restorative justice is meant to replace the carceral violence of the state, not social consequences

For everyone who, like me, feels a bizarre sense of loss because they found comfort in Jacob Geller's videos, who found themselves better able to appreciate the beauty of the world after watching them, I just want to say that all that beauty we saw is in us. All that comfort you found was because something he said resonated with something true inside you. We don't need a video essayist to keep showing us that the world and life and art are beautiful. There are people who love us who can share that with us.

It's not my place to forgive, so I shall not.
Far too often people forget, so I shall not.

Beautiful video and metaphor. I've lived in Ithaca and worked at Cornell as a researcher for nearly two years. A younger me might have hoped a moment like this would force institutional change, but institutions like Cornell prioritize protecting themselves first. Cornell deserves every ounce of ire it is receiving because that is the only chance at accountability.

Lets all agree to save our comments for the end of the video!

Sorry Jesse. This one hits too close to home and going to have to give it a miss. Sending you strength and love and thank you for being willing to discuss these difficult, sensitive topics with care and grace.

As a former Jane Doe, now John Doe, thank for putting into words how I felt over this last week. It’s so hard for me to find the language to describe how my experience has impacted me and the scars it left, but you seemed to have done it effortlessly. My home was also rearranged into a place I could never recognized and there is no Ithaca to return to, but the horizon is endless. I hope that one day we’ll all find a new Ithaca.

The “essay mitigation” connection between these two cases is so strange and disturbing. And when you said it in the video, it was a real eye opening moment.

Funny, when Jason Arday killed himself I didn't hear about redemption. When Jordan Neely was murdered on the NYC subway I didn't hear about redemption. In fact, whenever a Black person is lynched, all I hear about is how they deserve it.

I DO want to live in a post prison industrial complex world where we believe in rehabilitation and restorative justice. I don't believe people who only want to have a conversation or read about it when the white man of the week is getting criticism actually want to have that conversation with me.

Beautiful video Jesse, and I'm sorry for everything you had to go through.

As someone whose abuser — my rapist, though I’ve shied away from the severity of the word because the people surrounding him have downplayed my experience so much — has a public platform through the music he plays, this video validated so much pain I’ve felt over the years that I have never been able to voice because he threatened me with a lawsuit for defamation. He never filed it, but the threat was enough to silence me because I did not have the money for a lawyer. And he, coincidentally, had the money for a lawyer to draft this threat up because of all the earnings he made from fans streaming his work.

I can’t take anyone seriously who says they can “separate the art from the artist,” because as long as the artist is alive, that is not possible. People who attempted to separate him from his work only bolstered his ability to further harm someone whose safety he stole. Thank you, Jessie, for speaking to the home I have never been able to return to — a home where my story and my safety meant something. Thank you for the catharsis of this essay. I may not have any path to justice yet, but the catharsis, the validation of this pain…it means something. So thank you.

When the news on Geller having assaulted someone first came out I remember thinking all of those excuses. I then went on the subreddit and saw so many people making those same excuses for his behavior, making pleas for for people to be "reasonable" about this and it was really only then that it had dawned on me that what I really wanted was for him to keep making art and for me to keep consuming it without guilt. That every single person defending him, me included, had placed him on this pedestal where he was owed his platform and they were owed his content, and survivors of assault owed him their forgiveness and their acknowledgement that he wasn't that bad person anymore. He was a new, good, different person. They may have to always be a survivor, but that doesn't mean he has to always be a r*pist!

This video really effectively dismantles the thought process that keeps people from realizing or accepting that they are perpetuating r*pe culture and making active choices that further harm survivors. It forces you to acknowledge that Jacob's crime doesn't exist in some microcosm, separate from that culture. That this doesn't only involve him and the pain he caused. There is a victim who will always carry that pain, and so many just like her.  I hope the people defending him still will watch this.

As a long time fan of his, I must admit I was a bit too willing to buy into the redemption narrative. But you made me realize that I'm the one constructing that narrative. He didn't give me anything to reassure me that I could keep enjoying his work. He didn't want me to know. If you hadn't made this video, I still would not have known.

Thank you.

Thank you for this. I wasn’t aware of what had happened until I saw your video.

Jacob Geller was someone who inspired me to pursue education— to write like him and to explore the world via visual art.

For me it’s just sad. That someone I looked up to turned out to be like the people who have hurt me. But I cannot imagine the horrors this woman is facing now. In my online sphere, Jacob Geller videos were passed around the moment he released one. How inescapable is this for her, especially now it has come to light? How has her future and home been taken away from her?

The man is dead in the water to me. His book is in the bin, I will instead look to the platforms that dropped him. I won’t forget, because I cannot forget my own scars, and I shall not forgive, as it’s not my place.

“Freedom from being told that what happened to us must eventually acquire a redemptive meaning”
As a survivor myself, these words are incredibly powerful. I am grateful that I came out stronger than I was, but I often grieve what I went through to get this strength, and I grieve for others that have to acquire and wield that strength due to same/similar reasons. This was an incredibly powerful video, thank you. Much love and support.

The "promising young man" narrative is so insidious I caught myself thinking it when this came out, had to stop and take a step back. I'm sorry for you and others who worked with him unaware of what he's done :( I started listening to Minnmax because of him, I'm just glad that from what I've seen their community seems to be very supportive of their decision to drop him

Jessie's probably the only person on this site that I could trust to get a video turned around this quickly on this subject, that would still be nuanced, insightful, and respectful to the victims of these cases

This whole situation with both Cornell University and Jacob Geller is proof people coddle rapists. As a survivor of assault, all of this just reminds me of things I saw first hand with my assaulter, how nothing came of it and how he was allowed to continue ruining lives. Meanwhile, I remember some guy I was in class with had his life ruined because he had a couple ounces of pot in his car. We ruined someone for possessing a now legal drug, and coddled someone who, by my count, assaulted dozens before graduating high school.

I feel awful for the people these bastards hurt, either by association or direct impact.

Sorry for the trauma dump. The last few days have really drawn out pain I wanted to forget.

I am so sorry you had to deal with this awfulness too. And that everything keeps reminding you of this.

I hate how these bastards exploit the good will and trust of others to elevate themselves.

as a survivor:  you mostly think you've gotten over it and then something triggers your memory of it and even if you've had therapy to help with it you still freeze and feel nauseous

It was only through Jacob’s videos that I finally joined Nebula, and it was through Nebula that I found your videos. This news is absolutely heartbreaking, but I am so unbelievably grateful for you, your words, and your perspective. Thank you always.

thank you for your video. this has been a hard week on the internet. the general response has reminded me of why I didn't go to any authorities about my own case. the jacob geller situation makes me particularly think of how the man who attacked me during my university days was also a smart, well-spoken man known within the local spoken word community. while I'm sure many people have gotten a lot from his art, I cannot go there for fear of running into him. I'm not sure what I would do if he blew up on the internet the same way geller did and I would have to see him and see people defending him.