive messages between herself and King when she was 17 and he was 19 in 2019.
- Another accuser said she and King exchanged nude photos on Snapchat when she was 17 and he was 20.
- Daniel Keem, who hosts the popular YouTube
news show "Drama Alert," also interviewed two of King's former podcast collaborators who say King admitted to sexting with minors.
YouTuber
King is currently 21 and has over 5 million YouTube subscribers across his channels. He also has 1.4 million Twitch followers. He's known for comedic commentary and for streaming "Minecraft" and other games.
King didn't respond to Insider's request for comment.
King's accusers say he messaged them on Discord and Snapchat
The first of King's accusers came forward on Monday. A Twitter thread created by an 18-year-old named Sam has since become the primary allegation against King.
—sam (@miniborb) January 5, 2021
Sam accused King of "grooming," which is defined by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children as "when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them."
Sam says she was 17 and still in high school when she tweeted at King, who was then 19. She says King began privately messaging her, first on Twitter and then on Discord.
She included screenshots of the supposed Discord messages on Twitter that appear to show King sending sexually suggestive messages to her. At the time of publication, Sam had not responded to Insider's request for comment on the allegations.
A second accuser with the Twitter handle "@Copiicatt" came forward on Tuesday, a day after Sam, and tweeted a screenshot she says shows Snapchat messages between her and King in June 2019 when she was 17 and King was 20. Daniel Keem, who hosts the popular YouTube news show "Drama Alert," tweeted that @Copiicatt told him she exchanged nude photos with King through Snapchat.
—KEEM (@KEEMSTAR) January 6, 2021
The user @Copiicatt has also not responded to Insider's request for comment.
Some of King's defenders have argued that the interactions between King and both accusers are legal under state "Romeo and Juliet" laws, which typically allow sexual interactions between minors and adults as long as the age gap between them is no more than 4 years - however, one of the accusers, Sam, stated that she and King resided in separate states at the time, which would subject the interactions to the federal age of consent of 18. Sam also said she didn't contact authorities because she didn't believe the incident would be taken seriously as it occurred online.
King's former collaborators have disavowed him
After Sam's thread went viral and "Carson" trended on Twitter, King's peers in the gaming community began to speak out.
One of King's former collaborators who goes by JOKO online shared a screen recording that appears to be from a Discord chat server that included King. One statement King appears to have made in the group chat says: "I'm not into kids but I did trade nudes with people under the age of 18 which is very bad." Further down in the conversation, King appears to comment on a thread of "grooming" allegations and Discord screenshots shared by Sam, saying, "I can't believe I said those things." JOKO did not respond to Insider's request for comment.
—JOKO (@ItsJoko) January 5, 2021
Keem, or Keemstar as he's known online, also featured two of King's former "Lunch Club" podcast collaborators on an episode of his YouTube news show "Drama Alert."
The two former collaborators, who go by Traves and Noah Hugbox online, said King told them and their other co-hosts privately that he had sexted underage female fans. They said that was the reason "Lunch Club" dissolved.
More of King's peers in the streaming community also issued statements about the allegations.
Charlie Dalgleish, a YouTuber known as Slimecicle and another former member of "Lunch Club," wrote that King's actions were "particularly disgusting if the person doing it is a YouTuber who has taken advantage of their fame to exploit young fans."
—Slimecicle (@Slimecicle) January 5, 2021
"In an early 2020 phone call, Carson told all Lunch Club members and our group manager that he had exchanged nudes with an unnamed girl he believed to be 17. Because I suspected a crime had been committed, I immediately reported this information to federal law enforcement," Dalgleish wrote.
A member of King's "Minecraft" server who goes by Krinios online also put out a statement.
—Ryan (@Krinios) January 5, 2021
"When he was trending I messaged him letting him know and the first thing he told me was 'long story short, I sexted a couple girls when they were 17 and I was 19.' He said it so casually and immediately it was downplayed as some incident that happened in the past and that was it," he wrote.
At the time of writing, King has not publicly responded to the accusations against him. He has also not responded to Insider's request for comment.
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