Aw how cute. A simple, plain-talking old man making YouTube videos, editing them on a 2000's era desktop (with likely just as old video editing software), and lucking out by having one of his videos about eating a watermelon go viral which brought thousands of people to his channel.
But the shit hit the fan this weekend and much of it caused by his own reaction to some murmurs that were bubbling to the surface. Apparently, other YouTubers had started to jump on one person's discovery of an old Court case involving Featureman AKA Tom Willett. According to their accusations, which were backed by old newspaper clippings, Featureman was convicted in Nevada about 45 years ago of child molestation. Feeling the need to address this issue, Tom actually posted a video of himself describing the events around that crime. Big problems with this video!
First of all the fact that he posted an explanation video in the first place can be and in this case was detrimental to swaying the opinion of viewers to his assumed attempted minimization of the issue. Tom isn't dumb, and he seems to know enough about pop culture, and current events, so I was totally surprised when I viewed this video and saw Tom seemingly boast about how he got away with only a few months in jail as opposed to the three life sentences that were originally imposed on him. Not once did he deny the charges. Not once did he express any regret or remorse. He tried to emphasize that the accuser was 18 years old at the time of the trial, totally ignoring the fact that, according to news articles, the victim was 14 years old at the time of the crime.
Of course the immediate impact of thousands of hate comments directed towards him swayed Tom to make the decision to delete the video. In fact, within a day, most of the thousands of videos on his channel would be deleted as well.
I've long been watching this guy, and wondering about him. He never came out as gay, and didn't have any of the stereotypic affectations, but also he never talked about relationships past or present, although he mentioned friends that he's had over the years. Never married, no children, in his generation this usually boils down to one of two things: a priest or a closeted gay man.
The picture above is one of his portraits (Head Shots, I think they're called) used in his portfolio to present at auditions for prospective parts as an actor. I think it's funny that he's dressed as a priest. I think he was subtly giving hints about his proclivities towards diddling with the kiddies all along.
In many videos, it's been pointed out, he's seen making store-bought frozen cheese pizza. Apparently cheese pizza can be code for child porn. "C.P." It also can allude to the Pizza Gate conspiracy theory.
I remember several videos where he talks about eating at Chuck-E-Cheese. I specifically remember thinking, "What do the parents of the kids in Chuck-E-Cheese think of an old man sitting there eating pizza?"
One viewer noticed that in one video Tom was filming his computer screen showing his stock performance (he also did financial advice videos) and one of the browser tabs was labeled as a gay porn site.
In almost every cooking video he's done, he uses the tagline "Kids, watch out near hot surfaces." as he's placing his pan on the stove burner. He said the line so deadpan, and every single time, as to make you think, "Does he think young kids are watching this video?" only now do I question, "Well maybe through comments or DMs he does in fact know young kids are watching and maybe that was part of the reason he did these videos?"
Redditors have found evidence of Tom reviewing gay porn movies on IMDb featuring very young models as well as his suggestive comments on young boys' Twitter tweets including one comment suggesting a failed chocolate cake recipe be improved with a "banana and whipped cream."
I feel sad for this man. It seems like the YouTube Community was his only link to other people as he lives a very solitary life, and now it has reared up in a modern day witch hunt frenzy and likely has condemned him to live out his last few years in shunned isolation.