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.

  • 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.

    • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Jirard’s Open Hands charity is a nonprofit so you can see their books through their tax filings.

      The most likely explanation is that Jirard is incredibly busy running a successful YouTube channel and so he had no idea how the charity is being run.

      When being made aware in 2022 he said he stepped in to make sure the money is being donated the way he believed it was. That wasn’t reflected in their 2022 tax filing but it still can be true for 2023, the public will find that out when those filings are made public.

      Karl Jobst is a really good content creator but he has a bit of a dramatic flair and tends to call things “illegal” when they actually aren’t and he did in this video again. Still I think that it’s important to make call outs like this. And I think that Jirard will make it right, now that he has been made aware. It’s clear from the filings that they aren’t committing fraud or skimming off the top. They just were sitting on the money probably because the task of running a charity was beyond their capabilities

      • olmec@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I feel like your comment is the most reasonable explanation. The charity sounds like it isn’t actively being run. It is probably a misunderstanding. I can see the charity paying for a group to run the charity, but because their income is very small, they want the charity ran frugally, and are paying the minimum required for management. The management is running the account, making sure taxes are filed, etc, but Jirard thought they were dispersing the funds too. They don’t talk much, other than a quick review at tax season, and the issue is never addressed, because both sides don’t interact enough to see the difference.

        This video really frustrated me, because Jobst is claiming things “Fraud” when the evidence he provided looks nothing like that. It isn’t great PR, but nothing so far looks remotely illegal, or even unethical. The internet just loves ragging on a “bad guy,” and are eager to get mad at the bad guy of the day.

        • Goronmon@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Over half a million dollars isn’t “very small” for this type of charity in my opinion.

          Not to mention, they seem to admit they’ve known about the issue for a while, but have continued to fund raise and present the charity as if it’s been running along doing good this whole time, but they’ve just been hoarding the money so far.

    • 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.

    • 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.

    • 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

    • 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.

    • 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.