Drift0r & NICKMERCS vs EightThoughts drama: A story of YouTube strikes, SWATting & harassment

Drama has erupted among a group of Call of Duty content creators, with YouTuber EightThoughts at the center of it, after he accused NICKMERCS of falsely striking his channel. Fellow YouTuber Drift0r has weighed in, exposing EightThought’s alleged involvement in a harassment campaign against him.

EightThoughts had made a handful of videos on his main channel, criticizing NICKMERCS for using exuberant facial expressions in his video thumbnails. As a result of these videos, EightThoughts’ YouTube channel was hit with a strike, which NICKMERCS has confirmed he was behind.

On March 19, EightThoughts posted a video stating his channel was “done” as a result of the strikes, and has since started a new channel.

NICKMERCS vs EightThoughts drama

This sparked some backlash directed at NICKMERCS, as some fans of EightThoughts, and other YouTubers, argued that the strike was unjustified, and a “soft” response to criticism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1DdzOvmFjA

When a clip surfaced of Nick discussing his strikes, in which he says “we took his channel down, as we should,” it sparked further controversy. However, despite Nick’s wording in the clip, he was not solely responsible for the channel being ‘taken down’, he simply issued a strike.

He also disputed the reason for the strike, saying it was not directly about the thumbnail jokes. The channel is still available on YouTube, but EightThoughts has moved to a new one. EightThoughts shared the clip on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/SweatyTesties/status/1378820787990196226

NICKMERCS responds to EightThoughts

However, NICKMERCS has since claimed that he did not strike the channel because of the criticism of the thumbnails, but rather because EightThoughts told his viewers to brigade him with tweets and insults. This could be considered targetted harassment, and a violation of YouTube’s community guidelines.

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On his Twitch stream, NICKMERCS accused EightThoughts of sending “a horde of people to other people’s accounts, and harassing them.”

Nick also highlighted allegations made against EightThoughts from Drift0r. A criminal trial in which an individual known as “blu” was charged with various crimes relating to swatting Drift0r has recently concluded.

Drift0r’s history with EightThoughts

Although EightThoughts was not charged with any crime, Drift0r alleges that he was involved with Blu in efforts to Swat him, and that Blu even showed up at his house, armed and wearing a ski mask.

Drift0r explains that Blu was a discord admin for EightThoughts. “Blu himself has told me he did it for money, he told me he is a troll for hire, and he personally doesn’t hate me […] but rather, EightThoughts was building a ‘troll team’ and planning to do all this kind of stuff.”

On Twitter, EightThoughts denied his involvement in these incidents, and also claimed Drift0r had exaggerated their severity: “Stupid yes, not illegal. I told blu don’t.”

https://twitter.com/SweatyTesties/status/1379161520689410049

Drift0r says that he has reached out to both Twitch and YouTube’s moderation team in the past, with complaints about EightThoughts, but that neither platform took action at the time.

It is against community guidelines, both on Twitch and YouTube, to “harass” identifiable individuals. YouTube states you are not allowed to post “content that incites others to harass or threaten individuals on or off YouTube.”

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This is believed to be the basis for the strikes levied against EightThoughts’ channel, both from NICKMERCS and Drift0r.

Update April 6

Drift0r published a Twitter thread with clips of EightThoughts, as well as an apparent recorded conversation with Blu in order to prove his claims.

In the thread, Blu can be heard saying “all I’m doing is trying to do get you [Drift0r] to snap. That’s all I’m trying to do, get you to have a meltdown.”

Blu mentioned that EightThoughts was aware of the reasons for his actions against the YouTuber. Blu’s primary motive for creating trouble is purely for entertainment, he says.

Drift0r expects to release more of the “10,000 files across 150GB” soon.

Update April 8

Drama Alert’s KEEMSTAR reports that EightThoughts’ Discord mod, Blu, has confessed that there was a deal in place to pay for him to visit Drift0r’s home with a gun. This goes directly against EightThoughts’ former statement on the matter, in which he said “I told Blu, ‘don’t’.”

As of yet, KEEMSTAR has not released any new information outside of this alleged confession and EightThoughts has not responded to this latest contradiction.

We will keep this story updated as new developments unfold.