I – Introduction
This is something I really did not want to talk about, but because of what happened yesterday with three huge names on Film Twitter being exposed of being sexual predators who harassed several women and are just overall down right cruel to women. I felt the need to say something, if it means potentially helping survivors and people who are going through abuse then I will do my part and help out.
Before we get into what happened we need to go over other people who have been exposed which led up to this. But first I’ll catch up the people who don’t know what Film Twitter is. It’s exactly what it sounds like a part of Twitter where people discuss movies, actors, actresses, directors and all of that good stuff.
I am not part of Film Twitter although I do talk about movies, I do not consider myself part of it and quite frankly never will given what happened/what’s happened over the years. I’ve made some friends from Film Twitter who are great people some of which thanked me in advance for making this piece on this topic. Next we are going to discuss all of the people who have been called out that I can remember, unfortunately I’m not going to remember all of them. But by the end you should get a very solid idea of what is going on and realize how common it really is on Film Twitter. So let’s start…
II – Spiro
Spiro was the first person I remember being exposed as a pedophile on Film Twitter, I believe he wasn’t a huge name but he had somewhat of a decent following. He pretended to be a 22 year old man when in reality he was in his 30s messaging girls on Film Twitter who were about 14-16 years old. After being exposed he didn’t even apologize he straight up deleted his account, the DMs came out and the stuff he sent to this one girl was disturbing and disgusting which I won’t repeat here. Spiro is no longer on Twitter thankfully.
III – Caillou Pettis
Caillou Pettis
This was definitely a shocking one and this is the only person who was exposed I actually messaged with. I’ll just summarize what happened with my experience because it’s really not important but it does add a little bit. I started actually using Twitter properly rather then just randomly post things in like 2018. Around the beginning of 2020 when I didn’t have any pictures of myself or have my age in my bio, Caillou Pettis who is actually a film critic on Rotten Tomatoes messaged me, which is fine we exchange thoughts on movies and then he asks me how old I am. I tell him I’m 25 (at the time I’m 26 now) he all of a sudden stops messaging me. Several months later he is exposed as a Pedophile messaging teens on Instagram and Twitter. He gave a very fake apology saying “he didn’t know the people he messaged ages” when DMs show that he was fully aware of their ages. As of right now Caillou Pettis is very inactive on all of his social media accounts even on Rotten Tomatoes.
IV – Joseph Solano (1st Time)
Yes you read that right Joseph has been exposed twice we will get to that later but for now let’s talk about the first time. Joseph Solano use to be a popular person on Film Twitter he would call out racism, sexism and so on he primarily focused on the Star Wars fanbase…which leads into what happened. For whatever reason Joseph thought it was a good idea to pose as a woman to “see if sexism is real” apparently several women told him not to do it, but he did it anyway. He also made a lot of people feel very uncomfortable as well. This leads into something you will see that plays a major theme in the next section. Men who put themselves on pedestals claiming “they are the champions of women and are the only respectful ones towards women because they speak out more than others” it’s a very toxic mindset and actually a quite hypocritical one as well. Joseph is one of those who used this logic and thought he wouldn’t be called out because he’s against abuse of women although he himself sexual harasses women. Joseph is still on Twitter surprisingly enough but that will probably change very soon.
V – Haydn, John Eberle Jr and Joseph Solano (2nd Time)
Finally we come to what took place yesterday which is what angered me to make this piece, you might be asking “after the instances you just described before why not say anything before?” which is a fair question, but it boils down to that I wanted to believe Film Twitter would fight back against this garbage, I truly wanted to believe people would look at what happened and say “we need to do something about this” sadly that is not what happened. With that said let’s talk about these three, last night a few brave young women came forward and told their experiences about Haydn, John and Joseph. Haydn was the first to be called out, someone who had a huge following on Film Twitter and like Joseph was supposedly against abuse and harassment towards women. Haydn sexual abused and harassed several women, used the “I’m lonely” defense as a way for people to feel sorry for him and he took advantage of his popularity on Film Twitter and manipulated people to not come forward. Some survivors even said they were afraid to speak out due to his popularity on Film Twitter. So it sounds like to me Haydn damn well thought he could get away with everything.
Next John was exposed arguably one of the biggest names on Film Twitter, like Haydn and Joseph he had the “champion of women/nice guy” mindset, John did almost the exact same disgusting crap Haydn did…sexually harass women, abuse women with very tasteless jokes when told to stop, he flirted with several women when told to stop he wouldn’t. John also took advantage of his popularity on Film Twitter he set up this nice guy personality where if anyone were to expose him they would be labeled “Cancel Culture” I would also argue John put himself on a much higher pedestal than Haydn or Joseph, he started that whole “Positivity Gang” garbage that really did not mean anything apparently it was a way to “combat against racism, sexism and sexual abuse” but each of these three who were all part of it are complete hypocrites.
Finally on to Joseph (again) he did a lot of the same things John and Haydn did but he also made a lot of sexual jokes that made a lot of women uncomfortable and told him to stop several times. He even made sexual jokes about a girl who was a minor at the time, he also said he was writing a screenplay about a lesbian love story and wanted to cast this same girl (who is a straight woman). It’s completely disgusting Jospeh also made an apology that’s just straight up manipulation and blaming it on someone else. It’s disgusting as hell and quite honestly some of the worst I’ve seen on the site.
What all three share is they were all huge names on Film Twitter, they all have that “champion of women/nice guy mindset” and all three took advantage of their platform to manipulate and sexual harass/abuse women. What’s even worse is several people looked up to these people, some people felt betrayed because they were friends with them. Yet these three took advantage of that and manipulated people.
VI – “The Positivity Gang”
What I do want to mention a little more is about the whole “Positivity Gang” thing, I want to make it clear that not everyone involved in the Positivity Gang are abusers as some people were more then likely manipulated into being involved with it I just find it very strange how the biggest three members were the ones exposed as garbage people (I believe John was the one who created it). As I said before the Positivity Gang was a response to supposedly combat racism, sexism and sexual abuse, which is a good idea those things SHOULD be called out, however the whole positivity gang thing slowly but surely morphed into this “I’m better than you because I’m more of an activist than you and call out things more than you” if anything the whole positivity gang thing felt like performative activism and had a lot of “that’s enough activism for today” energy. I love to use my platform to call out crappy behavior especially as of lately ableism (you know the whole Sia thing.) the difference is I don’t boast about how I’m a better activist than other people. It’s great using your platform to call out hate in fact that’s encouraged, stepping over the line and claiming you are better than anyone else is NOT okay.
VII – Conclusion
So what can be done? Well spreading awareness, educating people, calling out crappy behavior and reporting this type of behavior is a start. I truly hope this conversation does not leave Film Twitter for awhile, time and time again I’ve seen people exposed for this behavior, it’s talked about for about 2 days and then everyone collectively forgets that it happened. It’s a very disturbing process that has made Film Twitter a very unsafe place for several people, heck some people flat out said they aren’t involved with Film Twitter anymore because of this very reason, plus there’s the heavy racism which I didn’t even talk about in this piece (I will make a piece in the future about it though) where a ton of people got exposed of being racists. Some people might bring up the whole “it’s just a few people that shouldn’t ruin Film Twitter for everyone!” The problem is here most of the names I mentioned in this piece were very popular names John, Haydn and Joseph were a huge part of Film Twitter, I remember back then you couldn’t go anywhere on Film Twitter without hearing their names, how positive they were and how much they apparently cared about people. It truly shows you never know someone which is a very harsh thing to learn. I truly hope this community gets better and more people start talking about this in great lengths.