Vaush

Ian Kochinski (born: ), better known online as Vaush, is an American left-wing commentary YouTuber known for his advocacy for libertarian market socialism and debates with other YouTubers, most notably Sargon of Akkad and Destiny.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaush 
==Early Life ==
Ian Kochinski was born on February 14, 1994 in Los Angeles, California.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WXi33RVt74 He is of Irish and Polish descent.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZZ7FvaFzbQ&t=4276s His father Mark is a visual effects artist who worked at Hollywood and his mother Julie is a filmmaker.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiKLMPx2xAU He grew up in Beverly Hills.
==Content==
Vaush has claimed to always be fairly left-wing. His politics greatly shifted in high school, when he became friends with a teacher he had for an advanced level course.
One of the YouTubers that inspired him the most was Twitch streamer Destiny (aka Steven Bonnell). Despite seeing him as a reactionary at the time, Vaush cites Destiny as someone from whom he learned a lot about argumentation and rhetoric. Vaush remained friends with Destiny until September 2020, when Destiny accused Vaush's girlfriend and his fans for mass reporting his Twitch account to ban him. Destiny was de-partnered from Twitch.https://youtu.be/pue92Q0554o Destiny then excommunicated Vaush from his community, saying that he blocked him off of everything.https://youtu.be/pue92Q0554o?t=204 Destiny doubled down on it in 2021. They reconciled for a short whili in late 2023, but had another falling out a few days later.
Vaush's content branding mimics the style of right-wing political channels, so his content can reach right-leaning audiences.https://theconversation.com/meet-breadtube-the-youtube-activists-trying-to-beat-the-far-right-at-their-own-game-156125 His videos also feature internet memes and slang to appeal to younger audiences. 
Before starting his YouTube channel, Vaush described himself as an anarchist in late 2013. He had the username IrishLaddie that he had been using since he was a kid. Using this pseudonym, he would debate Destiny on-stream, who was more to the center politically, with the goal of moving Destiny further left, to adopt ideologies such as Marxism and Communism. 
Due to his sexual harassment controversy in 2019, Vaush stopped using the pseudonym IrishLaddie. 
==Political views==
Vaush holds left-wing views and identifies as a libertarian market socialist. However, he has said he doesn't care for the label that is put onto him and identifies more like a leftist in general. Vaush despises authoritarian leftism, having heavily opposed people espousing political positions similar to that of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin, or supporting authoritarian countries such as China and the Soviet Union. He asserts that self-described leftists who support such views or regimes are not leftists, but "Tankies", as their political views are based on being "anti-American" rather than based on worker rights.
Vaush's long-term goals are similar to those of an anarchist, meaning that he believes in the conditional abolition of all unjust hierarchy in society. However, he stopped labeling himself as any kind of anarchist, on November 20, 2019, due to his belief in an intermediary stage between capitalism and his ideal society which runs contrary to anarchist thought.
Vaush opposes conservatism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, liberal identity politics, and imperialism. He also believes in worker co-ops, which are businesses that are owned and democratically controlled by the workers, believing this arrangement to be more democratic and stable than privately owned businesses. He is anti-sectarian, meaning that he believes in building coalitions with more center-left politicians to accomplish common goals. The two most prominent examples of coalition-building he advocates for are between socialists and social democrats to push the Overton Window further to the left, and between anarchists and leftists, in general, to push for socialism. He has also said he is willing to work with liberals against fascism until such a point comes that they have no further common goals to work towards with. He is unwilling to work with self-described leftists who espouse what he calls destructive ideas, such as Black separatism, abolition of markets, class essentialism, and uncritical deference to a state (e.g. Chinese or Vietnamese Nationalism).
Vaush supported for the Democratic nomination, but switched his support to Joe Biden when Sanders stepped down, claiming that it is more important for leftists to stand in unison with Democrats against Trump and the Republicans, who Vaush believes are fascists, and maintains that "the ultimate enemy of all leftists are fascists."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oBRyoFog0g He also claimed that Biden could be pushed more to the left by progressives.
Vaush also supports ANTIFA. After the 2021 U.S Capitol storming, he stated on Twitter that conservatives and liberals cannot live together. He also claims that right-wing populists are fascists.
==Controversies ==
===Sexual harassment scandal===
Around August 2017, Ian met a woman under the username Poppy through Discord. They both began speaking to each other in direct messages. According to him, they stopped being friends over what he calls her "misappropriate use of feminist rhetoric."
Several months after the friendship ended, Poppy published several sexually explicit messages that Ian sent, including an unwanted picture of his penis he sent to her during the time they were friends, and threats to "rape her until her anus prolapses". In early 2019, he debated a person under the username of Pastel on Discord, who later accused him of sexual harassment. 
Due to the release of the logs, a rumor spread that Kochinski became a leftist in 2012 or 2013 to gather a harem of women who were also leftists to have sex with them. He has strongly denied that rumor and apologized for the messages in a video published to his account on March 31, 2019.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWv33d5jyKY He has also released logs of his interactions with Poppy and clarified the events of their friendship in a Reddit post on September 9, 2019.https://www.reddit.com/r/VaushV/comments/d1x0qx/a_retrospective_on_the_sexual_harassment_drama/
Destiny has also debated him on these allegations. YouTuber Sarah Michel posted a video covering the drama.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrpo73kNBhs
=== Bestiality/Zoophilia ===
Many discord messages were found of Vaush talking about his desire to have sex with horses.https://www.reddit.com/r/DramaticText/comments/l2j4mm/vaush_likes_horse_cock/ However, it is claimed to be "an ironic joke" inside his community.
===Pedophilia accusations===
Ian Kochinski is often accused of being a pedophile. The most common claim rose from a statement that he made about Child Pornography and Child Slavery, where he compared the exploitation of child slavery under capitalism in third-world countries to child pornography, to emphasize the double-standard in where we are easy to condemn child sexual exploitation but turn a blind eye to child labor exploitation, to illustrate how society is far more accepting of child exploitation which is economically beneficial.https://streamable.com/h2ov9p
He operated a Twitter account (@Wacheineide) that liked various drawn pornographic images, one of which was of the 15 year old Star Butterfly character, with semen being ejaculated onto her face.https://archive.md/i7Tfwhttps://imgur.com/a/dBvOzC8 However, he later clarified he had never seen the show and the character was apparently aged up in the drawing.https://archive.is/1elM1 He has also said: "We've all jerked it to loli at some point or another."https://streamable.com/48pusc when describing the post-nut clarity of watching hentai and then realizing that some of the women on the website are suspiciously young-looking as an argument against pedophilia. 
In a hypothetical explaining why rule utilitarianism condemns pedophilia, Vaush said: "it is possible for an adult and a child sexual relationship and for it to have positive outcomes on the child as well. That is possible, however (...)" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaztsMt-axU. This led to more allegations of pedophilia.
Vaush has stated that, if economic inequalities are mended under communism, that it could be justifiable to lower the age of consent to 16, like in the UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttOUU0TG9gE Later clarifying, that he personally thinks the age of consent should be raised.
In addition, Vaush has stated that he supports child sexual abuse material in that it is not immoral.https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/popular-youtuber-vaush-history-apologizing-pedophilia-child-pornography-immoral
On 11 June 2023, Twitter user @Marxist777 make a thread, accusing Vaush being a pedophile. He made a response denying the allegations to this 2 days later.https://youtu.be/8ePpsGfU1m8
===Debates===
In a debate with Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) in December 2019, Vaush claimed repeatedly that Carl was a neo-nazi, and that Carl "hates Brown People" due to his views on immigration.https://youtu.be/7MDfFLC6nMs In a debate with comedian Count Dankula in 2020, Vaush repeatedly accused Dankula of being a white supremacist, claiming that Dankula's jokes are dogwhistles. In a debate with Jackson Hinkle regarding Syria, Vaush compared Jackson to a Holocaust denier, because he did not believe that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad gassed his citizens. 
During a debate on the Killstream, his opponents were trying to describe a black person, when Vaush interrupted, saying, "Dude, you can say n*ggers." They screamed, "Oy Vey!", in response. Vaush acknowledged his use of the word in a pinned comment and said that he "isn't afraid to shock Nazis with racial slurs," but has claimed that it was optically a bad idea in retrospect to deploy "a tactical n-word." 
Vaush has stated that he has no interest in debating Nick Fuentes in a moderated debate, because he believes that would add unmerited legitimacy to a debate where Nick would simply talk shit about Vaush rather than make substantive arguments.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVK-JKWDLZY Vaush was also accused of ducking debate panels with Destiny. 
Youtuber doomerpolitics uploaded a two-hour video titled "Is Vaush Unironically Evil?", where he accuses Vaush of making bad faith arguments towards Sam Harris, Kyle Kulinski and Destiny. Doomerpolitics went on to criticize Vaush for his rhetoric used towards police officers and business owners during the Minneapolis and Kenosha protests. This video was well received by many right-wing YouTubers, such as Count Dankula, Sargon Of Akkad, Lauren Chen, FlamencoTV, Destiny, and many others. Vaush uploaded a response video a few months later, however it was negatively received.https://youtu.be/aCjyqziVSMA
===Rape Comments Apology ===
While reacting to a video by Jubilee regarding rape culture, Vaush claimed that Rape Culture exists, that every woman he knows has been sexually assaulted and that reports of sexual assault are not being taken seriously. In the next ten seconds, Sydney Watson talks about her sexual assault story and that the perpetrator was non-white, of a certain religion, and did not get charged due to Cultural Differences. Ian then screamed, "Bullshit!" and accused her of using her trauma to perpetuate the "rapefugee" narrative. The clip was shared to Twitter by Sydney's friend Brittany Pettibone, and it went viral. Sydney responded to him in Isaac Butterfield's response video to him.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFGIhc4GQ6Ihttps://youtu.be/CJMv1QhPKHA?t=781 
===Comments toward Black Conservatives ===
In August 2020, while watching the Republican National Convention, during a speech by Baltimore House nominee Kimberly Klacik, Ian claimed that "all Republican black women look the same" and that "Candace Owens is running a cloning chamber", referencing that her and Candace have straight hair. Joy Villa, a black conservative woman that does not have straight hair, responded to him online, as well as many others.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W92Hr3a_noc Vaush has since apologized for making this comment.
Vaush has also repeatedly called Candace Owens an , accusing her of using her identity as a black woman to handwave accusations that her arguments are racist. He also referred to Candace as a neo-nazi in an interview with Jesse Lee Peterson.https://youtu.be/TUoEWKBuXGk?t=2051
===Antisemitism===
During a debate with NonCompete, Vaush attempted to test the ethical system of NonCompete by applying it to the disproportionate numbers of Jewish people in the German banking industry in the Weimar republic,https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/moneylending to see if NonCompete could use his ethical system to condemn the conspiracy theory that Jewish people control the world through the banks. However, NonCompete immediately left the debate and out-of-context clips were spread of Vaush, along with accusations of antisemitism. Vaush was accused of making a joke about a Holocaust survivor to apologist.https://archive.li/CaLcT Vaush later clarified that he didn't know Aaron's dad was a holocaust survivor.
=== "Ironic Misogyny" against JK Rowling, Twitter feud with ContraPoints and Kat Blaque ===
In March 2022, Vaush tweeted "All JK Rowling had to do was shut the fuck up and she could have been almost uncritically beloved for a century",https://archive.ph/U6rFq followed by, "Women be quieter and start apologizing challenge".https://archive.ph/AWjxp J.K. Rowling then responded to his tweet with "What you and your ilk fail to appreciate is how tediously familiar I find your tactics. I had a violent ex-husband who used to tell me life would be great if only I’d comply, but you’re making the same mistake he did. Women like me can’t be bullied out of resistance."https://archive.li/yURZ4 She later retweeted and liked tweets of people calling Vaush a pedophile. Vaush replied "Listen Joanne you don’t get to play the victim card when you’re the advocate for taking away women’s rights here. Trans women are raped and killed in men’s facilities and you want to keep them there because of your trauma. Quit making your feelings other people’s oppression." https://twitter.com/VaushV/status/1501687672703651842
Vaush was condemned for his misogynistic joke, even among his fanbase. When Vaush claimed he was being ironically misogynistic, left-wing transgender YouTuber ContraPoints criticized him, saying "Doing edgy ironic misogyny while defending trans people magnifies the grain of truth in what TERFs say about there being misogyny in “trans activism.” Maybe your tweet at JK just didn’t land the way you wanted. Ok fine, it happens. But why get so defensive about reasonable criticism. It just strikes me as off that you’re extremely confident you definitely know better than a trans woman who’s been doing this activism for over a decade. And it kind of compounds my discomfort with the “women be quieter” tweet".https://twitter.com/ContraPoints/status/1503946190802587648 Vaush did not consider this to be reasonable criticism, as he claimed that Rowling intentionally seeks inflammatory tweets to construct her narrative, and Vaush does not accept the "identity politics" idea that transgender people are automatically correct on trans issues even when they make bad arguments. Vaush asked her why she was getting involved, and she responded by saying "Because it’s maddening to watch you pose as the savior of the transgenders, then do edgy misogyny in the name of that, and finally meltdown when a trans woman who knows more than you about this criticizes you for it"https://archive.li/6je8D. 
Later ContraPoints tweeted "Are you done being mad that some trans women disagree that being misogynistic is actually an intricate strategy for being our savior"https://twitter.com/ContraPoints/status/1503987919828271112 and "So you don’t defend the misogyny but you do defend… misogyny in the service of saving the transgenders?? I honestly don’t get it".https://twitter.com/ContraPoints/status/1503989291965374467 In response, Vaush claimed that he thought ContraPoints was arguing in bad faith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOsqGwDHHnw.
Following these accusations, transgender Youtuber Kat Blaque revealed that she used to be in a relationship with Ian and they sexted each other.https://archive.li/LkMBr Kat was criticized because she posted thousands DMs of her and Vaush despite claiming to care about safe consensual sex. Many pointed out that leaking the information of past sexual relations constituted sexual harassment.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aQ34tXN-WY
=== 2024 Loli & Horse Scandal ===
In February of 2024, Vaush accidentally opened his porn folder while on stream. He quickly closed it, but the screenshots were shared on X and led to ridicule, due to the content of the porn, which included bestiality involving a horse, as well as 2 pieces of Lolicon pornography, which Vaush had previously denounced.https://twitter.com/hayasaka_aryan/status/1755376676899332291?t=ogK5xHHfBdoPdVyyqOCyRA&s=19
The controversy gained more attention when the H3 Podcast covered it in their February 9 episode. During the podcast, H3 watched old clips of Vaush giving controversial opinions on CP and age of consent.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H61pA1ZPTs8
Vaush then responded in a February 10th streamhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2oA4wGsSf0, in which he attempted to defend himself, he states that one of the alleged CP images is not CP despite it very clearly being of a teenager, that character being an avatar of a streamer who is underage, who herself identifies as a Lolicon, and that another was, as he perceived, a shortstack, the latter claim was picked apart due to the fact the girl in the image looked nothing like a shortstack.
H3 Podcast covered the scandal a second time during their February 12 episode. During the podcast, H3 reacted to videos and Tweets of Youtubers Keffals and Tipster defending Vaush for controversial statements he made regarding his opinion on the legality of lolicon and CP. Ethan Klein also shared his private DMs with viewers, in which, him and Vaush get into a heated argument.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf6JFPY0g2Y
Vaush made "The Context Video"https://youtu.be/yXZw9vrsAgA?si=YaOBZNhmDhleseav&t=4090, in which he goes down his many related controversies. Regarding the pornography, he states it was carelessness, just as evidently shown that there were also AI-generated images included, something Vaush has been strongly against in any form. Furthermore he believes that anime-drawn pornography has a problem with regards to underrage characters.
It's important to note that Lolicon and Shotacon are effectively illegal within the US and are considered to be CSAM.https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1466A
==Trivia==
* He identifies as pansexual.https://cashmeremag.com/kink-at-pride-vaush-1035923/
* He is on autism spectrum and also has ADHD.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ywnbqSksdw
==References==
Category:Commentary YouTubers
Category:News YouTubers
Category:American YouTubers
Category:Users who joined in 2019
Category:LGBT YouTubers