Yandere Simulator & The Effects of Grooming
Introduction
Throughout the course of Yandere Simulator, there has been many cases of grooming. Not only from Alex himself, but from the people he surrounds himself with. Because of this repeated behavior, I and a credible, anonymous source decided to gather as much evidence as possible to talk about this.
Disclaimer
I want to put a disclaimer before anyone continues further. This post will talk about VERY heavy topics and include many mentions of grooming, manipulation, and abuse, none of which is condoned in this post. A lot of this is speculation, and nothing is intended to be defamatory, but rather informative of all the cases that could be considered grooming and their connections to Alex and the project. I would also like to say, all of the information is either provided straight from the people in the situations, or they're from public statements. None of this information is gathered unethically. Without further introduction, let's begin discussing Yandere Simulator & The Effects of Grooming.
Sisefs - 2009, Aged 14
To begin this long story, we're going to start with the first victim we're aware of, Sisefs. Sisefs has made one very public statement on what happened between her and Alex, with no significant changes in the story. Alex has made many stories about this single situation.
Sisef's story is in Document 1 for this section. While there are no screenshots or evidence of either side, based on general common sense, no one would try to get attention by creating a throwaway account. Her story is that she enjoyed watching his streams, and once Alex discovered she was a girl, he began to flirt and talk with her, and he claimed that because he didn't get to date girls in high school, he should be allowed to date a high school aged girl at 21 years old. At first, many people didn't want to believe these allegations, especially without proof, but due to a more recent situation, everything in Sisef's story is nearly identical to the most recent allegations.
Alex has had multiple stories, each mentioned in Documents 2-4.
Document 2 is where he claims that in 2009 a random girl messaged him a link to her nudes out of nowhere, and according to his words, she didn't look like a minor. The following year, he wrote in the chat logs explaining the situation, and everyone "misinterpreted" his explanation. She supposedly stopped coming online in 2010, and he assumed she was an older male pretending to be a young girl. However, why would an older male share child pornogrophy to harm the life of a very small streamer, and why would a young girl randomly share unsolicited nudes?
Document 3 is where he claims that the girl lied about her age and was begging people to be her boyfriend. This is a deviation from his usual story, where he claims she was an older male who was trolling. It's also important to note that he says she simply sent out her nudes unsolicited, but it's implied Alex enjoyed seeing her because of his wording. He refers to her as a "young woman", keeps saying "I don't think it makes anyone a pedophile if they think she is 18 or older". This implies that he enjoyed the pictures, because a pedophile is interested in a minor, they aren't just looking at photos, and if he's claiming he's not a pedophile because he believed she was 18 or older, it means he still got enjoyment out of those photos. Which is a deviation from his other stories because he claims he didn't ask for or want the nudes. Why would you enjoy something you never wanted?
Document 4 is where he claims that he never believed she was a minor. While this is somewhat consistent, it's still odd that he continues to refer to her as a "young woman"... despite continuously claiming he believes she was an older man.
Because of the fluidity of Alex's statements, and Sisefs never releasing a different story, and the current situation providing a pattern,
Oh, did I say there was no proof on either end. Well.... that's not true. Sisefs used the throwaway account to later post images from her computer, some of which included her writing "I <3 Eva" on her hand. Looking at the photos myself, she does look around 14, especially for the 2000s. I don't understand how she could be seen as "no younger than 18" like Alex suggested. At MOST I could believe 16, but 14 is most plausible.
Yessenia Taylor/Mulberry - 2015, Aged 23
While this list is mostly minors, I'd like to focus on one specific person for a little bit who is a very special case in Yandere Simulator and grooming. Yessenia Taylor, better known as MulberryArts/Mulberry_Elixir/Mulberry, was a victim of Alex just as much as many of these other volunteers and people.
Mulberry began working for Alex in 2015, her first work being the seduction manga covers, which are highly sexual and could only be found around a high school campus at the time. While from what I can tell, nothing bad had been going on at the time, the story of Mulberry slowly gets worse and worse over time.
In 2015, Mulberry was asked to create 10 designs, which would later be revealed as concept art for the rivals. These designs were shown in 2016 on her tumblr. This is where we find the beginning of Alex mistreating not only multiple artists, but Mulberry in specific.
You see, why would he see the need to create more rival artworks, if multiple artists have already designed the rivals. And why would you commission another artist to make them, instead of sticking with the work you received for free?
In 2020, the cracks began to leak to the public, moreso than people theorized already because of how highly Mulberry praised Alex. In a chat with ClevelandRock, Alex told him he sees "him as a friend, and Mulberry as a tool". Calling your lead artist who openly offered to do any art you needed for 8 years straight is very shitty.
In 2022, a former volunteer named Yan released many statements and screenshots in a post you can find here. These messages show just what Mulberry was going through, but I'd like for everyone to be careful, as many screenshots related to Cameron are switched around and manipulated, as Yan had a vendeta against Cameron for a rumor he heard from his friends.
Lots of the proof shows examples of Alex asking Mulberry to copy or trace artwork, and at this point she had already been worn down by Alex through repeated abuse, so she was tracing for him. She had originally traced art, but broke that habit, and only started again around the time Alex requested she create artwork that is closer to Kjech's artstyle.
Mulberry is no longer part of the project.
Unknown - 20XX, Aged 1X
While it's unclear who this person was, there was an ex-moderator who worked for Alex named JoelCreeper, who was outed for grooming at least one minor. After Alex discovered this, Joel was reluctantly removed from the server, only to be let back in under a new username. This is briefly covered in the Yan statement above.
Anonymous - pre/peri-2020, Aged 1X
For the safety of this person, they'll remain anonymous, since they haven't made any public statements, however what I can say is that this very prominent person in the game but not necessarily the community was very public about the fact they are a minor working for Alex. What I can gather from my source, this person didn't hide it, unlike a handful of volunteers until they were already solidified as part of the project.
This person is inactive with their work for Yandere Simulator, so I believe they've left.
CameronF305 - 2019, Aged 15
After very long conversations with Cameron, I hope I can put this story out there and do him justice.
When Cameron first started working on Yandere Simulator, he had lied about his age. He told me this himself, and admitted to it, so his first year of working for Alex, Alex believed he was 18. However, a year later, Cameron admitted to his lies, but despite being a minor, Alex told Cameron he "didn't care" because Cameron "had a good head on his shoulders".... pretty weird for a middle-aged dude to be saying to a minor who's working for him.
Cameron pretty much avoided the topic afterwards, and spoke with Alex about both the game, and about other games they had in common interest. I'm unsure if everyone here remembers this.... but it's Alex talking about a game called R*pelay, which features a twelve year old as part of the.... "story". Cameron wasn't aware of the existence of this game... until a fateful day. While Cameron and Alex didn't talk about the game, Cameron has told me they spoke about the company on voice call once, and while many of us would rather think his questions about the game are fake, it makes them more likely to be real if he spoke about the game company, letting us know he's aware of the game, connecting him right back to this comment.
Just to clarify, Cameron's story only reinforces the comment from above, it does NOT imply Cameron played the game.
Because Alex surrounded himself with minors, predators, and generally manipulative people, everyone seemed to jump on Cameron. After our conversations, I began to see and sense a lot of empathy from him, and I think Cameron being the punching bag for everyone is simply because it was easy to hurt him.
Cameron has been a punching bag, and any time he made a mistake, he tried to make things better. Typically, this led to allegations of him harassing people, however this was simply untrue. He did nothing but try to make things better, but because of the shitty people involved in the project, and the fact Cameron was groomed into being part of the project, it was hard to find anyone willing to listen to him. He wanted to use this post as a chance to say that he spent so much energy trying to improve every bit of drama he was involved with, and his empathy is so incredibly high.
Thankfully, Cameron is no longer apart of the project.
PrincessDie/Yan & Magimoon
While the information regarding their ages is incredibly rocky, and their reliability, I'd like to mention that Yan is the reason we now know why Yandere Simulator lacks so many assets. In Yan's documentation, she reveals while Alex was complaining to fans about not having people who can make assets, he was asking multiple modelers to create the same asset, and choosing his favorite, and then complaining about how inefficient things are when he's the one in control.
According to the claims of both of these people, they were both minors working for Alex though, and while there's no evidence, it's entirely possible because of Alex's repeated behavior of associating with minors.
Neither of these people are part of the project any longer.
Jane - 2023, Aged 16
Ah yes, present day, the story we all know. In 2023, Jane was groomed by Alex sexually, much like sisefs. This is where the situation comes full circle. Sisefs didn't have tons of proof, however Jane did, and that made this situation different. If you'd like more information on this, it's incredibly easy to find here, though some details are incredibly rocky because she is known for editing things and twisting the story.
Unlisted - 20XX to Present Day, Aged Under 18
While I can't list everyone, my reliable source says that many other volunteers were underage. Some were voice actors, others modelers, and some were musicians in the making. Alex was aware of at least some of these, and it's very scary that he has very open access to minors, especially ones he has significant amounts of abusive power over.
Most, if not all of these people, are no longer part of the project.
Discord/Guilded Members - 20XX to Present Day, Aged Under 13
Alex claimed to be trying to get rid of minors from his servers, however there are screenshots of people in his "18+ only guilded server" where their profiles were filled with things like "I'm 12". For someone claiming to be ridding himself of minors... he seems to not be getting them away from him.
Conclusion
Alex has shown a repeated pattern of finding minors or dangerous people and putting them together, creating a very toxic workspace. He has groomed multiple people, either breaking down their self-esteem or by holding his power over them as their idol. He has repeatedly used this power imbalance to his advantage, and we should acknowledge everyone in this list, many of which are victims, each for varying reasons.
Grooming vulnerable people into doing what you wish is vile and heinous, and I think it's important that we recognize the damage this project has done.