A thing that wasn't mentioned in the video was that Kolo received a lot of backlash for their exposal. It had a terrible like to dislike ratio and a bunch of comments harassed Kolo. It's a shame that Kolo got a bunch of crap for speaking up against a popular person.
The person responsible for dismissing Kolo's findings never apologized to him either and is most likely still part of Demonlist team. All Kolo got was "I do not know which list mod responded dismissively on Twitter, but I would like to apologize anyway." which is worthless. That mod didn't just "respond dismissively", they ignored and buried the findings. They're incompetent and should not be a part of the team. But sadly, nothing will be done about that, and Kolo will not get the justice he deserves. Disappointing, but expected.
thing is if kolo was taken seriously space wouldn't have stolen all of those verifications and his impact on the game's community would have been nowhere near as bad
It's not exactly uncommon for someone to be caught cheating in the speedrunning community and the person that caught them gets ostracized while the cheater continues to do what they do. No, I'm not saying it's common to cheat. Just the result when someone does cheat is a lot more common than most people think.
I appreciate you covering this situation man, you did a great job. I actually didn't know all the details surrounding Kolo's claims, and seeing that demon list moderator's response feels pretty crushing. I remember grinding Acheron for months to be the first victor, just for Space to pick it up and "complete" it within a week. The worst part looking back is that I didn't even feel that disheartened by him beating it, because I saw Space as this guy that was just untouchable, like, I didn't even compare myself to him he's so good. That's how this man was viewed in our community and it's very unfortunate that it took so long for him to get caught.
As the guy who "competed" with space. The whole situation left me so confused ill never be able to explain in words. Thanks for the video i am glad i could help. Don't mind the [ZBOT] tag next to my name on the pointercrate stats viewer. Its a joke and mockery of space (i swear)
I love how they specifically force you to record mouse audio so they can verify that the clicks sound on time only to then dismiss someone who pointed out that the clicks sounded wrong.
tbf like what the video mentioned, theres also that wild claim of 'splicing' that was sent to the demonlist, but yeah still doesnt change the fact that the moderator who dismissed both is still unacceptable
As someone who was consistently trying to compete with space for a year, seeing this news was just crazy. All the time and effort myself and others were actually putting in just for one person to barely do anything and reach the spotlight, its just terrible.
space had the spotlight but now it's all gone. you play fair and square and even if your objective was unreachable, that made you a better player. keep going champ, you'll stay a legend
What upsets me most, is that when SpaceUK was originally called out to the moderators with video evidence, they didn't even bother to explain properly or talk to the person sending it like they were an equal. They just gave a rude, self important reply of "you are wrong.", as if they are the absolute authority.
"Experts" are often wrong, regardless of what we're talking about. It's often the aggregation of the community that correctly solves problems. Markets rule.
thank you so much for covering this, as the creator of slaughterhouse its hard for me to know the entire verification was a lie and hope a great moment like doggie being the first isnt robbed of anyone in the future as it has before.
As a person very involved in the geometry dash community this exposal was crushing. Yes the history of the game was changed forever, but space made countless friends in the community and he lied to every single one of them for YEARS. Thanks for covering this Karl!
I'm convinced exposal isn't a word, could find two definitions on non reputable sites that disagree with each other. Doesn't really matter but it's driving me crazy lol
Thank you so much for this video. It isn't very often our community is seen by the wider audience and I can speak on behalf of everyone when I say we appreciate you so much for this. The situation with Space hits pretty close to home for me, too, as I was the #1 player in 2019 and experienced similar events to Doggie with the level Zodiac. So I could almost relate to everything that happened but today's top players were affected far, FAR worse than I or anyone before them. Nothing beats the damage that Space did and I can't begin to imagine anything topping it forever.
@@anti7654 That's why you never have a collective account like that. You have an account with separate admins so everyone is identifiable. That said I bet they know exactly who it was.
Can we quickly touch on how that moderator saying "You are wrong 👍" is probably one of the most toxic and horrible things a moderator could ever say? The moderator didn't even explain his reasoning or anything, he just said some snarky sentance and pretty much just ghosted him...
problem is that nobody knew who that mod is now, based on one of the comments. i wouldn't be surprised that mod is a sock puppet account of spaceuk, or related to him
It was a pleasure working with you on this, Karl. As shocked as I was of the initial scandal I am equally as hopeful that something like that will never happen again!
@@s3batr0nic Edit: I now understand why the "statute of limitations" exist and have therefore been convinced that I am wrong. Original comment for posterity: Are you saying that it's okay to do something wrong if it's sufficiently long ago? If so, how long would I have to wait for murder to be okay? And if there's a line for things that you can just wait out could you tell me where that is?
@@hejgustavful Lmao, he's saying it was two years ago so finding evidence of who did it is difficult, not that it was so long ago so who cares. Don't immediately jump on the worst interpretation possible.
Kolo and the guy who added the zBot watermark are the true heroes of the story. As a GD player who’s played for many years and am not as on top of the community now, I had no idea it was this bad. SpaceUK is truly a disgusting person for robbing so many legit players of the glory they deserved. Can’t believe he got away with it for so long.
Kolo deserves more recognition and definitely a major apology from the mods that were super rude to him when he was just trying to bring attention to someone threatening the integrity of this particular speedrun community. Honestly the least they could have done was look into it, even if they didn't have the means to prove beyond reasonable doubt that spaceuk was cheating.
You do know it could be a thing that happened multiple times that someone like kolo accused someone of cheating and it could've been proven false and due to the amount of times it happened might be why just a theory
@@Tsuyuri193 it's their job and that's the risk, if they cannot burdened that responsibility then don't bother to be a mod. As Karl pointed out, the cheater rob any joy and happiness of pure dedication and perseverance from players who in fact beating the stage legitimately, also the various game awards that the cheater absolutely didn't deserve.
I agree, that “you are wrong 👍” would have made me so upset, I would have wanted a more clear answer like “thank you for showing us these videos, but we believe that your claims are not correct because…” etc. Otherwise it just sounds disrespectful and like I wasn’t taken seriously.
@@nonyabidness6492 It would have been much more professional to actually explain why the video was wrong and/or why no action would be taken, rather than sending a blunt message with a cheeky emoji tacked on to the end. It comes off as a bit childish to just shoot back with "nuh-uh" when it's their job to actually investigate such claims and make informed decisions, and to communicate those decisions effectively.
@@nonyabidness6492have you ever delivered anyone any work of your own? Imagine you have spent many hours on some project and give it to your boss or teacher, and you just get back "you are wrong". No explanation of what or why, no thank you for trying to better the community and literally doing our job for us, no nothing, just a dismissal as if you are getting shoo'd away. It's incredibly rude. If I was head of that mod team and found that out I would give the moderator a really angry talking to and throw them out on the spot.
@@anonymouse1001 Zoey is and was a well-known player in the community, and she even verified one of the most difficult levels ever. If she was nobody she would probably be ignored as well
If I was Kolo I would've immediately turned into the pettiest guy on the planet lol. I would've replied "I was right 👍" one time for every single day they spent dismissing the work and effort put in exposing this guy. Crazy that this is how a startling amount of people act when given even the tiniest bit of authority and power
This problem exists with all kinds of situations where people are given a modicum of power. Be it your local HRA, or a discord/forum mod or any sort of title that gives a person some authority over others. They tend to feel that they have earned that power and that others are inferior to them.
The "theft" you talked about in the end is for me the most damaging part of cheating. Be it on Minecraft, GD or any other game, the cheater made players bang their heads into the wall for months or years trying to beat a run or player that doesn't really exist. It affects so many truly passionate people in so many horrible ways that it escapes my comprehension.
It can also push human limits into places they would of never pushed to otherwise. So it definitely goes both ways, not that cheating good or anything. But in GD especially this is very true. There has been serval evolutions of the games player skills because of cheaters.
The ends does not justify the means. Instead of good players having a friendly rivalry to get there first, they face frustration trying to mimic someone who didn't even do it
@@Moleoflands let’s not act like victims though, they wanted to push themselves to do it. Everyone wants to be the best, and the placebo effect is very strong in humans. The best need the very best to improve, even if the “very best” was actually a cheater. At the time they didn’t know that, they had hope that a human could beat the level if they tried hard enough, and what do you know, they did. I’m sure they don’t regret the experience, pushing to heights they never thought they could. I’m not justifying cheating, but its cool to me what humans can achieve when given hope even if it’s false. Like it or not, a lot of these “impossible levels” would never be attempted if not for these cheaters pushing people.
@@WorldKeepsSpinnin while part of what you say is true, if someone wants to "test the human limits", they could make a tool-assisted run well advertised as such. the cheater essentialy did this (used a tool to make his runs) but sold it as his own play. i don't think what they did was forgivable, his intentions weren't good-hearted and he was obviously deceitful, i can't see how what he did was virtuous in any way
@@WorldKeepsSpinnin as the person after you said, make a TAS run and show it off. Take Zeromaster in the doom community. He's taken on a few impossible doom challenges, and shown how they could theoretically be beaten. Like spending the equivalent of multiples months to get enough revenant rockets to get 100 % kills in nuts. Or beating Map 30 in Doom 2 pacifist style He even used a TAS to grind out the right angle to shoot a wall with to trigger an all ghost glitch to set a world record on E1 M7. By having a TAS grind, then replicating it himself, he saved years of trial and error
The most insane thing is that Space's main rival Zoink was debated to a better player than a HACKER. (Not just in terms of points, but in skill too.) He is able to beat levels very quickly too.
I think that makes sense, since a cheater trying to avoid being caught will do good, but not TOO good. Space had to hold back and avoid beating levels too quickly, and maybe pick and choose which levels to sandbag on to avoid scrutiny. Zoink isn't held back by that, he can beat levels as quickly as he is able to without any concern because he didn't cheat.
The fact that you're not even in the GD community and that you made (in my opinion) the best video on this whole situation is crazy. Good job, as always.
It is why jobst is so popular! Lots of these videos he does are about games he doesn’t play! But he really takes the time to understand the most minute details. And then unpack them in a way us Neanderthals can follow!
That's what real quality content is like. Stuff takes time and effort to make, especially when he's trying to portray to us what's happened in a digestible and interesting manner.
Kolo is the absolute king in this story. The mod who rejected him could have easily told others and see if something suspicious was happening, but instead, they just completely ignored it. spaceuk sucks and should have been caught years before.
it’s genuinely a really good watermark. its subtle enough to the point where hackers wouldn’t notice it but noticable enough where if you knew you could easily tell
As his closest friend I remember finding out about this and feeling nothing but pure shock when I found this out to be the unfortunate truth, we were so close to the point there’s people that think I was involved in his hacking. I think what this situation has taught us is that as a community we need to be a LOT more on guard when someone displays for example unexplainably fast progress on things, with a lot of hackers they seem to disregard the fact that taking shortcuts doesn’t leave you unscathed in the end ++ this video is amazing, i wish i could have helped more than providing a few screenshots however it turned out amazing and i hope it brings some attention, not only to the game and to you, but also to people who plan to cheat their way to the top in future. very nice job as always karl :)
A person like him has no true friends. To be a friend, you need to have an understanding and respect of mutual trust and honor, he is nothing but a fake, maybe even a sociopath. I'm sorry this (he) happened to you.
@@holysecret2 Or maybe the guy didn't care enough about internet fame to make it legit, unlike a real life person who's usually completely different because they have to be people instead of anonymous users... or idk, it could be anything, people can be weird, but you're making assumptions about a guy you don't personally know and his personal relationships. Please don't do that.
I’m glad he brought up Space’s new channel, because it really is rough to see how parts of our community won’t hold him accountable and still revere him as some sort of god
from what i understand, he re-completed two of his earlier cheated runs(that of #2 and #1 hardest at the time), but without cheats this time around. so i guess it's not really unexpectable that someone would still cherish him.
Personally I think it's nice that he gets to beat them legitimately and show off his skill but the hero worship is kinda gross. Like, I do think people caught cheating do deserve a chance to make amends but this is way too soon and clearly just a grab for attention and devotion again.
@@_dr_9869 Let me get this straight. Spaceuk cheats, gets caught, lies about how long they were cheating for, gets exposed again for cheating far longer than they claimed they did, claims to be doing everything legit...and you think they deserve any type of trust or for people to turn a blind eye to everything that happened? He can never be trusted again. For all we know he just found a new, better way to cheat that's harder to expose.
I guess I can trust if space beat the golden (his first hacked level) legit, but definetly not the other one, everyone supporting him are kids who dont understand that someone could keep lying after they get caught initially.
Every cheater tries to admit a small number of runs are faked thinking it will get them off the hook, but it should be extrenely obvious that if youre caught your entire catalogue is going to be scoured. Keep bringing light to these frauds Karl. Shout out to the hard working community members that catch them.
Honestly, it probably makes it worse for them. Once they admit to cheating a bunch of runs, the people who are checking them don't need to waste time on those runs
@@JackieBright Honestly I don't see how lying hurts the person either. They're still going to suffer all of the consequences if they get caught just once. It's not as if if this person admitted to all of it immediately they'd suffer significantly less backlash, or be welcomed back into the community. It's so common despite being such a long shot because, at the point it's attempted, there's nothing left to lose.
I’m not familiar with this community but I appreciate you redeeming Kolo’s reputation, Karl. The man loved the game enough to call Space out and can now hold his head high knowing he was the first to see it. I’m willing to cut him some slack for the error about splicing.
It's more important to share suspicions and be wrong than to hide suspicions and end up being right--and the community reaction should never be to dismiss the suspicions wholesale. Trust, but verify, on both sides.
For real... Hail Kolo - FUCK the mods who were clearly working with the cheat, until the evidence became so obvious... they then turned around and made themselves look like the white knight who discovered it. Worthless POS. They are worse than the cheater... they knew it was going on, then turned around and tried to take credit for the take down they knew was happening all along.
To be fair, splicing is a much easier method of cheating to 'prove' and much more likely to be accepted as suspicious then the click variance was at the time. How many people have been caught out by splicing? He was just so sure that Space had cheated he fell victim to confirmation bias. >.
Everything about this whole situation is so infuriating to me. I feel so bad for kolo aswell. And the fact that so many people are just welcoming space back into the community with open arms is so weird. Space stole so much recognition from the people who would've been top 1 if he didn't cheat. Genuinely robbing them of potential revenue.
Space is not welcomed in the community. Many of the comments shown on his recent videos are ironic and almost everyone actually involved in the community is in agreement that he doesn't belong. Obviously there will still be some people that support him going forward but I believe this is a small minority
To be fair the comments are his viewers. The actual community might look differently at it. Still disappointing but not expected considering the whole dream situation that happened even earlier. The favorism in online communities has only gotten worse with time.
Its awesome seeing someone from outside of the Geometry Dash community do so much research to understand the little but important details that make up the game and whatnot. Seriously, to those outside of the community, so many things have been developed within the world of this little square game and its crazy
I call BS. I think the mods know EXACTLY who rejected Kolo, and are only trying to cover their asses because they are largely embarrased about getting caught dropping the ball so hard.
Feelsbad for Kolo, like he KNEW this guy cheated but was brushed off. The only time they found out that it was true when a mod official took it seriously. Sums up IRL. You won't get noticed if the admins don't do something and will only give attention if a higher authority will say something or if you have the power to do so.
One big thing I never see anyone mention was when space originally intended to quit shortly after completing the main list. It was super weird at the time because instead of just leaving the community he went out of his way to take down every completion video and had moderators remove his Pointercrate profile. In hindsight it makes total sense considering he probably just wanted to ensure noone would ever find out he hacked so his reputation could never be touched. He only put the videos back up and had his profile reactivated after there was major disapointment and confusion in the community which put a lot of focus on the missing videos. He may have suspected if people collected downloads of his privated completions they might look at them more closely so just putting them back up was less of a risk, but nonetheless its truly scummy.
@@karljobst You still did a great job at showing the magnitude of the situation. As someone who did look up to space I personally wouldve wished a focus on his "skill" even more because as Im sure you are aware he wasnt only *the* player, it didnt feel like he ever struggled. He beat top 10s in so little attempts it was insane. I mean even his reaction to beating Slaughterhouse was so careless it was like he didnt even take the game seriously. I do get that that wasnt super important for the overall story though and talking about all these magical achivements hed supposedly done could still kind of put him on a pedestal he definitely doesnt deserve to be on. Overall great video and nice to see GD being represented in more 'mainstream' audiences. I feel like you rarely see people outside of the core community mention GD
I've talked to SpaceUK a few times and he seemed like a really chill guy. Seeing this whole hacking scandal play out was more disappointing to me than anything and its a shame that he wasn't who I thought he was. I'm so glad you made this video to bring attention to this, it doesn't go unnoticed
I love the bit about the hidden zbot watermark, it reminds me of a story Oddheader shared on his channel about a programmer who had his software stolen by someone at his clients' office, only to enter a secret button combination and display an image of Sailor Moon, proving that he was actually the original creator of the code. Never underestimate how clever programmers are!
@@Golden_Pig64 I don't think so, although I think the video is called "Ten Easter eggs that got people fired". I feel like it was used as an example of the opposite (an Easter egg that saved someone's job) but I'm not sure.
One of your best one's ever Karl. You nailed it at the end when you talked about robbing people of those special moments that they can be proud of, no matter what they are. Imagine being awarded a Silver Medal at the Olympics in front of the whole world and then finding out years later, you were the actual Gold Medalist!
I love how Karl can take a game that I have zero interest in, and get you invested in not only the who, but the why of a games fanbase, and showcase why people love a game in very understandable ways.
yo have you started playing? ive been playing like almost 7 yrs rn, its really enjoyable i can give you a pdf to my progression picks ye aight peace out bro
Thanks for covering this! Geometry Dash has had hacking scandals before but this is by bar the biggest most insane one. Hopefully this community is able to recover from this kind of betrayal of trust and get better at spotting this kind of thing. While I'm much more interested in the level creating side of the game, top players and big achievements mean a lot to this community and have a big impact on it's well being.
from the outside looking in, the game has a very high skill ceiling with custom content, and great systems in place to catch hackers/cheaters. also, awareness of how to catch cheaters is now at an all time high. i think the human element of trust just got in the way of properly checking everyone with the same scrutiny, definitely looks like the mod team learned from that though. I dont see any reason the community wont still thrive after this much love to yall actually putting the time in to grind these levels, or supporting those who actually put the time in. the precision looks insane, reminds me of these top level guitar hero players nowadays. the dedication and pride is just awesome to see
Thank you Karl for always covering these stories. It's a reminder for me that cheating is never a good option, not just in gaming, but every aspect of life. Not only does it take away the pride and fulfillment of achieving a goal, also karma will always catch up.
Cheaters don't realize that they're only cheating themselves, which sucks because that would be a good deterrent for them since they care about themselves so much.
Kolo's video commentaries were pure gems, people even saying that they were professional video editors by many years and that the frame delay was normal, man... lol
As a frequent watcher, I always thought that legit top players in any other game would feel only relief after someone's exposal. After this incident, I realized truly how big of a theft cheating really is in such a game, because for the first time, it is actually associated with a game I used to be passionate about. I will never experience the disappointment or the robbery first hand, because I will never be a top player, but it truly made me put everything in perspective and realize that cheating is very far from just lying.
Thank you so much for this video. I was on the list team for a while back in 2018-2019 and things were much different back then, the ways someone could hack were extremely limited and usually rather easy to spot. Honestly I think another big reason he slipped through the cracks was just how much things were changing at the time he started doing it. The game took such a massive leap from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020 in terms of how the average person played the game. New tools like megahack and zbot were getting more and more advanced by the day, suddenly there were a lot more ways someone could hack. A lot of us around that time sort of expected someone to just pop up and take over with all of the new tools at one's disposal, so even though we were skeptical of space I think we all came around way too quickly. The methods for hacking were becoming outdated so fast that no one even thought to check the way that he ended up doing it, as you said. I'm also extremely disappointed with the community's response, given how much he disrespected our community and the players in it. I just have to hope the majority of the people who are rightfully unwilling to accept his return wouldn't go to leave a comment in the first place, leading to the majority of comments being positive. Spaceuk was always very charismatic and likable and I think the way he played his "return" made a lot of the community forgive him rather quickly. I'm really disappointed in them, I really want us to take a stronger stance against players like this so we discourage future players from attempting stunts like this.
As an observer of this situation in the GD community, this whole situation really comes across as deliberate negligence to me. The Demon List has been known for years for having ridiculously strict rules for players submitting records, even going as far as not allowing records of players accidentally exiting before reaching the end of a difficult level when it has already been beaten (usually due to ending logos showcasing all creators that took part in making it, which can take over 30 seconds before reaching the level end). To see them deliberately put a blind eye to someone that they believe is legitimate because they have shown they are a good player before is reckless and unprofessional, especially for a list team who demands a lot from you to be considered fully legitimate. I understand that laziness does come in every now and then and that is perfectly reasonable. But when someone has provided with facts that bring up genuine concern, dismissing the portions of things found that are correct and taking the parts that are incorrect as the full truth is just a demonstration of favoritism. As you said Karl, being a good player doesn't make you any less likely to cheat. What did happen here could have been avoided if there was more care put into actually looking into everything that was being said. But alas, the GD community now has to deal with this impact that SpaceUK caused which will never go away.
One thing: was click variance believed to be credible evidence of cheating at the time Kolo uploaded his video? If it wasn't, I can kind of understand that they wouldn't look into it. But if it was, then yeah that's kinda probably just favoritism. Though let's not forget that according to Karl, it was probably just one stupid mod that rejected Kolo's proof, and the rest had no idea.
@@Topunito from what I remember people just literally used to think that those were lags because the only person seriously using this as exposing was eiriley and non-russian speaking community didn't want to listen to him most of times
That "You are wrong" is the most power that mod has ever felt after being bullied all the way through school and likely still into adulthood. Hard not to laugh at him
To expand on the ending of this video, Space did more than just steal the verification title from Doggie. He also stole many, many first victor titles from that actually deserved that attention. In GD, the “first victor” is the first person to beat the level after it’s been verified and uploaded. Being the first victor of a demonlist level is a big deal, and can get you a lot of attention from the community. The worst part is not only did he commit the “subtle” theft of stealing that pride and accomplishment from deserving players, he actually caused real damage by stealing millions of views on his completion videos, robbing those players of real world money they would have otherwise earned legitimately. Space knowingly caused real world damage to competing players (many of whom were his friends) for years and never confessed until he was forced to.
You perfectly described the real lasting damage these cheaters cause, and this is why I won't ever not get angry at people defending them, saying that they are not terrible people or that it's just a game.
I'm glad you covered this topic, but I would like to say something. The part that pisses me off the most with this scandal is the other levels on the demon list. Levels like Abyss Of Darkness, Sakupen Circles, and especially Silent Clubstep were all deemed to be harder than Slaughterhouse, which would place them all at #1 on the demon list. But because of spaceuk's biased opinion, they were all moved down below Slaughterhouse, robbing them of the #1 spot. Since this came out, Silent Clubstep has moved up above Slaughterhouse, but still at #3. Many people are still pissed that this once impossible level was robbed because of a biased cheater. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, said this was #1 at the time.
This isn't true, many people said silent clubstep wasn't top 1 at the time, including cursed and trick. Also it's nerfed so it's not actually the true silent clubstep.
more people actually said ~top 3 to 4, i saw someone make a chart with the sc difficulty ratings from players experienced with the level before it got placed. just clarifying
I think it's crazy that someone with very little involvement with and background knowledge of this game and its community can make a better Geometry Dash video than most GD UA-camrs, which really says a lot about both our community and you. Just like your previous uploads, this was a really good video!
You are watching the wrong people then, there are a lot of gd creators that put an insane amount of effort into their videos. Unfortunately 100 "different" 5 second long "the worlds smallest violin" shorts get 10 times the views
@@erlouwer this is true. People like onealphahelix make videos that are pretty easy understand and are 100%, reliable since they are active in the community. Unlike some that create videos to bait kids for clicks
@@erlouwer man, everyone in this community wanted to jump on this topic so quickly that yes, this is one of the few videos that is actually informed and high quality about this situation
You act like he is some outsider and creating a new physics theory.... this sh*t isn't that hard. He isn't unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics as an outsider with no academic experience.... I am honestly amazed at what other people are 'amazed' about. This is some low level stuff. He makes good videos, which is a skill anyone can pick up; it just takes a little effort; it isn't that 'crazy.'
From the perspective of a video game WR holder, not only does "being good doesn't make you less likely to cheat" but being good can also make you bored, tired, and lazy. I've looked into the practically non-existent hacking scene for my game and fiddled around with glitches and cheat engine in my spare time because it can mess with the game in new and interesting ways. One of the most fun I've had with my game in years was when someone made a fan engine and it was glitchy as hell, because it was silly and novel. But I'd be the first to fight that using these things shouldn't be allowed in "official" runs. Because the fan engine you can go in and switch up parameters really easily.
I hope the mod who so *smugly* responded that the evidence was wrong, obviously without looking into it at all (or they wouldve given an explanation) is utterly ashamed of themselves....
I was an early viewer of Space and would watch him on twitch back in the day (you can see me in the chat at 22:15). For 2 and a half years I thought I knew this guy, until one day what was hiding in plain sight suddenly crashed down on everyone like an anvil. Just like that, the greatness I thought I had witnessed was all gone. Thank you for making this video, you couldn’t have put it any better into words - we as a community really do appreciate this.
I’m so incredibly happy you covered this. This was such a huge event in the history that it changed the history of the competitive side of the game. Even as someone who plays competitively, not at the top level, this completely changed my perspective with top players. It still blows my mind that he didn’t feel any emotion with what he was doing all this time, considering how much he stole from others. Also you including Doggie’s video at the end was perfect. Thank you so much for covering the situation, so the people who really deserve it get the recognition they deserve
Just to clarify, was there a lack of emotion in that he didn't care about the consequences, or that he literally felt little emotion about what he was doing (i.e. something closer to sociopathy)?
@@vreschen939 I don’t think he did cause initially he retitled his completions to showcases, just so he could keep getting views on his videos, and the fact that he hasn’t left the community and still uploading completions just cause he wants more attention is scummy
I don't even play this game, yet it still has me mad at how Kolo never really got justice. The fucking cheek of calling it "Blatant misinformation and bad data." Yeah, you can definitely tell this was 2020 when the easiest way to dismiss anything of possible merit was to just call it "misinformation." Why didn't they check who posted it? It was using their Twitter handle. Of course they could check the logs. Of course they could check who posted it. My guess is it was someone important enough where they didn't want to address it. If I was to go full tinfoil hat, it might even have been the mod who repeated word for word what Kolo said as it became more and more apparent that SpaceUK was in fact cheating.
I would hazard a guess that the moderator only looked at the second video and not the first. The second video was absolutely wrong, and only a fool would continue to listen to someone who lies. Also, there really is a ton of misinformation out there. It is so much easier to create bad information than it is to create good information. You can literally just make shit up on the spot, and that's bad information. If you want good information, you actually have to put the effort into researching something. It also takes a lot of effort to debunk bad information. All of this puts the truth at a disadvantage, so we as humans need to compensate for that by quickly identifying and removing bad information. Sometimes small mistakes are made in this process, like with this moderation decision, and sometimes huge mistakes are made that completely warp your entire perception of reality, as you believe that lies are the truth and the truth is a lie.
Unfortunately in this case, Kolo's only mistake was posting two videos in the same comment. Humans are practically incapable of responding to two things in the same train of thought. If you've ever asked two questions in a single email before you know this to be true; people will only respond to the first question and forget that you even asked a second one. You really have to dumb yourself down when interacting with the general public. Use simple words and sentences, and numerate your questions. Most people won't even know what I mean by the word numerate in that last sentence; that's the level we're at nowadays.
@@123457474869 Youre so delusional that it is laughable. I agree that people nowadays are stupid, but not THAT stupid as to not know what numerate means
@@123457474869 Numerate is an adjective, not a verb. Someone who is numerate is someone who understands numbers. "Numerate your questions" is complete word salad. I cannot believe the fucking audacity you have to act all smug and superior when you're literally using words you don't understand in order to look smarter lmfao
thanks for allowing me the opportunity to help with the video. you did a great job detailing how the community works, and i feel like this is a big step for the community as a whole
It's crazy to see you uploading a GD video. I've been watching your videos for a good year+ and its so good to see you talking about this, and push out GD completions even more. Thank you so much for what you do!
I think something that would have also been worth mentioning is that Space profited real money out of this, whether it was through monetization or stream donations, which is another one of the things that he took away from other players that deserved it. A couple people hold the view that this hacking scandal is "not that deep" or that "it's just a 4 dollar game", which is just ridiculous all things considered. That being said, thank you for covering this! Most GD-related videos are hard to digest for people outside the community since we use a lot of weird terms that don't make sense out of context to talk about the game, but this video definetly did a good job covering the whole situation to outsiders as well.
As someone whos actually a part of this community, this just goes to show how impressive Karl is with his research. He did a phonomenal job with this video, and im just glad he was able to express how difficult all of this was for some of us to accept. Still massive props to your previous videos, but this one deserves to be viral.
And also all the people who dedicate a lot of time to analyze suspicious runs. And those who dig into archives to give back awards to their actual legitimate owners who were ripped off by the cheaters.
I don't get how you even get caught cheating in a game like this. You could write a script that would mouse click for you perfectly because basicallly every level is just a sequence of timed clicks and holds that will never change so it wouldn't be hard to make a script just do that sequence for you
Demon list mods microanalyze clicks to account for outside noise, etc. If all the clicks were the same sound or volume, it would instantly be a red flag. Some sections such as spam would naturally require shorter, faster clicks that are almost continuous, while other sections require long holds. This difference in volume, sound, etc. that is seen on a legit run is impossible to be replicated by a bot or macro, ESPECIALLY for spammy/fast click sections that are in almost every top demon. For those sections you would need to record the sequence of clicks in successive order in one take rather than just recording one individual click and applying it to every input. And given that the entire sequence has to match not only the frames of the previous clicks in the sequence but also the frames of every other click in the botted level, it's basically impossible to not have at least one inconsistency.
I'm not even really a gamer and usually have no knowledge of any of this stuff, but I love how Karl makes these videos so compelling and entertaining. I watch them from start to finish, sometimes more than once.
Karl is a great writer / storyteller. I usually am very biased against these indie or older titles like Doom because of how they look, but he makes me grasp and appreciate them.
Very true, but it is still sad that it took a higher figure years later looking into it for the situation to be taken seriously instead of listening to a person that you're SUPPOSED to take seriously and give agency to as your job.
As someone involved in this community for around 9 years I've seen many cheaters like Noobas, Andromeda, and Cyclic come and go and I have NEVER seen one so well received and welcomed back into the community like SpaceUK. Even Andromeda, who came back and beat everything legit took around an entire year off to let the situation cool down and reflect on himself in order to gain his trust back. I completely agree with what you said, SpaceUK should have just left or at the very least taken a year off like Andromeda before coming back to beat everything legit. Frankly, I can't ever see him as legit, even if he is beating the levels he hacked legit now, and I never will see him as legit. Awesome video as always
@@HermannTheGreat the reason why he wasn't caught and the dl believed him for so long is bc he has actual skill, plus he shows his folders and everything on his laptop at random intervals in streams. He isn't hacking this time.
I can't overstate how valuable you are as a platform/spotlight, Karl - these are games, subcultures, communities, achievements and scandals that I'd never otherwise know anything about, because it's well outside my habits and interests. But you make it totally engrossing.
I think we should have a big shout out to the people who investigate these things and find the cheaters, even when these people seem above reproach. Good on Kolo and Zoe. Also respect to the mods for recognising the mistakes, it isn't easy to admit you were had, or did something wrong.
Lol did you read their apology? It was the most corporate and soulless "we made a continuous lapse in judgement" shit ever. Kolo's getting shit to this day, and SpaceUK is being praised in all his videos. Fuck that shit. I'm glad this video got this big, the community's a cesspool of sycophants.
it's always unfortunate when you see moderators, who are supposed to be those responsible for upholding integrity, dismiss such an undeniable claim in a way that makes the whistleblower appear like an outcast. I feel bad for Kolo having to live as long as he did knowing there was so little he could do to expose this cheater for what they are.
You nailed it at the end - the worst part about the GD community is how quickly it forgives hackers. They can basically just continue playing the game as if nothing happened, with the majority of people remaining positive about them. They act like courageous to come out as a hacker and noble to complete your previously hacked levels legit. It’s terrible. I only hope that in the future cheaters are caught before they get big, because once they do get caught it doesn’t even matter.
The difference between the other hackers (some of whom redeemed themselves) and SpaceUK is that he showed no remorse and tried to cover it up. npesta said it didn't even weigh on his mind at all and he could lie like it was nothing.
This video has such an important lesson that we need to take everyone seriously, had people taken Kolo seriously none of this would've happened, but instead it took over a year and the attention of a very well known player to actually have something done.
But for every Kolo, there are 1000 trolls. You can't just blindly believe everyone either. It's hard to sift through all claims, takes a lot of time, and it can be a lot to ask of a volunteer. We do our best. But yeah, that mod shouldn't have been a dick.
@@destructionman1 yes but instead of actually reviewing the video or anything some dumwad decided to just say “you are wrong 👍” and ignore it, that is the biggest jerk move a mod could play
25:00 this is so cringe, nobody who actually puts the time and effort into getting this good would react like this. This is what someone cheating thinks a natural reaction would be... but sadly he's clueless.
I truly never thought of cheating the way you described it here, but you're absolutely right. When you cheat in order to win, you really have stolen a moment from someone. Something intangible but very real to them. It's a truly special reward to know that you are the best at something because you put in the time and the effort to become the best, and it's just not the same to put in all that work just to be beaten to the punch by someone else. Maybe it's not what I should be feeling right now, but I feel like I have a newfound disgust for cheaters when viewing it this way. Thanks for all the work you do to expose and spread the word about cheaters, and especially for giving credit to the true champions of these games. You truly are an absolute legend!
Same. I personally have never had the experience of being the first in the world to achieve something, so I had never even thought of that aspect, but once he spelled it out to me it all makes so much sense. Cheating really does cause so much more damage than I initially realised.
"I do not know which list mod responded dismissively on Twitter, but I would like to apologize anyway." just proves the entire team shouldn't be trusted, as that mod is still most likely a part of the team.
@@LordDragox412 they are all volunteer teenagers/young adults who wanted to help the community and aren't getting paid to do so, try to cut them some slack
@@Crysticai I volunteered for over 10 years at many places, every single one of which required me to uphold a certain standard. If I didn't, I would be called out and held responsible. While the negligence, incompetence and terrible management of the rest of the team can be somewhat excused, the mod who responded to Kolo doesn't deserve any slack.
To be fair, that was one dude who at the time was 16 years old, so its not really fair to lump the whole team like that. I’ve talked to many of the moderators to submit runs and they’ve been nice and professional.
The demonlist is not an official mod team by any means. It's just a bunch of random Geometry Dash players who are friends with the person who made the unofficial demonlist website. The demonlist mods just decided to start acting like they were of high authority, and few people have protested. The real official mod team is a group of community figures picked specifically by RobTop himself, and they mainly just decide which levels to send to RobTop for approval before establishing them as star rated levels. As far as I know, there is no overlap between the demonlist mod team and the official mod team.
As a biomedical engineer, I think the fact that most of these speedruns need to contain video is the problem. The reason all these scandals go on for so long is because the mods never believe the #1 player is a cheater so they don't check their videos as thoroughly as they would if you or I submitted a time. You can tell by the snarky response from the mod that the fact that Space would cheat wasn't even conceivable to him. In the medical field, we avoid this issue by doing "blind reviews" where if I submit a research paper, my name gets removed. That way a paper from me would be treated the same as a paper from Stephen Hawking because there's no bias. However because speedrunning submissions require video, and the mods would obviously recognize Space on video anyway, it's a lot harder to remove bias.
That reminds me of the Overwatch system for determining if players are cheating in Counterstrike. Identifying information is removed and multiple random "trusted players" are tasked with reviewing the demo and determining if the subject is cheating by consensus. Pretty clever way to do it.
@@sheltongolden4394 this would be a hard thing to fully implement on gd. in this game you can customize your icons, that is, you can make cosmetic changes to how your icon looks, such as changing its colors or choosing the models used for each gamemode. there are millions of possible combinations, called _icon sets_ the vast majority of players pick one icon set they like and stick with it, rarely making any changes. it often gets to the point where their icon set becomes part of their identity as a player (*many* players have part of their icon set as ther pfp, for example). in fact, most people would be able to recognize a well-known player only based on the icon set theyre using as you can imagine, this makes it very hard to remove identifying factors from the gameplay, as youd need to see the icon in order to check if the run is legit or not. its still entirely possible that a player changes their icon set for a completion, or that they use someone elses icon set for a bit, but most of the time mods would be able to recognize most top players, and the bias would still be present
I'd like to point out that academic journalism is not immune to cheating either. I'm not 100% sure if this is the same process you're talking about, but Bobby Broccoli has some fascinating documentaries about scientific scandals, and the one that kicked him off was about Jan Hendrik Schön. Jan won a lot of awards and recognition, had a LOT of papers published in both Science and Nature, but was completely bullshitting all of his work. He figured out how to work people and how to play the system, to the point that yeah...a fuckton of people, when the experiments couldn't be replicated, they just thought he _must_ be _just that good._ Fraud never entered the majority of people's minds. The fact he was working in a niche field and allegedly doing things that had never been done before (so the majority of reviewers would not have the expertise to verify if the entire thing was correct) really helped...which is similar to speedrunning a game. Niche field, with the most recognition given to people who have done things other people haven't yet. Usually tho, other people can eventually replicate or surpass those achievements, which makes it harder to know if it was cheated...but "the one who did it first" is still held in high regard. It's not really an issue with anonymity, is my point. It _can become_ an issue once someone builds a reputation, but in other speedrunning communities, concerns about cheating are always taken seriously, so long as some evidence is presented.
GD players have 4 main endings 1: You get bored of the game and retire 2: You dissappear from community with no trace 3: You get exposed for cheating (applies to pro players) 4: You get canceled for grooming minors in discord
I really think you should have mentioned what happened with andromeda near the end of the video. He is a respected cheater in the geometry dash community because almost no one was suspicious of him at all and he just confessed out of guilt. The guy then vowed and went on to legitimately do every accomplishment he had hacked in the game.
He’s respected because he wasn’t quite on par with the top players of the time, he really only left positive influences such as being the creator of Poltergeist which was the hardest Nine Circles level until Crimsom Clutter
I have a feeling that space is trying to be like andromeda considering he is rebeating some of his old accomplishments, however andromeda didn’t do nearly as much damage as space, considering andro confesseded mostly of his own accord and reheat everything, and also wasn’t the best player, it would take noticeably more for space to somewhat makeup for what he did, and even then, he can’t change the past, those things still happened, plus he still might be hacking so it’s too much of a liability to put him on the demon list
I don't care if Space is supposedly beating stuff legit, I'll just assume he's cheated everything. Even if he worked his ass off and seemingly caught up to the best players, there's no way anyone could trust him again. @@theplayer7127
The real scandal here is the bias in the mod team - ignoring evidence against their friends and only listening when one of their own makes the exact same discovery.
That's genuinely how a good 70% of the GD community behaves. They can never express an opinion as just "I think -" or "I'd like it more if-" it always comes from a high and mighty place. So if someone dislikes a level you created, they say something like: "Your level sucks. Maybe if you did this, it would barely qualify as mediocre, not that your feeble brain even has the capacity to comprehend such a long word as that." Meanwhile all their levels suck too.
Even someone like me who doesn't consider themselves part of the gd community but more of an outsode observer got really invested in this whole scandal and the depth that it went
A thing that wasn't mentioned in the video was that Kolo received a lot of backlash for their exposal. It had a terrible like to dislike ratio and a bunch of comments harassed Kolo. It's a shame that Kolo got a bunch of crap for speaking up against a popular person.
The person responsible for dismissing Kolo's findings never apologized to him either and is most likely still part of Demonlist team. All Kolo got was "I do not know which list mod responded dismissively on Twitter, but I would like to apologize anyway." which is worthless. That mod didn't just "respond dismissively", they ignored and buried the findings. They're incompetent and should not be a part of the team. But sadly, nothing will be done about that, and Kolo will not get the justice he deserves. Disappointing, but expected.
thing is if kolo was taken seriously space wouldn't have stolen all of those verifications and his impact on the game's community would have been nowhere near as bad
It's not exactly uncommon for someone to be caught cheating in the speedrunning community and the person that caught them gets ostracized while the cheater continues to do what they do. No, I'm not saying it's common to cheat. Just the result when someone does cheat is a lot more common than most people think.
@@hollowman064 Cheating being relatively uncommon is likely the reason for said reactions
Justice for Kolo, please!
I appreciate you covering this situation man, you did a great job. I actually didn't know all the details surrounding Kolo's claims, and seeing that demon list moderator's response feels pretty crushing. I remember grinding Acheron for months to be the first victor, just for Space to pick it up and "complete" it within a week. The worst part looking back is that I didn't even feel that disheartened by him beating it, because I saw Space as this guy that was just untouchable, like, I didn't even compare myself to him he's so good. That's how this man was viewed in our community and it's very unfortunate that it took so long for him to get caught.
Yooo doggie
You are the ACTUAL best player of 2022. Keep your head up high you legend.
It's just sad that so many are apparently willing to ignore the terrible things he did and the terrible person he is.
I think he'll be back with some new cheating method. Won't be believing him
It’s the moderators’ fault for ignoring Kolo, all of it coulda been avoided years ago
As the guy who "competed" with space. The whole situation left me so confused ill never be able to explain in words. Thanks for the video i am glad i could help. Don't mind the [ZBOT] tag next to my name on the pointercrate stats viewer. Its a joke and mockery of space (i swear)
we believe you mr. zonk
oink
Zoink from acheron
ur next
LOL Zoink you are always so funny
GGs best player
I love how they specifically force you to record mouse audio so they can verify that the clicks sound on time only to then dismiss someone who pointed out that the clicks sounded wrong.
FACTS
tbf like what the video mentioned, theres also that wild claim of 'splicing' that was sent to the demonlist, but yeah still doesnt change the fact that the moderator who dismissed both is still unacceptable
Nothing new about mods being self-important douchebags unfortunately
@@samuelwilliams3130 also goes to show how strong good rep is.
@javonyounger5107 popularity contests over everything unfortunately 😕
As someone who was consistently trying to compete with space for a year, seeing this news was just crazy. All the time and effort myself and others were actually putting in just for one person to barely do anything and reach the spotlight, its just terrible.
ong trirck
yo trick wsp
How does it feel to earn that many First Clears... retroactively?
Agreed
space had the spotlight but now it's all gone. you play fair and square and even if your objective was unreachable, that made you a better player. keep going champ, you'll stay a legend
What upsets me most, is that when SpaceUK was originally called out to the moderators with video evidence, they didn't even bother to explain properly or talk to the person sending it like they were an equal.
They just gave a rude, self important reply of "you are wrong.", as if they are the absolute authority.
"Experts" are often wrong, regardless of what we're talking about. It's often the aggregation of the community that correctly solves problems. Markets rule.
@@Fingolfin3423 I absolutely agree. People get comfortable with their authority, and can't fathom they'd be wrong.
@@Fingolfin3423 Unfortunately most markets are controled by those with power to benefit themselves, and are not actually free.
@@Fingolfin3423 Hail Fingolfin!
Usually the type of person who wants to be a mod is the type of person who should not be a mod
thank you so much for covering this, as the creator of slaughterhouse its hard for me to know the entire verification was a lie and hope a great moment like doggie being the first isnt robbed of anyone in the future as it has before.
ICEDCAVEEEEEE
caved ice
🧡
icedwave 🥶
Bro your level is badass
Its so annoying to see how bias moderators are. They ignore "nobodies" until a "somebody" raises the red flag
Isn't that just how any level of bureaucracy works? People will ignore problems until the problem can't be covered up anymore.
@@zchen27yeah, but I wouldn't expect a bureaucracy from a GD community from all places.
life works that way in general. people are d1ckh3ads
@@xaf15001 oh, i would. From keyboard warriers who have 9K hours in GD, i wouldnt expect anything less.
biased
As a person very involved in the geometry dash community this exposal was crushing. Yes the history of the game was changed forever, but space made countless friends in the community and he lied to every single one of them for YEARS. Thanks for covering this Karl!
gl on silent clubstep ur gonna beat it really soon‼️‼️
Geom dash
GL on SC
Yo its that funni silent clubstep guy
I'm convinced exposal isn't a word, could find two definitions on non reputable sites that disagree with each other. Doesn't really matter but it's driving me crazy lol
Thank you so much for this video. It isn't very often our community is seen by the wider audience and I can speak on behalf of everyone when I say we appreciate you so much for this.
The situation with Space hits pretty close to home for me, too, as I was the #1 player in 2019 and experienced similar events to Doggie with the level Zodiac. So I could almost relate to everything that happened but today's top players were affected far, FAR worse than I or anyone before them. Nothing beats the damage that Space did and I can't begin to imagine anything topping it forever.
echnical !
@@JXChannel T
@@JXChannel Thomas
Technical? Arent you supposed to go boxing ring? What are you doing here? Go boxing ring!
@@kyperactive wrong technical
Thank you for covering this! The community appreciates it
Vouch
IT RELEASED???JISHHSOSBEBEIIAV
UNBAN ME PLEASE 6 MONTHS ALREADY
@@williamdavila6702 💀
aeonair
I hope which ever mod simply said "You are wrong" is no longer a mod. They clearly suck at their job.
We unfortunately will never know because even the mod team doesn't know who did it since the account is run by multiple people
@@anti7654 That's why you never have a collective account like that. You have an account with separate admins so everyone is identifiable. That said I bet they know exactly who it was.
@@anti7654 This shouldn't even be a thing. What if someone says something incredibly offensive then? It just encourages toxicity.
Can we quickly touch on how that moderator saying "You are wrong 👍" is probably one of the most toxic and horrible things a moderator could ever say? The moderator didn't even explain his reasoning or anything, he just said some snarky sentance and pretty much just ghosted him...
problem is that nobody knew who that mod is now, based on one of the comments.
i wouldn't be surprised that mod is a sock puppet account of spaceuk, or related to him
My first thought would be that they're buddies. It would explain him ignoring evidence it was first brought to them.
@@jcaesar19871 That could explain it, good thinking!
@@koweedate Hm, that's true. They could be nothing but a simple puppet...
I'd chalk it up to the stunted social skills that moderators usually have
It was a pleasure working with you on this, Karl. As shocked as I was of the initial scandal I am equally as hopeful that something like that will never happen again!
common vulcanium W
@@miky1774 agreed
"Shocked" "scandal", lmao. Go outside bruh
@@daddyfuse50 - 🎪
keep being hopeful. you guys claim to raise your standards, but it has happened time and time again. who should trust the dl now?
As a relatively new member of the Demonlist Team I am very dissapointed in the snarky response given to Kolo, I am glad we are past this.
Did you guys ever find out who did it?
@@sweetrocks610 We have not, it was two years ago tbf
there's also a possibility the person that sent it doesn't work for the demon list team anymore, its mod team is constantly changing
@@s3batr0nic Edit: I now understand why the "statute of limitations" exist and have therefore been convinced that I am wrong.
Original comment for posterity:
Are you saying that it's okay to do something wrong if it's sufficiently long ago? If so, how long would I have to wait for murder to be okay? And if there's a line for things that you can just wait out could you tell me where that is?
@@hejgustavful Lmao, he's saying it was two years ago so finding evidence of who did it is difficult, not that it was so long ago so who cares. Don't immediately jump on the worst interpretation possible.
Kolo and the guy who added the zBot watermark are the true heroes of the story. As a GD player who’s played for many years and am not as on top of the community now, I had no idea it was this bad. SpaceUK is truly a disgusting person for robbing so many legit players of the glory they deserved. Can’t believe he got away with it for so long.
I was a fan of themutetroll back when he first uploaded his video about hacking. I've known it was bad for a long time
typical english moment
@@深夜-l9fwell that's a moronic thing to say.....
Kolo deserves more recognition and definitely a major apology from the mods that were super rude to him when he was just trying to bring attention to someone threatening the integrity of this particular speedrun community. Honestly the least they could have done was look into it, even if they didn't have the means to prove beyond reasonable doubt that spaceuk was cheating.
You do know it could be a thing that happened multiple times that someone like kolo accused someone of cheating and it could've been proven false and due to the amount of times it happened might be why just a theory
@@Tsuyuri193 it's their job and that's the risk, if they cannot burdened that responsibility then don't bother to be a mod. As Karl pointed out, the cheater rob any joy and happiness of pure dedication and perseverance from players who in fact beating the stage legitimately, also the various game awards that the cheater absolutely didn't deserve.
The least they could do is say "Not enough evidence". They couldn't possible confirm with certainty he is wrong, they should know that
They should’ve look past the bad impression
I agree, that “you are wrong 👍” would have made me so upset, I would have wanted a more clear answer like “thank you for showing us these videos, but we believe that your claims are not correct because…” etc. Otherwise it just sounds disrespectful and like I wasn’t taken seriously.
That "you are wrong" was astoundingly rude. Whoever wrote that should be ashamed of themselves.
Trust me...they already were before that. Why do you think they'd say something so awful and incorrect?
Well one of the videos was wrong? How is it rude
@@nonyabidness6492 It would have been much more professional to actually explain why the video was wrong and/or why no action would be taken, rather than sending a blunt message with a cheeky emoji tacked on to the end. It comes off as a bit childish to just shoot back with "nuh-uh" when it's their job to actually investigate such claims and make informed decisions, and to communicate those decisions effectively.
@@nonyabidness6492have you ever delivered anyone any work of your own? Imagine you have spent many hours on some project and give it to your boss or teacher, and you just get back "you are wrong". No explanation of what or why, no thank you for trying to better the community and literally doing our job for us, no nothing, just a dismissal as if you are getting shoo'd away. It's incredibly rude. If I was head of that mod team and found that out I would give the moderator a really angry talking to and throw them out on the spot.
@@theWebWizrd yeah it's a videogame discord, if you think it's important you should touch grass
I really appreciate the guy who added a secret watermark to zbot. People like him are the unsung heroes of these stories.
Should have done both a secret and obvious one
Even without it he would've been banned. Added salt to the open cut🧂🧂🧂
just do what i do put malware in your software and if they cheat goodbye harddrive just tell it to deltree /y c:/*.*
@@ghoulchan7525if he did an obvious one, cheaters like space would’ve noticed and it would be even harder to catch them.
@@Aaron-zu3xn literally illegal lol
"This guy is cheating, here's the proof"
"Nuh uh"
Someone completely random a year later: “This guy is cheating, here’s the exact same proof”
“WHAAAAAAAAAA?????”
@@anonymouse1001 Zoey is and was a well-known player in the community, and she even verified one of the most difficult levels ever. If she was nobody she would probably be ignored as well
I love how Karl gets me so invested into a community for a game I know nothing about
Thank you for being a part of this amazing community for like 1 day
NPC comment
@@simonlutgens NPC reply
Me too, never even heard of this game before but the story was still interesting.
@@hackergaming5451 NPC reply to getting called NPC
If I was Kolo I would've immediately turned into the pettiest guy on the planet lol. I would've replied "I was right 👍" one time for every single day they spent dismissing the work and effort put in exposing this guy. Crazy that this is how a startling amount of people act when given even the tiniest bit of authority and power
Unfathomably based grudgeposter
I would respond the exact same wat
I'd rent an SMS gateway with a dozen SIM cards and just blast "You are wrong" at his phone for a few weeks.
This problem exists with all kinds of situations where people are given a modicum of power. Be it your local HRA, or a discord/forum mod or any sort of title that gives a person some authority over others. They tend to feel that they have earned that power and that others are inferior to them.
I like that. Shoutout to Kolo, may he be rightfully petty and may it be good.
The "theft" you talked about in the end is for me the most damaging part of cheating. Be it on Minecraft, GD or any other game, the cheater made players bang their heads into the wall for months or years trying to beat a run or player that doesn't really exist. It affects so many truly passionate people in so many horrible ways that it escapes my comprehension.
It can also push human limits into places they would of never pushed to otherwise. So it definitely goes both ways, not that cheating good or anything. But in GD especially this is very true. There has been serval evolutions of the games player skills because of cheaters.
The ends does not justify the means. Instead of good players having a friendly rivalry to get there first, they face frustration trying to mimic someone who didn't even do it
@@Moleoflands let’s not act like victims though, they wanted to push themselves to do it. Everyone wants to be the best, and the placebo effect is very strong in humans. The best need the very best to improve, even if the “very best” was actually a cheater. At the time they didn’t know that, they had hope that a human could beat the level if they tried hard enough, and what do you know, they did. I’m sure they don’t regret the experience, pushing to heights they never thought they could. I’m not justifying cheating, but its cool to me what humans can achieve when given hope even if it’s false. Like it or not, a lot of these “impossible levels” would never be attempted if not for these cheaters pushing people.
@@WorldKeepsSpinnin while part of what you say is true, if someone wants to "test the human limits", they could make a tool-assisted run well advertised as such. the cheater essentialy did this (used a tool to make his runs) but sold it as his own play. i don't think what they did was forgivable, his intentions weren't good-hearted and he was obviously deceitful, i can't see how what he did was virtuous in any way
@@WorldKeepsSpinnin as the person after you said, make a TAS run and show it off. Take Zeromaster in the doom community. He's taken on a few impossible doom challenges, and shown how they could theoretically be beaten. Like spending the equivalent of multiples months to get enough revenant rockets to get 100 % kills in nuts. Or beating Map 30 in Doom 2 pacifist style
He even used a TAS to grind out the right angle to shoot a wall with to trigger an all ghost glitch to set a world record on E1 M7. By having a TAS grind, then replicating it himself, he saved years of trial and error
The most insane thing is that Space's main rival Zoink was debated to a better player than a HACKER. (Not just in terms of points, but in skill too.) He is able to beat levels very quickly too.
Reminds me of riot and cyclic back in 1.9
I'm a bit concerned because this same conversation happened in the sm64 community once... the result was saddening.
What if Zoink is a hacker too...
This debate is so frivolous imo, like bruh Zoink actually beats stuff on stream, plus he is much more consistent at streaming than Space ever was
I think that makes sense, since a cheater trying to avoid being caught will do good, but not TOO good. Space had to hold back and avoid beating levels too quickly, and maybe pick and choose which levels to sandbag on to avoid scrutiny. Zoink isn't held back by that, he can beat levels as quickly as he is able to without any concern because he didn't cheat.
The fact that you're not even in the GD community and that you made (in my opinion) the best video on this whole situation is crazy. Good job, as always.
It is why jobst is so popular! Lots of these videos he does are about games he doesn’t play! But he really takes the time to understand the most minute details. And then unpack them in a way us Neanderthals can follow!
He is an absolute legend.
That's what real quality content is like. Stuff takes time and effort to make, especially when he's trying to portray to us what's happened in a digestible and interesting manner.
Chill link spitting facts
Kolo is the absolute king in this story. The mod who rejected him could have easily told others and see if something suspicious was happening, but instead, they just completely ignored it. spaceuk sucks and should have been caught years before.
Props to the chad cheat developer for leaving a good watermark in their system!
ikr it's actually genius
it’s genuinely a really good watermark. its subtle enough to the point where hackers wouldn’t notice it but noticable enough where if you knew you could easily tell
@@Lunar1314_ wait
Holy crap it's you
@@ecatskidLMFAO
@@Lunar1314_ because you're like 9. Haven't even used other bots I guarantee you
As his closest friend I remember finding out about this and feeling nothing but pure shock when I found this out to be the unfortunate truth, we were so close to the point there’s people that think I was involved in his hacking.
I think what this situation has taught us is that as a community we need to be a LOT more on guard when someone displays for example unexplainably fast progress on things, with a lot of hackers they seem to disregard the fact that taking shortcuts doesn’t leave you unscathed in the end
++ this video is amazing, i wish i could have helped more than providing a few screenshots however it turned out amazing and i hope it brings some attention, not only to the game and to you, but also to people who plan to cheat their way to the top in future. very nice job as always karl :)
yeah, whats important is that we learn from this so it never happens again.
Friends with a fake for 2 years?
A person like him has no true friends. To be a friend, you need to have an understanding and respect of mutual trust and honor, he is nothing but a fake, maybe even a sociopath. I'm sorry this (he) happened to you.
@@holysecret2 Or maybe the guy didn't care enough about internet fame to make it legit, unlike a real life person who's usually completely different because they have to be people instead of anonymous users... or idk, it could be anything, people can be weird, but you're making assumptions about a guy you don't personally know and his personal relationships. Please don't do that.
Nostalgic Kuromi PFP dude
I’m glad he brought up Space’s new channel, because it really is rough to see how parts of our community won’t hold him accountable and still revere him as some sort of god
Never heard of this game before but those fake celebrations were more cringe than I can handle. How does anyone look up to someone this pathetic?
from what i understand, he re-completed two of his earlier cheated runs(that of #2 and #1 hardest at the time), but without cheats this time around.
so i guess it's not really unexpectable that someone would still cherish him.
Personally I think it's nice that he gets to beat them legitimately and show off his skill but the hero worship is kinda gross. Like, I do think people caught cheating do deserve a chance to make amends but this is way too soon and clearly just a grab for attention and devotion again.
@@_dr_9869 Let me get this straight. Spaceuk cheats, gets caught, lies about how long they were cheating for, gets exposed again for cheating far longer than they claimed they did, claims to be doing everything legit...and you think they deserve any type of trust or for people to turn a blind eye to everything that happened?
He can never be trusted again. For all we know he just found a new, better way to cheat that's harder to expose.
I guess I can trust if space beat the golden (his first hacked level) legit, but definetly not the other one, everyone supporting him are kids who dont understand that someone could keep lying after they get caught initially.
seeing Karl super focused and serious on beating jumper in the video background at 6:22 is amazingly hilarious
He looks 50 in that.
Every cheater tries to admit a small number of runs are faked thinking it will get them off the hook, but it should be extrenely obvious that if youre caught your entire catalogue is going to be scoured.
Keep bringing light to these frauds Karl. Shout out to the hard working community members that catch them.
Your honor I only evaded 1 tax
Honestly, it probably makes it worse for them. Once they admit to cheating a bunch of runs, the people who are checking them don't need to waste time on those runs
@@muchotexto4248i only killed one of those people not all 7 of them
Schmooey did that
@@JackieBright Honestly I don't see how lying hurts the person either. They're still going to suffer all of the consequences if they get caught just once. It's not as if if this person admitted to all of it immediately they'd suffer significantly less backlash, or be welcomed back into the community. It's so common despite being such a long shot because, at the point it's attempted, there's nothing left to lose.
I’m not familiar with this community but I appreciate you redeeming Kolo’s reputation, Karl. The man loved the game enough to call Space out and can now hold his head high knowing he was the first to see it. I’m willing to cut him some slack for the error about splicing.
It's more important to share suspicions and be wrong than to hide suspicions and end up being right--and the community reaction should never be to dismiss the suspicions wholesale. Trust, but verify, on both sides.
For real... Hail Kolo - FUCK the mods who were clearly working with the cheat, until the evidence became so obvious... they then turned around and made themselves look like the white knight who discovered it. Worthless POS. They are worse than the cheater... they knew it was going on, then turned around and tried to take credit for the take down they knew was happening all along.
To be fair, splicing is a much easier method of cheating to 'prove' and much more likely to be accepted as suspicious then the click variance was at the time. How many people have been caught out by splicing?
He was just so sure that Space had cheated he fell victim to confirmation bias. >.
Kolo was unreasonably shafted by that Mod's response.
If Kolo still around, Mod Team should owe him an apology.
@@mike81356 I believe that they did, but i'm more disappointed that it happened in the first place
Kolo should send a 3 words reply back to that moderator: "I was right 👍"
EDIT: Looking at the comments makes me wonder why I am still here.
True
@@wolfetteplays8894 why are you still here
@@volturnes4734 why are you still here
"eat my butt" would work too
@@shadenwaywhy are you still here
Everything about this whole situation is so infuriating to me. I feel so bad for kolo aswell. And the fact that so many people are just welcoming space back into the community with open arms is so weird. Space stole so much recognition from the people who would've been top 1 if he didn't cheat. Genuinely robbing them of potential revenue.
Space is not welcomed in the community. Many of the comments shown on his recent videos are ironic and almost everyone actually involved in the community is in agreement that he doesn't belong. Obviously there will still be some people that support him going forward but I believe this is a small minority
Mostly kids who don't know or care what happened I believe
To be fair the comments are his viewers. The actual community might look differently at it. Still disappointing but not expected considering the whole dream situation that happened even earlier. The favorism in online communities has only gotten worse with time.
Such a great video! Good job Karl!
the legend himself 🗿
This needs to be pinned
And good job to you for discovering this initially and sticking to your guns about it.
The absolute legend has arrived!
The legend!
Its awesome seeing someone from outside of the Geometry Dash community do so much research to understand the little but important details that make up the game and whatnot.
Seriously, to those outside of the community, so many things have been developed within the world of this little square game and its crazy
yo stallion whats up
Especially with how big the community is but people outside the community never talk about it I think is cool
weed
I second this, hi Stallion
@@Weed69420 i agree
I call BS. I think the mods know EXACTLY who rejected Kolo, and are only trying to cover their asses because they are largely embarrased about getting caught dropping the ball so hard.
Bs doesn't exist
@@browl218browl218
@@browl218 browl218
@@browl218 browl218
@@browl218 browl218
Feelsbad for Kolo, like he KNEW this guy cheated but was brushed off.
The only time they found out that it was true when a mod official took it seriously.
Sums up IRL. You won't get noticed if the admins don't do something and will only give attention if a higher authority will say something or if you have the power to do so.
One big thing I never see anyone mention was when space originally intended to quit shortly after completing the main list. It was super weird at the time because instead of just leaving the community he went out of his way to take down every completion video and had moderators remove his Pointercrate profile. In hindsight it makes total sense considering he probably just wanted to ensure noone would ever find out he hacked so his reputation could never be touched. He only put the videos back up and had his profile reactivated after there was major disapointment and confusion in the community which put a lot of focus on the missing videos. He may have suspected if people collected downloads of his privated completions they might look at them more closely so just putting them back up was less of a risk, but nonetheless its truly scummy.
There was a lot of stuff like that I didnt include because the vid was getting too long. But there are tons of weird details like that.
@@karljobst You still did a great job at showing the magnitude of the situation. As someone who did look up to space I personally wouldve wished a focus on his "skill" even more because as Im sure you are aware he wasnt only *the* player, it didnt feel like he ever struggled. He beat top 10s in so little attempts it was insane. I mean even his reaction to beating Slaughterhouse was so careless it was like he didnt even take the game seriously.
I do get that that wasnt super important for the overall story though and talking about all these magical achivements hed supposedly done could still kind of put him on a pedestal he definitely doesnt deserve to be on.
Overall great video and nice to see GD being represented in more 'mainstream' audiences. I feel like you rarely see people outside of the core community mention GD
I dont think it's scummy tbh, there's another reason he mightve done it, he could've felt bad yk?
@@ZainAhmed456 not really its like saying i feel bad in athletics so let me just use peds to shit on everyone else
@@ZainAhmed456 Dont give him any credit. If he felt any kind of remorse he wouldve come clean, not obscure evidence
They never apologize for cheating, they always apologize for being caught.
Completely for many, they don't even regret it.
They never come up with an original comment, they just repeat an old adage.
@@Snookbone I'm sorry the comments are not up for your standards, would you like to try another comment section, my highness?
Andromeda and more are the true W's
Andromeda a gd cheater after he got exposed he beat 90% of the levels he hacked before quitting
thanks for covering this, it's always cool to see the gd community unite against cheaters
With pedophiles barely and if they feed their ego
Yo wassup can u tell me ur ign? I wanna see ur profile if thats ok, no pressure tho.
Verifier of Super Probably Level, Imma beat it soon as my first extreme
She: how could you not know this, I have been giving signs all the time...
Her signs: ZBot watermark
I've talked to SpaceUK a few times and he seemed like a really chill guy. Seeing this whole hacking scandal play out was more disappointing to me than anything and its a shame that he wasn't who I thought he was. I'm so glad you made this video to bring attention to this, it doesn't go unnoticed
the first two sentences of that are almost the exact same as a few sentences from doggie's video
flaaroniii
yo flaaroni tho
I love the bit about the hidden zbot watermark, it reminds me of a story Oddheader shared on his channel about a programmer who had his software stolen by someone at his clients' office, only to enter a secret button combination and display an image of Sailor Moon, proving that he was actually the original creator of the code. Never underestimate how clever programmers are!
bro really punished them in the name of the moon 💀
wasnt that programmer then fired for putting that easter egg in without permission?
@@sparklecat60 🤟👈
@@Golden_Pig64 I don't think so, although I think the video is called "Ten Easter eggs that got people fired". I feel like it was used as an example of the opposite (an Easter egg that saved someone's job) but I'm not sure.
That sounds very illegal to put a trademarked image in a software you are going to sell.
One of your best one's ever Karl.
You nailed it at the end when you talked about robbing people of those special moments that they can be proud of, no matter what they are.
Imagine being awarded a Silver Medal at the Olympics in front of the whole world and then finding out years later, you were the actual Gold Medalist!
Not exactly this but someone in my class was caught being a cheater for a very important exam. He got flack for the whole time he was there lol
I love how Karl can take a game that I have zero interest in, and get you invested in not only the who, but the why of a games fanbase, and showcase why people love a game in very understandable ways.
yo have you started playing? ive been playing like almost 7 yrs rn, its really enjoyable
i can give you a pdf to my progression picks ye
aight peace out bro
Thanks for covering this! Geometry Dash has had hacking scandals before but this is by bar the biggest most insane one. Hopefully this community is able to recover from this kind of betrayal of trust and get better at spotting this kind of thing.
While I'm much more interested in the level creating side of the game, top players and big achievements mean a lot to this community and have a big impact on it's well being.
You are wrong 👍
@@TheIndispensableOpposition Xd, nice one. 😂
*far 🤓
I'd say cyclic hacking was bigger
from the outside looking in, the game has a very high skill ceiling with custom content, and great systems in place to catch hackers/cheaters. also, awareness of how to catch cheaters is now at an all time high. i think the human element of trust just got in the way of properly checking everyone with the same scrutiny, definitely looks like the mod team learned from that though. I dont see any reason the community wont still thrive after this
much love to yall actually putting the time in to grind these levels, or supporting those who actually put the time in. the precision looks insane, reminds me of these top level guitar hero players nowadays. the dedication and pride is just awesome to see
Thank you Karl for always covering these stories. It's a reminder for me that cheating is never a good option, not just in gaming, but every aspect of life. Not only does it take away the pride and fulfillment of achieving a goal, also karma will always catch up.
Cheaters don't realize that they're only cheating themselves, which sucks because that would be a good deterrent for them since they care about themselves so much.
Based dono comment
based
yo my taiwan brother
cheating in school is alright tho xD (joke)
Kolo's video commentaries were pure gems, people even saying that they were professional video editors by many years and that the frame delay was normal, man... lol
Those people annoy me so much lmao
“I can do this well so I’m correct and you’re wrong.”
that whole "you are wrong" response boils my blood and I have zero stake in this lol. Just ridiculous. Gaming communities are crazy.
As a frequent watcher, I always thought that legit top players in any other game would feel only relief after someone's exposal. After this incident, I realized truly how big of a theft cheating really is in such a game, because for the first time, it is actually associated with a game I used to be passionate about. I will never experience the disappointment or the robbery first hand, because I will never be a top player, but it truly made me put everything in perspective and realize that cheating is very far from just lying.
Thank you so much for this video. I was on the list team for a while back in 2018-2019 and things were much different back then, the ways someone could hack were extremely limited and usually rather easy to spot. Honestly I think another big reason he slipped through the cracks was just how much things were changing at the time he started doing it. The game took such a massive leap from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020 in terms of how the average person played the game. New tools like megahack and zbot were getting more and more advanced by the day, suddenly there were a lot more ways someone could hack. A lot of us around that time sort of expected someone to just pop up and take over with all of the new tools at one's disposal, so even though we were skeptical of space I think we all came around way too quickly. The methods for hacking were becoming outdated so fast that no one even thought to check the way that he ended up doing it, as you said.
I'm also extremely disappointed with the community's response, given how much he disrespected our community and the players in it. I just have to hope the majority of the people who are rightfully unwilling to accept his return wouldn't go to leave a comment in the first place, leading to the majority of comments being positive. Spaceuk was always very charismatic and likable and I think the way he played his "return" made a lot of the community forgive him rather quickly. I'm really disappointed in them, I really want us to take a stronger stance against players like this so we discourage future players from attempting stunts like this.
How 0 replies and 16 likes
Holly crap it’s the guy from XO
Holy crap its the Narcton Diablo X guy
Holy crap, it's the guy from Crackton Bus Stop
Hey, you are the person with the insane reaction
Glad your attention was brought to this. Thank you.
whered you go
Hi
As an observer of this situation in the GD community, this whole situation really comes across as deliberate negligence to me. The Demon List has been known for years for having ridiculously strict rules for players submitting records, even going as far as not allowing records of players accidentally exiting before reaching the end of a difficult level when it has already been beaten (usually due to ending logos showcasing all creators that took part in making it, which can take over 30 seconds before reaching the level end). To see them deliberately put a blind eye to someone that they believe is legitimate because they have shown they are a good player before is reckless and unprofessional, especially for a list team who demands a lot from you to be considered fully legitimate. I understand that laziness does come in every now and then and that is perfectly reasonable. But when someone has provided with facts that bring up genuine concern, dismissing the portions of things found that are correct and taking the parts that are incorrect as the full truth is just a demonstration of favoritism.
As you said Karl, being a good player doesn't make you any less likely to cheat. What did happen here could have been avoided if there was more care put into actually looking into everything that was being said. But alas, the GD community now has to deal with this impact that SpaceUK caused which will never go away.
If anything, being a top player can make you feel more obligated to cheat, dream is another good example
Well said.
i read this in your voice 💀💀💀
One thing: was click variance believed to be credible evidence of cheating at the time Kolo uploaded his video? If it wasn't, I can kind of understand that they wouldn't look into it. But if it was, then yeah that's kinda probably just favoritism. Though let's not forget that according to Karl, it was probably just one stupid mod that rejected Kolo's proof, and the rest had no idea.
@@Topunito from what I remember people just literally used to think that those were lags because the only person seriously using this as exposing was eiriley and non-russian speaking community didn't want to listen to him most of times
That "You are wrong" is the most power that mod has ever felt after being bullied all the way through school and likely still into adulthood.
Hard not to laugh at him
To expand on the ending of this video, Space did more than just steal the verification title from Doggie. He also stole many, many first victor titles from that actually deserved that attention. In GD, the “first victor” is the first person to beat the level after it’s been verified and uploaded. Being the first victor of a demonlist level is a big deal, and can get you a lot of attention from the community. The worst part is not only did he commit the “subtle” theft of stealing that pride and accomplishment from deserving players, he actually caused real damage by stealing millions of views on his completion videos, robbing those players of real world money they would have otherwise earned legitimately. Space knowingly caused real world damage to competing players (many of whom were his friends) for years and never confessed until he was forced to.
You perfectly described the real lasting damage these cheaters cause, and this is why I won't ever not get angry at people defending them, saying that they are not terrible people or that it's just a game.
I'm glad you covered this topic, but I would like to say something. The part that pisses me off the most with this scandal is the other levels on the demon list. Levels like Abyss Of Darkness, Sakupen Circles, and especially Silent Clubstep were all deemed to be harder than Slaughterhouse, which would place them all at #1 on the demon list. But because of spaceuk's biased opinion, they were all moved down below Slaughterhouse, robbing them of the #1 spot. Since this came out, Silent Clubstep has moved up above Slaughterhouse, but still at #3. Many people are still pissed that this once impossible level was robbed because of a biased cheater. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, said this was #1 at the time.
This isn't true, many people said silent clubstep wasn't top 1 at the time, including cursed and trick. Also it's nerfed so it's not actually the true silent clubstep.
@@big_numbers Cursed also cheated it by changing the hitbox size at the 8JoH
@@BlueSailor19 That was an accident, it wasn't on purpose
@@BlueSailor19 atleast he apologized like a normal human and it was an acident
more people actually said ~top 3 to 4, i saw someone make a chart with the sc difficulty ratings from players experienced with the level before it got placed. just clarifying
I think it's crazy that someone with very little involvement with and background knowledge of this game and its community can make a better Geometry Dash video than most GD UA-camrs, which really says a lot about both our community and you. Just like your previous uploads, this was a really good video!
You are watching the wrong people then, there are a lot of gd creators that put an insane amount of effort into their videos.
Unfortunately 100 "different" 5 second long "the worlds smallest violin" shorts get 10 times the views
@@erlouwer this is true. People like onealphahelix make videos that are pretty easy understand and are 100%, reliable since they are active in the community. Unlike some that create videos to bait kids for clicks
@@erlouwer man, everyone in this community wanted to jump on this topic so quickly that yes, this is one of the few videos that is actually informed and high quality about this situation
You act like he is some outsider and creating a new physics theory.... this sh*t isn't that hard. He isn't unifying general relativity with quantum mechanics as an outsider with no academic experience....
I am honestly amazed at what other people are 'amazed' about. This is some low level stuff. He makes good videos, which is a skill anyone can pick up; it just takes a little effort; it isn't that 'crazy.'
@@pyropulseIXXI god man why so negative
From the perspective of a video game WR holder, not only does "being good doesn't make you less likely to cheat" but being good can also make you bored, tired, and lazy. I've looked into the practically non-existent hacking scene for my game and fiddled around with glitches and cheat engine in my spare time because it can mess with the game in new and interesting ways. One of the most fun I've had with my game in years was when someone made a fan engine and it was glitchy as hell, because it was silly and novel. But I'd be the first to fight that using these things shouldn't be allowed in "official" runs. Because the fan engine you can go in and switch up parameters really easily.
I hope the mod who so *smugly* responded that the evidence was wrong, obviously without looking into it at all (or they wouldve given an explanation) is utterly ashamed of themselves....
I highly doubt they are _capable_ of shame given that response. I hope they are no longer a mod.
@@TheZotmeister they probably are
I was an early viewer of Space and would watch him on twitch back in the day (you can see me in the chat at 22:15). For 2 and a half years I thought I knew this guy, until one day what was hiding in plain sight suddenly crashed down on everyone like an anvil. Just like that, the greatness I thought I had witnessed was all gone. Thank you for making this video, you couldn’t have put it any better into words - we as a community really do appreciate this.
ok
U were a mod. Damn
Word.
Damn
parasocial relationships are bitch
Thank you for covering this! It's been years since I've been in the GD community, but heard about this, and am really glad you chose to cover it.
"You are wrong"
Well that didn't age well. Shame on that guy.
I honestly feel pretty bad for Kolo because he gave all this evidence that SpaceUK was cheating but everyone said he was wrong
I’m so incredibly happy you covered this. This was such a huge event in the history that it changed the history of the competitive side of the game. Even as someone who plays competitively, not at the top level, this completely changed my perspective with top players. It still blows my mind that he didn’t feel any emotion with what he was doing all this time, considering how much he stole from others. Also you including Doggie’s video at the end was perfect. Thank you so much for covering the situation, so the people who really deserve it get the recognition they deserve
Just to clarify, was there a lack of emotion in that he didn't care about the consequences, or that he literally felt little emotion about what he was doing (i.e. something closer to sociopathy)?
@@vreschen939 I don’t think he did cause initially he retitled his completions to showcases, just so he could keep getting views on his videos, and the fact that he hasn’t left the community and still uploading completions just cause he wants more attention is scummy
Thanks for covering this, Karl. Hearing this news was insane for me and I really appreciate all the details that were included! Great job!!
crazy to think that this would've lasted a lot less if the moderator just...did his job lmao
Really loved Doggie's excerpt at the end. With all of these cheating stories especially, I'd love to hear more from people affected in the way he was.
I don't even play this game, yet it still has me mad at how Kolo never really got justice. The fucking cheek of calling it "Blatant misinformation and bad data." Yeah, you can definitely tell this was 2020 when the easiest way to dismiss anything of possible merit was to just call it "misinformation." Why didn't they check who posted it? It was using their Twitter handle. Of course they could check the logs. Of course they could check who posted it. My guess is it was someone important enough where they didn't want to address it. If I was to go full tinfoil hat, it might even have been the mod who repeated word for word what Kolo said as it became more and more apparent that SpaceUK was in fact cheating.
I would hazard a guess that the moderator only looked at the second video and not the first. The second video was absolutely wrong, and only a fool would continue to listen to someone who lies.
Also, there really is a ton of misinformation out there. It is so much easier to create bad information than it is to create good information. You can literally just make shit up on the spot, and that's bad information. If you want good information, you actually have to put the effort into researching something. It also takes a lot of effort to debunk bad information. All of this puts the truth at a disadvantage, so we as humans need to compensate for that by quickly identifying and removing bad information. Sometimes small mistakes are made in this process, like with this moderation decision, and sometimes huge mistakes are made that completely warp your entire perception of reality, as you believe that lies are the truth and the truth is a lie.
Unfortunately in this case, Kolo's only mistake was posting two videos in the same comment. Humans are practically incapable of responding to two things in the same train of thought. If you've ever asked two questions in a single email before you know this to be true; people will only respond to the first question and forget that you even asked a second one. You really have to dumb yourself down when interacting with the general public. Use simple words and sentences, and numerate your questions. Most people won't even know what I mean by the word numerate in that last sentence; that's the level we're at nowadays.
@@123457474869 Youre so delusional that it is laughable. I agree that people nowadays are stupid, but not THAT stupid as to not know what numerate means
@@123457474869 Numerate is an adjective, not a verb. Someone who is numerate is someone who understands numbers. "Numerate your questions" is complete word salad.
I cannot believe the fucking audacity you have to act all smug and superior when you're literally using words you don't understand in order to look smarter lmfao
@@123457474869that makes me disappointed in humanity
thanks for allowing me the opportunity to help with the video. you did a great job detailing how the community works, and i feel like this is a big step for the community as a whole
Huge respect for Kolo. My man is ahead of the competition of detecting cheaters lol
It's crazy to see you uploading a GD video. I've been watching your videos for a good year+ and its so good to see you talking about this, and push out GD completions even more. Thank you so much for what you do!
I think something that would have also been worth mentioning is that Space profited real money out of this, whether it was through monetization or stream donations, which is another one of the things that he took away from other players that deserved it. A couple people hold the view that this hacking scandal is "not that deep" or that "it's just a 4 dollar game", which is just ridiculous all things considered.
That being said, thank you for covering this! Most GD-related videos are hard to digest for people outside the community since we use a lot of weird terms that don't make sense out of context to talk about the game, but this video definetly did a good job covering the whole situation to outsiders as well.
cau
as a geometry dash player, this video is definitely the best one covering this situation. thank you karl jobst
denni from geometry dash
DENNIS ONMYT GOT IM BNIG FAN!!!!!!!!!
hello Denni
delete your comment from space's tartarus video bro
@@GDNashitWhat if he doesn't, the hell you gonna do.
10:48 that’s okay that upside down section in Can’t Let Go is quite the difficulty spike for beginners
As someone whos actually a part of this community, this just goes to show how impressive Karl is with his research. He did a phonomenal job with this video, and im just glad he was able to express how difficult all of this was for some of us to accept. Still massive props to your previous videos, but this one deserves to be viral.
And also all the people who dedicate a lot of time to analyze suspicious runs. And those who dig into archives to give back awards to their actual legitimate owners who were ripped off by the cheaters.
Ya my only problem was him saying the game came out with 21 levels and calling gamemodes vehicles
Yep he’s definitely better than SunnyV2 LOL
@@imdobbergdwell the ship and ufo ARE vehicles so he isnt so wrong
Yea true
Remember: if cheating subtly doesn't work, try cheating blatantly.
I don't get how you even get caught cheating in a game like this. You could write a script that would mouse click for you perfectly because basicallly every level is just a sequence of timed clicks and holds that will never change so it wouldn't be hard to make a script just do that sequence for you
@@qlcrane8019 Did you even watch the video?
Demon list mods microanalyze clicks to account for outside noise, etc. If all the clicks were the same sound or volume, it would instantly be a red flag. Some sections such as spam would naturally require shorter, faster clicks that are almost continuous, while other sections require long holds. This difference in volume, sound, etc. that is seen on a legit run is impossible to be replicated by a bot or macro, ESPECIALLY for spammy/fast click sections that are in almost every top demon. For those sections you would need to record the sequence of clicks in successive order in one take rather than just recording one individual click and applying it to every input. And given that the entire sequence has to match not only the frames of the previous clicks in the sequence but also the frames of every other click in the botted level, it's basically impossible to not have at least one inconsistency.
@@mandriva4280 He didn't, obviously.
I'm not even really a gamer and usually have no knowledge of any of this stuff, but I love how Karl makes these videos so compelling and entertaining. I watch them from start to finish, sometimes more than once.
Karl is very entertaining and engaging with his mini documentaries.
Karl is a great writer / storyteller. I usually am very biased against these indie or older titles like Doom because of how they look, but he makes me grasp and appreciate them.
I'm glad Zoe the mod reported her findings, or else Kolo might never have found vindication.
Very true, but it is still sad that it took a higher figure years later looking into it for the situation to be taken seriously instead of listening to a person that you're SUPPOSED to take seriously and give agency to as your job.
As someone involved in this community for around 9 years I've seen many cheaters like Noobas, Andromeda, and Cyclic come and go and I have NEVER seen one so well received and welcomed back into the community like SpaceUK. Even Andromeda, who came back and beat everything legit took around an entire year off to let the situation cool down and reflect on himself in order to gain his trust back. I completely agree with what you said, SpaceUK should have just left or at the very least taken a year off like Andromeda before coming back to beat everything legit. Frankly, I can't ever see him as legit, even if he is beating the levels he hacked legit now, and I never will see him as legit. Awesome video as always
Probably found a different way to cheat.
@@HermannTheGreat the reason why he wasn't caught and the dl believed him for so long is bc he has actual skill, plus he shows his folders and everything on his laptop at random intervals in streams. He isn't hacking this time.
I can't overstate how valuable you are as a platform/spotlight, Karl - these are games, subcultures, communities, achievements and scandals that I'd never otherwise know anything about, because it's well outside my habits and interests. But you make it totally engrossing.
I think we should have a big shout out to the people who investigate these things and find the cheaters, even when these people seem above reproach. Good on Kolo and Zoe. Also respect to the mods for recognising the mistakes, it isn't easy to admit you were had, or did something wrong.
Yeah, especially since the demon list team is literally a bunch of volunteering teenagers/young adults
@@yodaas7902 good point.
Lol did you read their apology?
It was the most corporate and soulless "we made a continuous lapse in judgement" shit ever.
Kolo's getting shit to this day, and SpaceUK is being praised in all his videos.
Fuck that shit. I'm glad this video got this big, the community's a cesspool of sycophants.
Always love hearing someone act super obnoxious when they're the ones in the wrong. Way to do your job, mod team.
it's always unfortunate when you see moderators, who are supposed to be those responsible for upholding integrity, dismiss such an undeniable claim in a way that makes the whistleblower appear like an outcast. I feel bad for Kolo having to live as long as he did knowing there was so little he could do to expose this cheater for what they are.
to be fair the demon list is entirely unofficial, they don't get paid by robtop to run the list as its entirely community driven
@@ilect1690 what? It still needs completion to be verified.... your point is invalid
@@ilect1690 Who made the game as popular as it is?
@@Spidapida006 online levels
and its difficulty
You nailed it at the end - the worst part about the GD community is how quickly it forgives hackers. They can basically just continue playing the game as if nothing happened, with the majority of people remaining positive about them. They act like courageous to come out as a hacker and noble to complete your previously hacked levels legit. It’s terrible. I only hope that in the future cheaters are caught before they get big, because once they do get caught it doesn’t even matter.
Nope
Nah.
The difference between the other hackers (some of whom redeemed themselves) and SpaceUK is that he showed no remorse and tried to cover it up. npesta said it didn't even weigh on his mind at all and he could lie like it was nothing.
@@shadowyzephyrwhat the heck that guy sounds like complete sociopath
@shadowyzephyr that's because he's already broken in his fucking past. Rare outcome of child abuse.
This video has such an important lesson that we need to take everyone seriously, had people taken Kolo seriously none of this would've happened, but instead it took over a year and the attention of a very well known player to actually have something done.
Sadly, that's how the world functions. If you are a nobody, then people don't care. No matter how strong your evidence is.
But for every Kolo, there are 1000 trolls. You can't just blindly believe everyone either. It's hard to sift through all claims, takes a lot of time, and it can be a lot to ask of a volunteer. We do our best. But yeah, that mod shouldn't have been a dick.
@@destructionman1 or they could have watched his fcking video instead of being arrogant modc*nts
@@destructionman1 yes but instead of actually reviewing the video or anything some dumwad decided to just say “you are wrong 👍” and ignore it, that is the biggest jerk move a mod could play
25:00 this is so cringe, nobody who actually puts the time and effort into getting this good would react like this. This is what someone cheating thinks a natural reaction would be... but sadly he's clueless.
I truly never thought of cheating the way you described it here, but you're absolutely right. When you cheat in order to win, you really have stolen a moment from someone. Something intangible but very real to them. It's a truly special reward to know that you are the best at something because you put in the time and the effort to become the best, and it's just not the same to put in all that work just to be beaten to the punch by someone else. Maybe it's not what I should be feeling right now, but I feel like I have a newfound disgust for cheaters when viewing it this way.
Thanks for all the work you do to expose and spread the word about cheaters, and especially for giving credit to the true champions of these games. You truly are an absolute legend!
Same. I personally have never had the experience of being the first in the world to achieve something, so I had never even thought of that aspect, but once he spelled it out to me it all makes so much sense. Cheating really does cause so much more damage than I initially realised.
awesome work, appreciate the accuracy!
Omfg their second response to Kolo was even worse. These people shouldn't be moderating anything, ever. It's annoying that they do.
"I do not know which list mod responded dismissively on Twitter, but I would like to apologize anyway." just proves the entire team shouldn't be trusted, as that mod is still most likely a part of the team.
@@LordDragox412 they are all volunteer teenagers/young adults who wanted to help the community and aren't getting paid to do so, try to cut them some slack
@@Crysticai I volunteered for over 10 years at many places, every single one of which required me to uphold a certain standard. If I didn't, I would be called out and held responsible. While the negligence, incompetence and terrible management of the rest of the team can be somewhat excused, the mod who responded to Kolo doesn't deserve any slack.
Not gonna lie, that Geometry Dash team has to be the most unprofessional I have seen
To be fair, that was one dude who at the time was 16 years old, so its not really fair to lump the whole team like that. I’ve talked to many of the moderators to submit runs and they’ve been nice and professional.
@@zlbm0 They hired a 16 year old to mod? 💀
It was one guy
The demonlist is not an official mod team by any means. It's just a bunch of random Geometry Dash players who are friends with the person who made the unofficial demonlist website. The demonlist mods just decided to start acting like they were of high authority, and few people have protested. The real official mod team is a group of community figures picked specifically by RobTop himself, and they mainly just decide which levels to send to RobTop for approval before establishing them as star rated levels. As far as I know, there is no overlap between the demonlist mod team and the official mod team.
As a biomedical engineer, I think the fact that most of these speedruns need to contain video is the problem. The reason all these scandals go on for so long is because the mods never believe the #1 player is a cheater so they don't check their videos as thoroughly as they would if you or I submitted a time. You can tell by the snarky response from the mod that the fact that Space would cheat wasn't even conceivable to him. In the medical field, we avoid this issue by doing "blind reviews" where if I submit a research paper, my name gets removed. That way a paper from me would be treated the same as a paper from Stephen Hawking because there's no bias. However because speedrunning submissions require video, and the mods would obviously recognize Space on video anyway, it's a lot harder to remove bias.
Oooh, that's an interesting point! Yeah, at some point, if you prove you're legit, people won't believe that you cheat.
That reminds me of the Overwatch system for determining if players are cheating in Counterstrike. Identifying information is removed and multiple random "trusted players" are tasked with reviewing the demo and determining if the subject is cheating by consensus. Pretty clever way to do it.
You are wrong 👍
@@sheltongolden4394 this would be a hard thing to fully implement on gd. in this game you can customize your icons, that is, you can make cosmetic changes to how your icon looks, such as changing its colors or choosing the models used for each gamemode. there are millions of possible combinations, called _icon sets_
the vast majority of players pick one icon set they like and stick with it, rarely making any changes. it often gets to the point where their icon set becomes part of their identity as a player (*many* players have part of their icon set as ther pfp, for example). in fact, most people would be able to recognize a well-known player only based on the icon set theyre using
as you can imagine, this makes it very hard to remove identifying factors from the gameplay, as youd need to see the icon in order to check if the run is legit or not. its still entirely possible that a player changes their icon set for a completion, or that they use someone elses icon set for a bit, but most of the time mods would be able to recognize most top players, and the bias would still be present
I'd like to point out that academic journalism is not immune to cheating either. I'm not 100% sure if this is the same process you're talking about, but Bobby Broccoli has some fascinating documentaries about scientific scandals, and the one that kicked him off was about Jan Hendrik Schön. Jan won a lot of awards and recognition, had a LOT of papers published in both Science and Nature, but was completely bullshitting all of his work. He figured out how to work people and how to play the system, to the point that yeah...a fuckton of people, when the experiments couldn't be replicated, they just thought he _must_ be _just that good._ Fraud never entered the majority of people's minds. The fact he was working in a niche field and allegedly doing things that had never been done before (so the majority of reviewers would not have the expertise to verify if the entire thing was correct) really helped...which is similar to speedrunning a game. Niche field, with the most recognition given to people who have done things other people haven't yet. Usually tho, other people can eventually replicate or surpass those achievements, which makes it harder to know if it was cheated...but "the one who did it first" is still held in high regard.
It's not really an issue with anonymity, is my point. It _can become_ an issue once someone builds a reputation, but in other speedrunning communities, concerns about cheating are always taken seriously, so long as some evidence is presented.
It’s a shame the Kolo was completely brushed off by the list mods, it should’ve never got to this level.
Thanks for talking about this man. This was all surreal to see unfold
you play geometry dash?!?!?!?
@@syrenarch251 his profile picture:
Is he still repeating "I just beat acheron" in a hospital with a straitjacket
GD players have 4 main endings
1: You get bored of the game and retire
2: You dissappear from community with no trace
3: You get exposed for cheating (applies to pro players)
4: You get canceled for grooming minors in discord
i'm still going strong but most likely to happen to me is option 1
Why is this so true
@@no-one-1 I got the first one already
5: you fake killing yourself (triaxis)
@no-one-1 inb4 it's 4
I really think you should have mentioned what happened with andromeda near the end of the video. He is a respected cheater in the geometry dash community because almost no one was suspicious of him at all and he just confessed out of guilt. The guy then vowed and went on to legitimately do every accomplishment he had hacked in the game.
He’s respected because he wasn’t quite on par with the top players of the time, he really only left positive influences such as being the creator of Poltergeist which was the hardest Nine Circles level until Crimsom Clutter
I have a feeling that space is trying to be like andromeda considering he is rebeating some of his old accomplishments, however andromeda didn’t do nearly as much damage as space, considering andro confesseded mostly of his own accord and reheat everything, and also wasn’t the best player, it would take noticeably more for space to somewhat makeup for what he did, and even then, he can’t change the past, those things still happened, plus he still might be hacking so it’s too much of a liability to put him on the demon list
What about the cyclic situation?
@@exiled_shadegdhe verfied one of the hardest levels at the time on par with cataclysm and icdx
I don't care if Space is supposedly beating stuff legit, I'll just assume he's cheated everything. Even if he worked his ass off and seemingly caught up to the best players, there's no way anyone could trust him again. @@theplayer7127
The real scandal here is the bias in the mod team - ignoring evidence against their friends and only listening when one of their own makes the exact same discovery.
Is it just me, or does the message "You are wrong" with a thumbs up afterwards just completely tick me off so much.
That's genuinely how a good 70% of the GD community behaves. They can never express an opinion as just "I think -" or "I'd like it more if-" it always comes from a high and mighty place. So if someone dislikes a level you created, they say something like: "Your level sucks. Maybe if you did this, it would barely qualify as mediocre, not that your feeble brain even has the capacity to comprehend such a long word as that." Meanwhile all their levels suck too.
Even someone like me who doesn't consider themselves part of the gd community but more of an outsode observer got really invested in this whole scandal and the depth that it went
Yeah, I think this is one of the biggest video game cheating scandals we’ve had in a while…
High crafty, ready to make gd in Minecraft? Xd