In the years following the 2013 debut of Adult Swim’s cartoon phenomenon “Rick and Morty,” its star and co-creator Justin Roiland became a titan of the animation and video game industry and a rock star of youth counterculture. His artistic style and caricatures became ubiquitous in cannabis culture, and his career expanded into producing other animated series, creating NFTs and leading a virtual reality gaming studio. In 2017, a “Rick and Morty” collaboration with McDonald’s led to such a viral frenzy that police had to be called to at least two locations.
But as he partied with Los Angeles’ superstars and traveled the country for conventions, he also found he could use his fame to strike up conversations and develop relationships with young fans, including some who were underage. This is according to interviews with 11 women and nonbinary people who shared thousands of messages with Roiland from 2013 to 2022 — with nine of the people saying he turned the exchanges sexual. Of those nine people, three said they were 16 when they started talking to Roiland. To corroborate their stories, the 11 women and nonbinary people also shared pictures, videos, social media posts, emails, and plane ticket and Uber receipts with NBC News.
Warning: Lengthy and graphic details
“Young” could be misinterpreted as 18. “Underage” is the right word.
Yeah, this story needs way more precision than it has.
“Were 16 when they started texting him”. Ok, well how old were they written the allegations occurred, and what is he alleged to have done?
The imprecision is by design. Modern journalism is trash.
Not to defend it, but in situations like this I think they have to be vague for legal reasons. There’s a fine line between reporting the news and defamation (regardless of how true it is).
It’s bullshit, and people will use defamation and lawyers to attack people accusing them. But I can see why you’d want to be extra careful how you worded the title.
Eeeeeexactly
Seems like he waited until they were 18 before meeting them, although he would send sexually-charged texts to women as young as 16.
So did he actually groom them? Because the way this is written it sounds like he asked them their age, and then waited for them to be legal, which is creepy, but I wouldn’t call it grooming.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_the_United_States
Lmao age of consent laws don’t mean it isn’t statutory rape.
Legal expert spotted
They totally do. By definition. What do you think the “statute” in “statutory” is referring to?
Tshh it’s when you rape a statue silly.
Literally in the second paragraph of the article and the summary at the top of this post.
The article then goes on to discuss his conversations with underage fans. The article uses “young” because his conversations with of-age but teenaged fans were also bad.
The fact that these women and enby folks were underage is like the most important part of the story. Calling underage girls “young” and not correctly calling them underage in the title of the story is called burying the lede.
Justin Roiland used his ‘Rick and Morty’ fame to pursue young and underage fans, text messages show would have been a better title.
Per the article, he explicitly did not pursue underage fans, though.
For most people, except apparently many in this thread, “young” heavily implies underage. When character limits matter, it’s okay to start by saying “young,” which is accurate, then clarify further in the article.
Still creepy if not illegal at just above 18. Turns out he was more than just creepy though.
“Underage” in which locale, and for what? If you’re referring to age of consent, 16 isn’t underage in most places, as it shouldn’t be.
Fuck off pedo
What makes you right and a lot of the rest of the world wrong? Why is 18 the right number instead of 16?
I’m not arguing with a pedo