Wow, where was I?

Oh right, fighting finals season in college.

So now that's out of the way, I wanted to give my two cents over a controversial YouTube issue: DaddyoFive.

Now, if some of y'all on my Odyssey circle aren't familiar, in a nutshell, DaddyoFive is basically a reverse of the Angry Grandpa channel, where instead of adults pulling pranks on their senior elders, the parents pull pranks on their kids - minors.

As his YouTube username indicates, he's got...well...HAD five kids, Jake, Alex, Ryan, Cody and Emma. Cody and Emma, as indicated by their physical appearance are evidently adopted, as they bare absolutely no physical resemblance to the other three kids - something I've suspected for a while.

The two kids are only half-related to the other three, their biological mother is not the one featured on the videos.

The Martin family, from left to right: Jake, Ryan, Heather, Emma, Michael,
Cody and Alex

Now before I just go on some hot tirade on how Michael and Heather Martin are child abusers and what not, here's a little backstory of how I found out of DaddyoFive.

I actually saw their videos possibly as early as November of 2016, but it isn't until around April of 2017 that I really started paying attention to their channel. I found their videos when randomly searching YouTube for videos of spoiled kids getting their electronics destroyed.

The first video that I ever caught sight of was probably that one old video of the dad, Michael, destroying his oldest son, Jake's smartphone because he was too lazy.

Jake didn't seem too bothered, because of two things:

a). Michael plays favorites with him

b). He's old enough to distinguish the difference between a scripted and staged video, to actual abuse

But I'll stress, I watched that video on one of those video compilations, had no idea it was coming from a rather popular YouTuber. It isn't until April 2017 that I really started getting into more of Michael's channel, it was after watching the video where Michael destroys Cody's Nintendo DS because Cody played it when he wasn't supposed to (in a latter video, it is revealed that Alex was the mastermind behind it all, simply to get Cody in trouble for the fun of it - click here to watch, it's a re-uploaded version, as all DaddyoFive videos will be from now on).

For a short while don't me wrong, DaddyoFive was actually a pretty funny channel. So this isn't just some hate post.

Over time, I kinda started knowing something disturbing about the entire thing in general. I often noticed that Jake, who's basically that "bully big brother" often bullies Cody to death, both emotionally AND physically, and always got away with it. Why?

Because Michael was in on it, and told him to do it. Again more importantly - Michael plays favorites with Jake.

Jake bullies Cody, triggers a reaction (obviously an angry one), and Cody gets in trouble, receiving the brunt of Michael and Heather's parental wrath. Cody often suffers most of the pranks, and I often noticed that in many videos....Cody is bruised. Then he gets yelled and berated by Michael and Heather for being a "huge trouble to the family".

Jake, who often back-sasses the parents, gets almost nothing but a slap on the wrist, or in this case, a "Seriously"!

There was also a video where Michael allows one of the brothers to slap Emma on the face, and designates Emma as an "exception" to the "you never hit a woman" rule (click here to watch, note that the uploader going under the name "DaddyoFive" isn't the original one, likely a re-uploader).

Now when I began to notice this stuff, I often began searching online if there were any complaints about DaddyoFive and abuse. While yes, I found a few people, but it didn't seem too viral, I almost thought there was just no hope for Cody and Emma.

I've seen a few YouTubers making videos about DaddyoFive, but again - they weren't popular or viral, and the comments were often filled with trolls and...people who apparently defend DaddyoFive.

As a result, of a new video that basically had a same-old same-old, Cody gets screamed at, of course - maniacally - by Heather for something he didn't do, then FINALLY the authorities took Cody and Emma from Michael and Heater's custody because they were getting so many complaints from people.

Apparently, before the the authorities took the children, Michael and Heather made several bogus attempts to "disprove" the "doubters" and as media calls 'em, the "haters" wrong.

They made videos attempting to have their children "defend" them, and tell the world that there was no abuse going on. It isn't too hard to tell that Michael and Heather likely told the children what to say.

Then they finally uploaded a video, a final attempt-like video, issuing a public apology for their actions (click here to view), a video that once-more had me so shocked. In addition, Michael privatized all their videos, making them un-viewable to the public. This means he didn't take 'em down, he just made 'em all private.

This all happened, behind my back while my attention was on college work. Prior to the entire police involvement, the entire ordeal made my blood boil, but in all honestly...it wasn't my life, and plus, finals were and the last week of the college semester was approaching my doorsteps so I took all focus off of the issue.

So how'd I find out about it?

Blue Lives Matter.

May 4 rolls around, and when I was scrolling across Facebook, I found a Blue Lives Matter post with a video thumbnail of Heather Martin, and the news headline, "Couple Accused of Making Fortune by Abusing Children" (click here for the article).

I literally thought to myself, "No...fucking way". If Blue Lives Matter is reporting it, obviously it involves law enforcement. I read both the comments and the actual news story, and found out that Cody and Emma, have been taken away by the authorities, to safety, to their biological mother.

So I checked the DaddyoFive channel once more, and....wow....it was literally like a post-apocalyptic YouTube channel. All of their videos, were privatized, with the exception for that public apology video. They literally went from 100+ videos, to 1.

Now there is another "DaddyoFive" channel as I've noted earlier (click here), very likely isn't Michael, but a person who downloaded his videos and re-uploaded them (calling the person an "imposter" would seem to be attacking).

Damn, I thought to myself, "Where the hell has the time gone by"?

Apparently, Cody and Emma had been taken away around April 25.

Wow, I was both surprised and not surprised. On one end......

I don't know about you, but if I was getting some little right-hand man of mine, and getting him to bully the younger children, and then scolding that younger child for getting angry and fighting back, in addition to pulling even more heinous pranks (like screaming at him for getting bad grades that he never got, telling my wife to lay dead and then blame the young child for it, telling my oldest son, the bully and my favorite - what a surprise - to play dead to make my younger son, the victim feel guilty)......all to make money, I'd be asking for it.

On the other hand, the awareness of the abuse Cody and Emma were going through just didn't seem too viral at first.

So what made it go viral?

Your answer, would be Philip DeFranco - unsurprisingly, another YouTube star. I don't know Philip DeFranco, I don't watch this videos, save for his exposé of DaddyoFive.

That's what sickens me about society, as glad as I am of what DeFranco did (seriously, kudos to him for doing what he did) it makes me feel ashamed of being a human that regular people who tried to expose DaddyoFive, got either completely ignored and disregarded or picked on and trolled simply because they weren't popular, so people felt the need to make fun of them.

It took another star like Philip DeFranco to expose DaddyoFive. There were people before Philip DeFranco that had attempted to expose DaddyoFive, but I will stress once-more, that because they weren't already popular, their videos never went viral, therefore never garnering the awareness needed.

Now.......

Here's a good question to ask yourselves, what if Philip DeFranco wasn't there?