For those of you unfamiliar with this story, go here. Matthew Santoro, an extremely popular YouTuber with over five million subscribers, posted a video last week claiming that he had been in an abusive relationship for about a year with an unnamed person who hit him on the face, isolated him from his friends and family, and made him feel worthless. He claimed he broke up with his abusive girlfriend and that he was reclaiming his life and hoping to give other victims the courage to come forward. Santoro’s video was moving, thoughtful and seemed very genuine. He cried as he recalled what he went through in the relationship and said “men get hit too.” As I said in our coverage of that story, if he was lying or exaggerating at all he’s an incredible actor because it seemed totally believable to me.
In response, Santoro’s ex girlfriend, Nicole Arbour (also a Youtuber, albeit a controversial and much less popular one) posted two videos. In the first video she said that “there was no domestic abuse” and claimed to have broken up with Santoro, but she never explicitly denied hitting him on the face. She also said that she didn’t want to put her private life online and that Santoro kept pushing her to do so during their relationship. Arbour said that Santoro was “taking a tiny little thing and spinning it into something that just didn’t happen,” which was telling to me. In the second video Arbour challenged Santoro to take a polygraph test with her, live on her own Youtube channel, natch. Arbour also initially commented on one of her own videos that she “Heard the little bitch I dumped months ago is still trying to use me to get attention on his vlog channel. Ew.”
There’s the matter of a video which Arbour posted several months ago which contradicts her recent statements. In Arbour’s earlier video, which she removed and is said to be trying to keep copies off YouTube, she asks Santoro to take her back,and says that “we broke up” and “I don’t want to break up anymore.” It doesn’t sound like she broke up with him, which she claimed in her newer response to him, because she’s crying and asking him to take her back. She said “I’m sorry and I think we’ve made a mistake.”
Here’s the video which Arbour posted and removed. Someone copied and posted this to Daily Motion so it’s harder to take down.
Nicole Arbour – Dear Matt by nicolearbour
This humanized her to me a little actually, but it highlights that she’s rewriting the past and I can’t get over the fact that she has white eyeliner on the water lines of her eyes. It’s like she did it purposefully to look miserable. (I also don’t understand how people can put so much personal information out there. I’m someone who can’t even stick with Facebook it bugs me so much, but these are popular Youtubers and this is how they make money.) Santoro is also very popular on Periscope, which is for live broadcasting, and apparently these two did a lot of periscope videos together.* This of course goes against Arbour’s other claim that she didn’t want to put her private life online. She published that video begging him to get back with her and saying she was pretty sure he would be the father of her kids one day. That’s putting her personal life out there.
Arbour also tweeted about a year and a half ago that she can pass a lie detector test when she’s lying, which makes her offer to take a polygraph seem that much more hollow. Plus one of Santoro’s friends posted an earlier comment from Arbour in which she admits slapping Santoro and says she did it to keep him from driving drunk. I’m not going to get into the details of all that except to say that if that’s the case why didn’t she mention it in her rebuttal video?
For his part Santoro has put out two new video vlogs claiming everything is fine in his life and he’s happy now and looking forward to new things that are coming up for him professionally. He said that he received a lot of support which meant a lot to him and that “there are a lot of good people in the world.” One video featured a woman who apparently stayed over his house after partying that night. I don’t know what their relationship is, but he seems to be doing well now, which is good news.
Some of Arbour’s recent but now deleted tweets include “Damn right I beat him!! …at Scrabble, Wii, chess, pretty much everything!!” and “If you are being abused, get help. If you are making up lies to get back at someone for breaking up with u six months ago. Also get help.” As GradeAUnderA pointed out in a recent video about Arbour, can you imagine if a guy responded that way when an ex accused him of abuse? [via NY Mag]
(*Most of these details I got from this video by GradeAUnderA calling out Arbour, but it’s loud and sweary so I’m just linking it instead of posting it. Thanks to FLORC, Alexandra and MellieMel for the background on this story.)
Our grandparents were in wars at 18 and survived. The pussy generation led by drama queen internet twats cry at words hurting. Fak off.
— Nicole Arbour (@NicoleArbour) January 19, 2016
Why are these people posting their personal lives on social media? I believe Matthew and feel for him, but all this breaking up and wanting to make up…I guess talking directly to one another is not an option anymore? The phone? A letter?
Gets them attention and views, which somehow gets them money… I’m curious how youtubers get paid–is it YouTube, subscribers, advertisers? Who would pay for this mess?
I wish I could remember where I came across an article I read recently, about exactly how you tubers make money. Mostly, it is from advertising and product promotion. This article explained that only a small percent make any decent money while the rest scrape by.
They get around 15cents to a dollar per video view where an advertisement plays at the start. Once you see that ad they get money.
Santoro has expanded. He’ll do videos for giveaways of items provided by sponsors. Or spotlight something like a shaving razor on his stubble beard.
That pays a lot more.
These are all connections made at YouTube and vlogging Conferences.
GNAT, that’s exactly it.If you can only relate on camera, it follows that a real life, real-time off camera relationship would be very difficult. The camera makes it a threesome, (not the fun kind). I think this woman is monstrous, and I hope he finds someone better next time. off-camera.
Think of it this way, Santoro has 5 million subscribers on his “infotainment” channel, which is exclusively for trivia and fun facts and all that stuff. All this personal stuff is posted to his blog which has significantly less subscribers but still enough to be considered successful on YouTube. Arbour has one channel with about 300k subscribers and posts “rant” videos that cater to MRAs and generally sh*tty people. She has a lot more to gain by posting was this nonsense.
She’s never struck me as a nice or sincere person. She’s a shock jock, but a seemingly nasty one full of hateful remarks.
I’m sorry she’s crying and is sad, but alllllll of the other comments proves this is the type of person that she is. I really know nothing beyond the Dear Fat people post and her reaction afterwards and now this, but she seems to have a complete lack of respect for people in general, and she also seems to be not take personal responsibility for the things she does and says, and blames a lot of it on *doing it for the Vine* or video or the big book she was writing or whatever.
Karma in this case. She’s puts out pretty awful stuff and then is surprised when she gets boomeranged back with negativity.
Well – in his defense – he made his video originally as kind of a journal entry – and his way to cope with it all. He had it set to private. Then while mucking around in his video manager, he accidentally hit it to public – something I find relatively believable, since I’ve been helping the husband with his gaming channel lately, and sometimes it’s hard to tell what video are which if you’re not looking carefully. Once he’d realized it’d gone out, and realized people were taking the positive from it, he decided that he should tell his story in hopes of helping others.
I’ve watched videos from both of them -Nicole is kind of a shit person. I’ve also listened to interviews from Rob Dyke – friend of Matt’s – who said right from the start that he and a few other friends were concerned about the relationship from the get-go, but thought he was happy so they didn’t want to interfere.
I think Nicole is playing off the ‘but I’m a girl – how could I have beat him!?’ and trying to manipulate the situation as much as she can – which is in line with both Matt and Rob’s videos. After the whole fat shaming incident she tried to manipulate that situation by backtracking and spinning, and jumping on television for interviews.
I have to say – I’m team Matt on this. Maybe we’re not seeing her full side of this- but a video that is putting out a positive, hopeful message to abuse victims is a hell of a lot better than Nicole’s who seem to be more interested in tearing people down.
I also think her video calling him a bitch is pretty telling of the situation.
The fact he claims he “accidentally”made this public really rubs me the wrong way…Imo it was completely intentional. Come on,, this is a person thirsty for followers and fame on you tube–he wants that spotlight shining right on him. He is also far from a novice in terms of posting on you tube, it’s just odd that this particular post was the rare time he made an error.
Don’t get me wrong, I 100% believe men can be victims of domestic violence, just like women can. My problem with this story is that these two appear incredibly wrapped up in hashing out the details of their former relationship with the entire world, when I doubt they ever took the time for real, honest communication with each other (or more importantly a therapist) when they were together. Now, they seem happy to let their former relationship play out on the Internet, in the court of public opinion for the world to see. Classic he said she said, and the person who gets the most sympathy “wins” the break up, and as a bonus a bunch of potential new followers. Something about the way things have played out post-breakup for the couple seems off.
I can’t say enough how terrible DV is, and it absolutely can happen to either sex. But in this case I’m team nobody. Relationship violence should not be used as fodder for you tube entertainment. The way this former couple is going back and forth at each other on the Internet while knowing damn well people are taking sides just feels manipulative and straight up icky.
This is some crazy days of our lives shit, played out on social media. I too, feel for Matthew because DM is not ok but this is a real saga. I seriously have never paid attention or these video bloggers have never come up on my radar. Wow, we live in weird new funny times.
I can’t believe this, it’s just cringe. Facebook is also too much for me, sharing all that personal information, yikes.
Because Youtubers often make videos discussing serious issues for their audiences. It’s not all makeup tutorials and singing along to other people’s songs.
Youtubers often have frank and open discussions concerning rape, domestic violence and other topics. They have a young impressionable audience who looks up to them as well as a reach and effect that some celebs don’t even have anymore.
Considering the topic is domestic violence and not just boy friend/girlfriend squabbling maybe we could focus on the value of discussing that and not just saying they, or more specifically he, should keep it private and unspoken?
Apologises, I have little to no knowledge of youtubers. And perhaps I’m only gaining my view from the coverage of their relationship turning sour. Please understand that for someone like me, it’s crazy to see this. I completely understand what your saying and I realise I’m only seeing the tail end. But again I can’t help back think we live in weird new times 😁
I don’t object to the video he made discussing domestic violence, although his intention, as I understand it, was to keep it private until it went viral due to an accident and he decided to keep it up. I was referring to her video asking him to come back to her. I do not believe that our society benefits at all from this inability to connect one on one, and this need to share every passing thought and private moment with total strangers. And thank you for trying to dictate what my opinion should focus on, but I think that’s up to me.
@Aussie
With technology growing everyday I think it’s just that we’re on a path as humans to share more and make those usually mundane aspects of a person become a sort of entertainment? I remember being really puzzled by reality television shows when they first came out and how they transformed from competitions to just watching people. It’s a weird progression, lol, so I sort of accept at this point that there is a demand to see people just being themselves on film. I do agree it’s weird but at this point I don’t see it going back.
@Goodnames
If this was happening without cameras no one would question it. Abuse victim admits to being abused, abuser proceeds to mock them, insult them, attempt to make themselves a victim and then manipulate them into rejoining the relationship. Putting a camera in front of it didn’t change the dynamics of an abuse story we’ve heard and seen for centuries.
I’m not sure how a letter or phone call from abuser to victim helps society or the two people involved, but sure, that’s uh, thats me dictating your opinion to you.
Fair enough. On a completely different topic but still regarding technology, I remember debating with my family many moons ago about how the Internet could survive or make money!!!! This was way at the start and before I or many people could comprehend what it was capable of. Lol, my family love to remind me of this.
@The eternal side-eye
Thanks for the explanation of youtubers and that many do play a unique, helpful role in people’s lives, I had no idea of that aspect. Since people love the silly time-wasting aspects of the internet, it’s wonderful that some youtubers spend time addressing difficult topics…and especially good for young people, who spend so much time on social media.
I’m still a subscriber to his private lifeish vlog. I joined maybe 2 or 3 years ago to see why he wasn’t posting videos (because we binged through them all at the time). He was going through a breakup, give barely any details, and that was that.
Here and there he has posted awareness charity work on it which is why I stayed.
GNAT
Here’s a theory on why this all gets aired out. A few theories…
From watching the evolution of his broadcasts he’s built his more around his channels. He’s become more involved in his subscribers. He’s made visits, promotions, donations to them. It’s evolved beyond a sign in sign off relationship.
There’s a dedication to giving them what they want and to a degree you have to let yourself become invested in what they care about for it to work.
So, when he went dark during this his fans got worried, they saw he was less happy in his videos. He had to address this. It is his business also.
With that mentality you redefine private life.
And with so much information out there already… i’d certainly want to say my side.
Regarding Nicole’s dear Matt video… This is how they communicate. This becomes more 2nd nature than picking up a phone.
IMO
I seems like a natural progression from the popularity of realityvtv…. People are on the from the scripts and networks and going to straight-up viewing someone’s life as it happens on YouTube.
Didn’t she make that ” charming” video about how annoyed she is by unattractive overweight people?.. Who’s the B now? ?? Karma.
I made it through about 12 seconds. And I will never get them back.
Exactly! I want my 3 minutes back too. I immediately clicked on the video. The whole time I was wondering who the heck are these people ? . At first I thought they were well known tv actors ( I don’t know, I don’t watch tv) but after reading the post entirely I realized they are just random famewhores. No thank you.
Based on her videos Nicole seems like a horrible person. I know she claims its “satire” and that she doesn’t actually think those things but I know that if it was me I wouldn’t be able to make a bunch of videos saying those things even as a joke. I don’t believe her one bit and I think her videos show who she actually is and when there’s any kind of controversy she hides behind the fact that she’s just a “comedian”.
She even used an MLK quote to try and apply it to her situation with him. She’s ridiculous.
What the hell makes these people interesting to watch that they have million of subscribers?? They look like generics boring a$$ people to me, no special looks (one in a bolding whinny guy and the other a crazy peroxide blonde) and talents. You tubers have became the next degeneration of reality stars.
I am in my mid twenties and I do watch various make up ‘guru’ you tubers and I am still buffle at why and how some of them get so famous and rich from it. None so far have any special qualities that I have seen.
I don’t know. Mamrie Hart is pretty damn special! That would be a sad sad day if Mametown ever left the youtubes!
I am sorry but Nicole Arbour is such a freaking bitch. She deleted her own account herself and then claimed Youtube did that after she posted that Fat video thing. She constantly says stuff like PC culture is killing comedy and what not. She did a post about insta models that was one of the most sexist things i have seen. Also she has zero editing knowledge and i legit puked after one video it was so jarring and badly edited and flashy.
Someone should really take the textbook of an abuser from her, she’s following it a little too hard.
On point.
She forgot to say that she wouldn’t have to treat him this way if he just didn’t make her so mad.
This comment doesn’t have anything to do with the video but I wear white eyeliner on the waterline of my eyes every day. I read that it makes your eyes look bigger and also makes you look more awake. I’ve been doing it for years. It doesn’t stay on all day but it looks great first thing in the morning. I highly recommend it.
I will also vouch that whitish eyeliner in the inner corners of eyes is the bomb. It’s amazing how much more awake I look and it super makes my eyes pop! Don’t do the waterline. Can’t stand anything on my waterline.
I cannot believe that I have just read an article on Celebitchy that cited a GradeAUnderA video. Some of his videos should be required viewing I s2g, the perfect amount of truth, snark, and rage.
It is so weird to me that people (in relationships) talk to each other through youtube, Facebook, etc and not in person. I’m so sick of knowing peoples personal business. Stop typing and make a phone call or go talk in real life.
About her- what fans you nut job? Why are they even being reported on?
In the description of the first video that she deleted, she says that she hit him because he told her that she wasn’t funny and that nobody gave a shit about her. She also said that his words were hurtful and that she wanted to hurt him back.
Everything that she cops to in the deleted video (thanks, @HILDABRYN) supports Matthews account.
She can’t even keep her lies straight.
Nicole claims her style to be Satire because that’s the legal get out of jail free approach.
This video humanized her to me too. And the white eyeliner was distracting.
I put stock in the Rob Dyke account he gave in a few interviews. It pretty much confirmed what many who viewed these early videos were thinking. She appears fake so often, but in this video I believed her.
Outside of this whole mess. At least a discussion has come back to DV and how it can happen to anyone.
Wentworth Miller
The accounts given when the police were called. That carries weight. If nothing else she was taken away because there’s was suspicion enough that she was a danger to herself to put her on a psych hold. Or rather canadian equiv.
I’m surprised how many people on this thread feel that abusers should attempt to remain in direct contact with their victims; that’s one way abuse can continue.
They are using us. Playing off our sympathies to make some $$$. Next!
I can’t stand Nicole Arbour. She is such a twatwaffle.
This is such a reach I thought that kid Hectate wrote it. You guys should cover sports if you are going to do YouTuber because that drama is 10x more riveting than a thirsty YouTuber deleting videos of her looking desperate.
I like that they’re covering youtubers. I watch a lot of youtube videos and zero sports.
believe me this chick s borerline,nicole honey you may think you odnt want to hurt him but you do,go take a therapy,thats the only way,please dont have kids before you become normal.
Those spiderleg eyelashes aren’t doing her any favours. She looks Full Baby Jane. I hope she wears them every day now.
But isn’t this a joke … as in not real? They’re not really lovers? I’m confused.