Kdubtru’s ministry has suffered a major setback, after his elders exposed his unrepentant adultery following a Matthew 18 process. Kris “Kdub” Williams was a prominent “urban apologetics” YouTuber who amassed nearly 90k subs. One would think that such hypocrisy in his personal life would cause subscribers to ditch his channel. But this has not been the case.
According to Social Blade, a resource for tracking YouTube counts, All Things Theology peaked at 89.5K subs. During my initial reporting, I saw the number drop from 89.5 to 89.4, assuming I was in the middle of a hemorrhage, but the current number is at 87.8. This amounts to a 2% drop, which is the amount he gained since the beginning of the month.
A couple of notes. First, YouTube subs can often be inactive or no longer interested in the channel for unrelated reasons. YouTubers often have the majority of their views come from non-subscribers because some of their base has lost interest but remains subscribed. Second, a Friday news dumb may not have reached all these people over the holiday weekends.
But as far as internet drama goes, Kdubtru losing only 2% of subs after a weekend is comparatively negligible. His comment section, however, is loaded with comments insisting he repent and quit ministry.
Kris Williams has not publicly responded to the news, and with the latest news being he’s seeking a divorce in order to pursue his mistress, one wonders what his next steps are. Sin has a way of ruining lives, and YouTube ministry does not provide many competitive skills in the job market. There is always a concern that he could simply resume business as usual, as though nothing has happened. Having a pigeonholed career makes his attempt at a comeback more likely.
However, if Kdubtru attempts to use his bleeding YouTube channel to relaunch his reputation, he may have shot himself in the YouTube algorithm, for good, because of the unsubscribed creating a higher proportion of subs who lost interest. The hatewatch and hatecomments would plague him, though.
Moreover, he thrived from tokenism in Reformed circles, and this favor is removed, and the competition on this front is steep in charismatic circles.
Repentance is the only logical option, but sin is not logical. But even though Kdubtru has only lost a negligible number of subscribers, his channel is likely dead in the algorithm.
2 Responses
My thoughts:
1. the outlets using this to get clicks are not as popular or read as they like to think they are.
2. The people in a niche group for a rapper either aren’t paying attention to what is actually going on his life, or they follow once and forget about it. A lot of folks, seriously never touch a social media button once they add some people.
3. It could also be that the shere number of fallen celebrities from pastors, to artists, and professors recently has numbed people to it.
4. Maybe a rap artist is not held to the same standards by social media followership as a Pastor or seminary professor (only one of these is mentioned in the bible)
5. Maybe those who would care, were already not following this fellow, for reasons of their own.
6. People hear that mathew 12 quote, hear about one small snippet of what these elders did and ask. was that really it? You gave up that easily? Honestly, if I was following this person (i’m not, but if I was) I found the article that broke over the last week devoid of detail, and sounds like ‘boilerplating’, rather than actual attemppt at restoration here.
7. Lastly, since this individual has not yet spoke public about it, others may be waiting to see what they do before unfollowing.
But I’m seriously getting irritated at people who think we should do what they say about X individual(s) because of Y, and then frame it as if their (sub-click within Christianity is the hedge everyone should be piled onto). For some of us the mood and response to these varies, especially when I looked up this individual and was like who is this? why was he ever relevant?
See what I mean?
I wouldn’t expect that he will lose many subs because the majority of his subs will be blacks and coal burners, obviously. And although the Holy Spirit could sanctify black people, the overwhelming majority of black people have 0 interest in allowing him to, and neither do coal burners.