Karl Jobst and SomeOrdinaryGamers (separate video linked here) have accused Jirard Khalil of lying to viewers about his charity.

Jirard is a YouTuber who runs a channel known as the Completionist, where he plays games to 100% completion and reviews them based on how enjoyable the experience was.

The Open Hand Foundation, which was co-founded by Jirard in 2014, was set up to raise money for dementia charities after his dementia-stricken mother passed away. However, their yearly filings with the IRS suggest that none of this money has been donated to charity.

Jacque (Jirard’s brother) responded to Karl’s emails to the Open Hand Foundation claiming that they are still searching for the correct charity to partner with and disburse these funds, whereas Jirard claimed that he was only aware that none of the funds had gone out last year, yet is still openly promoting Open Hand on stream and claiming they support the UCSF, Alzheimer’s Association, the AFTD and many other charities.

  • GenBlob@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Jirard never seemed like the type of guy to pull something like this and I really want to see his response but having the money just sit there (and hopefully still there) for years is a really bad look for him. At the very least he was just clueless but that’s still damaging taking into account all the lies on the charity streams

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I really want to see his response

      Muta talks to him during his video, I think. Response is basically “I had no clue” mixed with some vague excuses, including some that clearly contradict what was said before.

      And then does the “But I don’t know how to fix this, so if you have any idea…”, as if, you know, donating the fucking money is such a difficult thing to do. And like Muta says, they don’t even detail their operating expenses, so any accountant could have a field day with that.

    • badaboomxx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but after listening to the call, basically he pass the blame on both because they found the issue, to the point of saying that they did it for the views…

      After that I knew that something is off, then he replied with something like “what do you want me to do, give all the money away, that will only make me look bad if I do it right now”, but that was the goal of the donation.

      I mean, I wouldn’t see an issue if he was giving money but he didn’t and he was claiming to donated to several associations, which didn’t get a single dime

      Edit: big fingers small cellphone.

  • BigFig@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I have only EVER heard nice and good things about Jirard, so I’m going to wait for some actual evidence before making any judgements.

    • naticus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And on the other hand, Karl Jobst has always been very well researched in his videos, so I’m a big torn here. Definitely going to keep an eye on this and see where it goes before making my own conclusions.

      • echo64@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        He’s also someone who hangs around with nazis which is wild. He backed away from them when it all came out but then got chummy again so I got the fuck away from his content. Which is decidedly in the outrage bait genre these days.

        https://imgur.com/a/X7qLRXa his friend who he promotes in his videos, nazis fuck off, fuck you if you support this

        • Clbull@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          Are we talking about RWhiteGoose here?

          I mean… Goose is still prominent in the Goldeneye speedrunning community, and was only banned from The Elite for about a year before he was welcomed back. Jobst made his name speedrunning the same game, even managing to get some uncontested world records.

              • echo64@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                none of that is debunked, he’s just trying to worm his way out of it. the correct thing to do when you find out someone is a nazi is to cut them out. he doesn’t, then he tries to say i’m just trying to help him be a not nazi by promoting and featuring him in my videos.

                you’re a fool to believe that for a moment, especially when it comes from him.

                i want to be incredibly clear here, nothing is debunked. he said what he wants to say, you choose to believe him at face value.

                • britishblaze@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  You have been incredibly clear, and so has he. He is clear on his disgust and why he chose to help him rather the cut off all ties and whilst I would not do the same myself I do not condemn others who try to.

                  But so far there has been no evidence that he supports or sympathises with any Nazism ideals or ideas which to me is the breaking point.

                  If there is something I have missed then please show me but I have not seen anything to the contrary.

    • andyMFK@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      …did you watch the video? You can see their contributions have been $0 year after year with their tax filings, and Jirard admitted they haven’t donated anything.

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        I don’t know who this guy is or anything about the situation other than what’s written here, but if he’s naming specific charities supposedly receiving these donations, it makes zero sense that they’d be “looking for a good charity to donate to.” If that were the case there’d be zero reason to name the ones they did.

        • andyMFK@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          you should watch the content in the post before engaging in discussion about it. What you’re saying is kinda the whole crux of the issue. Jirard has been caught lying, saying his fund has donated to specific charities when in reality the fund has donated nothing. You’re right - it doesn’t make sense to lie about something so easily verified, but here we are.

    • code@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Easy to check the filings yourself. The research presented in the video is legit. There is no reason to have zero donations to charities since 2014. Zero

    • underwire212@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      What “actual evidence” are you waiting for? The filings are public (you can confirm literally right now) and Jirard admitted to the accusations himself? What else do you need?

      • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Welcome to the cult of personality. You could show them the guy’s fingerprints on the bloody knife at a murder scene and they would still ask for more conclusive evidence. 🙄

        • 4am@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Speaking of the cult of personality, you see a one-sided YouTube video and automatically assume this has been through trial.

          What about 2023? Was the money then donated? Where the tax forms filed incorrectly? Almost a year has passed since this supposedly just came to light for this guy. What has been done to fix it?

          I’m not sticking up for him, seems like this was a huge fuckup either way, but I’m not ready to burn someone at the stake for “being a personality”.

          • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            The accusation is not that the money has not been donated now, however. It is that the money has been sitting around since 2014, while happily paying themselves “expenses” from it.

            It’s just a mix of an externally paid expenses account + a tax writeoff for the years 2014-2022, so even iff the money has now been donated, that doesn’t excuse the previous 8 years and in fact, you can’t shirk legal responsibility that way.

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              1 year ago

              There wouldn’t necessarily be legal responsibility. Things have been reported to the IRS with the money sitting there. If they’re paying themselves “expenses”, that would need to be reported on their personal income taxes. If that’s all there is to it, nothing illegal is happening. As of now, that’s all the evidence tells us.

              Bad way to run a charity, but not illegal. That may change with more evidence, like if the money was paid out more than is actually reported.

    • Clbull@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      At the same time, Mutahar and Karl are very well respected content creators who do their research. They wouldn’t drop a bombshell like this if they didn’t have good sources.

      I too will wait to see how Jirard responds.

    • blue_zephyr@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      He’s already caught in a lie. Even if his unbelievable story that he, the director of the charity, was unaware the charity never did anything charitable for as long as it has existed (this already makes him guilty of failing the donators by incompetence), he still lied about knowing where the money went for all those years to the donators and CONTINUED TO DO SO AFTER HE ADMITTED HE KNEW ABOUT IT.

      Now he claims that he has been looking for worthy charities for over a year while he could easily just donate the money to the charities he has been talking about for years already.

      • undeffeined@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The fact that he kept naming specific organizations where the money was being donated after he was made aware that the money was just sitting there is quite the red flag. This whole situation is very weird and I must say, I’m really curious to understand what is happening.

        Also worth mentioning that the Charity organization tried to take the video down, another red flag

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        1 year ago

        It points to something hinky, but it’s not complete proof. If it’s correct, then the money is just sitting in an account. It’s not going into anybody’s pockets (although the interest might?). The open question is if the IRS form is accurate to the amount of money just sitting there. If not, then this starts to look like criminal tax fraud.

        This could still come down to incompetence rather than malice. That said, the quote from the UCSF guy who was fired years before the charity existed does lean more towards malice.

        One other thing to note is that while Karl Jobst does have a legal background, it’s in Australia. The US is also a common law system, but there are enough differences that Karl might not realize what is and isn’t illegal.

    • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I kinda figure he’ll show the receipts, donate the cash and this will end up being nothing in the end.

    • toasteecup@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Considering the last time Jobst had a big report about someone’s “misdoings” we may be waiting for quite a while.

      • toasteecup@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Dislike the comment all you want, it doesn’t make his wata games heritage auctions insider trader exposé any less of a speculation piece.

  • GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    claiming that they are still searching for the correct charity to partner

    Isn’t that something you should do before you start a donation drive? Wtf?

    • Inmate@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No, you don’t understand, this is decades long process for most NPOs and charities. Some will wait for a century or more to find the right organization. Doctors without Borders, for instance, has a notoriously difficult time performing their duties as the borders keep changing over time as they wait for the right fit–many of their doctors are, in fact, within borders.

      My charity has a pile of gold that a dragon sits on until the dragon has found a CEO and board of trustees who can withstand 20k° of dragonfire. Until then, I’d be a fool not to collect interest, for charity of course.

      • Meowing Thing@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And if you happen to use this interest and money to fund your company while you search for the right charities to support it’s OK. It’s all for charity sake after all!

    • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, unless it’s a specific fundraiser (as in, “We match all external donations up to X”), there’s no reason not to donate directly, in particular for cases where it’s easy enough to find a charity to directly support that isn’t someone’s personal tax deduction scheme.

    • Pseudonaut@lemmy.today
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      1 year ago

      Because sometimes it’s nice to feel like you’re a part of a community. I get it.

  • Silverseren@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Funny enough, I think the most blatant and consequential example of this not being able to be taken in good faith is the use of the quote from the UCSF person on the charity website. A person who was fired for money problems 7 years before the charity existed.

    No matter what explanation they can give for why they have a quote from him thanking them for donating to UCSF, I see no way for the explanation to be good.

    • BustinJiber@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Well, since they did not donate anything they couldn’t get a quote from anybody they donated to, that would be legitimate.

      I don’t know what was their endgame? It’s been going on since 2014, how could they not think this would have come out eventually.

    • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, that was the part that got me. That makes it seem really scummy even of there is some kind of genuine explanation for this.

    • Clbull@lemmy.worldOP
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      In all honesty I’m shocked. Jirard is one of the few YouTubers I have (well, had) a tonne of respect for.

      Part of me wants to hope there’s a rational explanation for why he and his foundation sat on viewer donations for a whole decade whilst knowingly misleading donors that their funds were going to a charitable cause, but I really think this is going to end his career. Just wait until every other YouTuber picks this story up, or when it goes viral on Reddit…

      • code@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        Hint: there is no excuse thats legitimate. Ive busted local charities the same way.

        • Clbull@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          I think some explanations are worse than others.

          Either the OHF have been incompetent with filing their annual returns, have been incompetent with actually ensuring the money goes to the right people, or there’s some embezzlement going on.

          • Silverseren@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            Well, Jirard admitted on the call in the video that he knew almost two years ago that the charity had never donated to anything. So strike those options off your list.

      • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Same with feeling shocked. He always seemed so wholesome and I like his videos. If this is a bad at it seems, then yeah. His channel is going to start hemorrhaging subscribers.

  • freebdsm@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I watched the video. It’s definitely not looking good for Jirard but I’ll reserve judgement until he responds. These allegations are really bad.

    • stopthatgirl7@kbin.social
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      I haven’t watched this video, but watched the one by No Ordinary Gamer, and he included responses he got from Jirard. It didn’t look great.

  • Gamingdexter@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I’d say watch both videos, Muta’s video is a little more in depth, but it is just odd to hold onto the money for so long. At least they aren’t spending it on nonsensical things, but if they get audited, that will be a big problem with how they filled out their taxes. I’m hoping for the best though, I do like Jirard and I can’t imagine how it is with your parent/family going through that

    • blue_zephyr@lemmy.world
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      It’s more than odd, it’s deception. He has been talking to his donators as if the money has been going to charities for years. He has named specific charities that haven’t received a single dime from them.

    • Ebennz@lemmy.ml
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      At least they aren’t spending it on nonsensical things

      They pulled out like 30k two years 10-12k other years. No idea what that was spent on.

  • GreenMario@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Watched it too, fan of both channels so this is strange.

    There is a possibility that Jirard just wasn’t in the loop and didn’t know, but someone was (brother?) But regardless this is very suspect.

    • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      As a board member of his own charity, he has to be aware of it at some point. Heck, he even acknowledged to know this since 2021 and still nothing happened.

    • underwire212@lemm.ee
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      At best, he didn’t know, which means he really didn’t care enough to even check to make sure the money was going to where it was supposed to be going? Like, the ONE thing a charity does? Even so, in 10 years, he wasn’t suspicious at all about not hearing back from these organizations (like a “Thank You for your donation letter”)? He didn’t give a shit about the charity, and used it to flaunt his own brand and ego. And that’s the BEST case scenario.

      Worst case scenario he is knowingly committing charity fraud…by using his own Mother as bait. Fucking deplorable if you ask me.

      • 108@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        He admitted to taking money out for reimbursement, how the hell did he not know?

          • 108@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I don’t know about anyone else but I usually check my account before taking out anything over a certain amount. Especially if it was in the thousands as he says.

    • badaboomxx@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Not sure, he told that he was aware on 2022, but in 2023 he said that they donated to several associations.

      Everything is really weird.

    • Silverseren@kbin.social
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      I don’t see how there’s any good explanation though for having a website quote thanking them for donating from someone who was fired for money issues 7 years prior.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    If it’s true. Fuck him

    My grandfather is in the earliest stages of dementia and his side of the family dies of alzheimers a lot…

  • Computerchairgeneral@kbin.social
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    Well, this is incredibly disappointing. I wasn’t aware the Completionist had a charity dedicated to dementia, but I’ve respected his commitment to preserving gaming media and history. Still none of this looks good and I’m struggling to find a good reason as to why you would just sit on donations for nearly a decade without dispersing them.

  • 108@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Even after he found out it didn’t go anywhere he was still shilling it as it was ALL going to charity. Using his dead mother too. As someone who’s Father died with Alzheimer’s, fuck this guy.

  • samus12345@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Normal Boots seems to have attracted scummy people. Please don’t be one of them, PBG!