The Wounds that Got Me Here: A story about my experience working for Lockstin
I have a story that I want to tell. A story I've told some people, in bits and pieces, but never really fully written out before. Given who the story involves, what their reputation is, I don't expect it to be fully believable. And because of that, I've spent years debating telling it. Afraid of being judged, of not being believed, of people thinking I'm just trying to tear someone down. I'm afraid people will think I'm overreacting, that what I experienced is 'just how the business works'. I'm afraid that they might be right.
But no matter what people think, it's the truth. I lived it. And I'm finally ready to share it, I think.
Not because I want to cancel anyone, this isn't a call-out post, but so I can share my story and heal.
CWs: discussion of underpaid creative work and inappropriate content involving minors
The story starts in late 2017, during Sac Gamers Expo. I had heard that Arlo had somehow gotten hold of copies of the Splatoon 2 Sound Selection vinyl, an extremely rare piece of Splatoon merchandise even now, originally only sent to members of the gaming press, and was giving them out. I was an avid collector of modern vinyl, as well as an avid Splatoon fan, and had been trying to track a copy down ever since it was known they existed. I begged my dad, desperately, to take me, even though it was a hell of a drive from San Diego to Sacramento, and, once I communicated to him just how rare this was and just how much I wanted it, he agreed.
While I was there, I had the chance to meet Lockstin, a YouTuber who I was a huge fan of at the time. Knowing he'd done a Splatoon video recently, and knowing his channel had gotten its initial start doing Game Theory counterpoint videos, I urged him to do a 'are Inklings actually made of ink' video, given this was a sticking point in the fandom, as well as due to personal frustration with MatPat for his 'are Inklings kids or squids' video. I saw value in trying to discuss the 'actual question', rather than the question MatPat had asked, in the process hopefully clarifying a widespread lore misconception, and I thought it was a topic his channel would do justice.
He said he'd think about it.
A month or two later I messaged him on Discord, asking if he had given it any more thought. He admitted that he didn't know anything about Splatoon, that his previous attempt to write on the games hadn't performed well, and that, and this isn't an exact quote, 'if I wanted to see it made, I'd have to write it myself', meaning I could write the script and sell it to him.
The Splatoon video they had done by that point, to be honest, was terrible. It was extremely poorly researched, and took what was in-universe meant to be propaganda, information from an unreliable narrator, at face value, building its thesis on the idea Grizzco presents to the player that Salmonids were just dumb animals. I knew that, if things were really this dire, I had to do this. I had to 'right the wrong' that was the quality of Lockstin's Splatoon content. So I took him up on his offer. We made a handshake deal, that I would write scripts for a cut of ad revenue. What 'a cut of ad revenue' meant, what percentage it would be, a payment schedule, none of it was ever specified. Just 'a cut of ad revenue'.
It took around a month of workshopping after that, but once I had a solid idea for a first video, I threw myself into the work. For two weeks, during my computer science lectures at community college, rather than paying attention to the lectures I'd be researching for the video I was writing. Two weeks of work.
I made $89. And in the meantime, I got some…pointed messages from friends.
See, for the thumbnail, he used key art from Octo Expansion. It had just been announced a couple months prior, so he probably thought it would grab attention, even though it wasn't really related to the topic of the video.
The problem was what art he used, and how he used it.
He had put, front and center, Agent 8, a canonically 16 year old character, in a piece of art showing her with splotches of ink on her. Except, he had photoshopped the ink splotches to be white. And then he added key art of Cap'n Cuttlefish from Octo Expansion, lurking in the background, positioned such to look like he was looking at Agent 8.
People who knew I had the gig, who I had excitedly told I was working for Lockstin, blamed me for the thumbnail. I told them I had nothing to do with it. I confronted Lockstin, since the original thumbnail he showed me before the video went up didn't have the 'white ink' edit. His response? To attribute the video's success partially to the thumbnail, and that he "could always swap it real quick if it [got] out of hand".
He never did. The white ink thumbnail is still up, to this day. And this wasn't an isolated incident; he has a pattern even now, years later, of using sexual clickbait in his thumbnails, because it's what 'works'. Even though the videos really don't need it. Even though, in my opinion, they're undermined by it.
In the time following that, I built a small team of Splatoon lore obsessive friends to work on the videos together. And Lockstin came to me with a question. He had a long-running series on his channel, 'Why do X have breasts', meant to analyze and apply actual scientific reasoning to humanity's propensity to put breasts on non-human and even non-mammalian characters, and he wanted to know if I could think of a way to make that work for Splatoon. I initially turned the idea down, saying I couldn't think of a way to make it work. Until someone on his Discord server came to me with the seed of an idea, and me and my team started mulling it over, and I realized that I had a way to turn the topic into something else.
Something that took the idea of 'Why do X have breasts', the sexualization, the clear fetishization by people who wanted to see that video made, and turn it on its head.
I came up with a theory merging female empowerment with body horror, something I thought would be unsettling to those who showed up for sexual gratification. The idea that the breasts were really musculature around the ink sac, enabling female Inklings and Octolings to be superior fighters in a society that, even in canon, seems to be dominated by strong women.
Of course, people didn't see it that way. I forgot, or perhaps was even baited into by the member on his Discord server, that people with buff-women fetishes would find that take on the idea more exciting than disconcerting. That's something I'm not proud of, even if I'm proud of, overall, snatching female empowerment from the jaws of misogyny.
The video made me $60. Even less, because I split the money between me and my collaborators. In the years since, this has become the best performing of all of the videos I wrote for the channel.
In the meantime, he came to me asking if I would be willing to work on non-Splatoon content, floated to me an idea he'd been workshopping about making a channel focused on western animation. He wanted to keep me on as a writer, even as it was clear Splatoon content wasn't as lucrative, for me or for him, as the other work his channel was doing. I told him I wasn't sure, but offered a Steven Universe theory that I had written the year prior, for a channel that never happened. His response was that he didn't want to involve himself in that fandom for drama reasons, which I agreed with, and we never spoke again about it.
Next, I was told that I had to write a video under a strict deadline; they had a sponsorship from Splatoon Amino, and the video had to be done by a certain date. Me and one of my collaborators, also credited on the end card alongside me, cranked out a video on why Inklings and Octolings die in water. It didn't perform amazingly, but I still made… $92. More than I expected, and I chalked this up to the sponsorship. Again, I split the money, because I felt that was the right thing to do.
Then came the video I'm the most proud of. I came across a theory on Reddit about Splatoon 3, based on evidence found in the at the time new Salmon Run stage, Ruins of Ark Polaris. I messaged the creator of the theory asking if I could use it as the basis for a YouTube video, and was told I could. I built on top of it a larger theory, that ended up getting quite a lot right about what Splatoon 3 would be, almost a full year before the New Years 2020 'Save Our Salmons' art where Nintendo made a direct point of Splatoon 3 involving Salmonids.
I made… $35. And for my trouble? Another sexualized thumbnail, with the focal point of the thumbnail being the Smash Ultimate render of the Splatoon Wii U default Inkling Girl, a 14 year old character, having eaten the Spicy Curry item, edited to make her blush more intense. The implications are plain to intuit.
And, this video had unseen effects. In all of my scripts, I would make meticulous notes, of sources, of evidence. In that video, I had cited a translation I came across on Tumblr, belonging to an at the time smaller creative voice, Rassicas. The translation was used in the video as I wrote it, but no citation was given. Rassicas, for their part, for years thought 'Lockstin stole their work'. They have cited not wanting that to happen to them ever again, to stand on their own merits rather than others benefit from their work, as one of the reasons they started their YouTube channel to begin with, with them now considered by the fandom to be the definitive, authoritative voice in the community on Splatoon lore, especially lore that is exclusive to the Japanese text.
For my part, years later when I found this out, I apologized. I even wrote a public apology, taking full accountability, because I had forgotten IF I had credited them or not. When I looked at the script, and found out that I in fact had, and that it was his choice to strip that out, I told them immediately. We were both livid at the revelation.
Then came my final video, and the one I'm the least proud of. One of my team shared a meme that had been blowing up on /r/Splatoon, comparing Inkling and Octoling ear shapes to the mantles of actual squid and octopuses, pointing out that the idols' ear shapes corresponded more to the mantle shape of cuttlefish. We realized it for what it was, a joke, but realized there was an opportunity for an actual video there. I mean, hell, we know cuttlefish Inklings exist thanks to Octo Expansion, so it wouldn't even be bending the canon all that badly. So we ran with it. Made a damn good video, I admit.
Too good. The fandom even now, five and a half years later, is convinced Callie and Marie are cuttlefish.
Lockstin did us another kindness, as well; at the end of the video he plugged a website that I had been putting together, now long-since defunct, for Splatoon lore investigations by my team that I didn't think could be made into videos, either due to the turnaround time required, the length, or the interest. Sending people off of his platform and onto ours. And, on top of the direct plug, the direct shout-out, this time the end card credited 'the team at Inktank.info'. It didn't credit us by name, like the prior videos. But in its place he actively was driving people to our platform instead of his. On the one hand, legitimizing our work as part of a team and a place. But at the same time, meaning our names weren't directly on the video this time. I have mixed feelings about this, but I'm willing to err on the side of leniency and say that wasn't his intention. He was trying to drive eyes to us and our efforts, uplift us as creators, like he had done for others by launching their careers.
And from the video we made $102. The most we made off of any video, even though it performed among the bottom two. I haven't mentioned it until now, but at some point it had been established that this was because Lockstin had been rolling forward ad revenue from past videos into payment for future videos. Unspoken was the fact that, if I wanted to keep making money on my old videos, I'd have to keep making new ones.
Again, I split the money. Even when I was making almost nothing, I wasn't going to let the people who helped me, the people who understood the things I didn't, go unpaid and uncredited. Multiple of the videos contained deep dives on topics like mollusk biology as part of their evidence, which were things I'd have no idea about on my own. Not paying them, not pushing Lockstin to credit them, would be laundering responsibility for the content I sold him, at best.
And, of course, another thumbnail scandal, again falling on me within my friend group. Lockstin had used a Garry's Mod fan render of Marie in the thumbnail, and people who knew I worked on it messaged me about him using stolen art. I ended up giving Lockstin the official render that he had meant to use, which was identically posed so he probably just mixed the two up… He never fixed it. Even now the thumbnail still uses stolen art.
It was at this point I decided to walk away. There was a sixth video that I had begun to research, that I had been planning since the beginning and was really excited to finally work on, but… I just, gradually and silently stopped talking to Lockstin, and I walked away.
I didn't immediately cut contact, though. I maintained messaging him until halfway into 2020. Because despite it all, I saw him as someone I had an amicable relationship with. Because it took time for me to fully accept what had happened to me. I even told him, in our last exchange, that I was still planning on making that sixth video. Because it took me some time to really sit with what happened.
And during that time, something happened. Around the end of 2019 there were serious concerns going around, of the FTC going after YouTube channels run by pop culture focused content creators, due to the updates to COPPA reclassifying them as 'children's content', regardless of what they actually contained. I messaged Lockstin in a panic, telling him if things got that bad, to delist my videos since I lived, and still live, with my dad, both of us disabled and on a fixed income. He assured me that anything that occurred would happen to the channel owner, and that I was safe, no matter what happened. And, "if it does wind up bad I'll be delisting all the videos. and also I'll take the hit for any fines."
Edit 3/12/25 (in bold): Regardless, having done some back-of-the-napkin math talking to Rassicas since making the original version of this post, it turns out I likely was only receiving a 10% share of ad revenue, assuming a standard-at-the-time $2 to $3 CPM for gaming content. Likely less, since I noticed a bump in income on the video that was directly sponsored despite it doing poorly, implying I may have received income from the other videos' sponsors as well. If I received any sponsor money though, knowing now how lucrative sponsorships are, I can't imagine I got a reasonable share of that either. And no matter how much napkin math I do, the fact of the matter is I'll never know exactly how much he made, and exactly how much of it I made. But it wasn't a fair amount.
And when you factor in lost residuals in the years since? The breasts video alone would have made $2,000 to $3,000 by now in just raw CPM, meaning I ultimately made about 2-3% of the ad revenue on that video.
Also, I want to be clear. It was my choice to bring in a team after the fact. He was never responsible for that, and it made a meager pay situation worse. I accept the responsibility for that.
Even now I struggle to square the circle of what this was. I don't know enough about his YouTube finances to know if I was paid fairly, if money really was that tight for him and his team. He had been known for uplifting creators he worked with. He helped launch Arlo's career. I can't imagine he would abuse his employees.
Not to mention, there were good times. This was a gig that I really, truly enjoyed, and put more effort into than he ever asked for. After my first video, at my own personal expense, I flew to Portland for a day to be a part of a fan meetup he did for the channel. He didn't ask me to do that. Hell, he told me not to, he told me I was crazy for doing it. But I did it because I was passionate about the work and about representing my work to his fans. Not only that, every time a video came out, I would spend one or two days, replying, personally, to as many comments as I could, answering questions, clarifying and elaborating on things, interacting with fans on a personal level. He never asked me to do any of that. I did that because I was passionate about the work I was doing. And I don't regret that.
But at the same time, this feels like abuse. Even as he was kind to me at points.
And that's the fear, right? He's 'one of the good ones', even with the sexual clickbait and everything else. My fear is that if I share this story, I'll be crucified for trying to tear down, trying to cancel, someone who overall has a positive reputation, who's much, MUCH bigger than I am. But that's not what this is about. This is just…me telling my story. Me telling people what happened to me.
So, I don't know what to call it, really. Other than a learning experience, as I start to lay the groundwork for my own channel, years later. Because I don't want to do this to other people. No matter what you call it.
And I want to be clear. There are other creators I've worked with. Other people I've made handshake deals with, but who treated me kindly, with integrity and respect, with definite terms set out in advance. And when I haven't gotten paid by those people, it wasn't because they exploited me, it was because the work fizzled out, and there was no profit, so there was no pay to be had. That's not exploitation. That's a reality of the industry. Sometimes things just don't pan out, and that's okay.
What's not okay is the ambiguity, the space in the margins that can be used to exploit others, whether that was one's intention or not. Because I don't think that was Lockstin's intention. I think he saw me as another Arlo, another person he was lifting up. But at the same time, this experience was a source of genuine trauma, and something that I'm only now starting to be comfortable with telling people outside of my friend group, five years after it ended.
Like I said. I'm not trying to tear anyone down. I'm not writing a hit piece. Because I doubt this was malicious. I really do. I know that, if I messaged him? If I told him what his actions were and did to me? We could hash it out, I could get closure privately. And, hell, I might do that if and when I feel ready to. Or, if he sees this and messages me? Hey, dude. I'm open to talk about this. I'm listening, if you want to say something. Because, that's the thing, right? I didn't confront this, publicly or privately, for five years, even after I walked away. I was afraid of talking to him, of what that could mean for me if he disagreed that what he did was harmful. I was afraid of a potential escalation, or losing work in an industry where I'm still only starting to find my voice.
But this isn't about that. It's about making the world a little safer for people like me, for other people who went through what I did and might not have the language or the tools to recognize what they're going through. And to make a public point, that I learned from the experience, that I plan to be better than what happened to me. Not so I can aggrandize myself, but so you, the people reading this, can hold me to it if I ever lose my direction. So I put what happened to me to a stone tablet, never allowed to forget it. Because I want to stop the cycle of abuse before it's allowed to start.
So, thank you. For taking the time to read this, and for taking my story for what it is. It means more than you could ever know, not just to me, but to everyone like me.
Edit 2, 3/12/25: Since making this post, I remembered and checked on something, and it's so much worse than I thought.
In January of 2022, Lockstin posted a series of 'Season Collection' videos, bundling his content year-by-year across seven videos. These videos made up a total almost 55 hours of content and 310 videos.
The first problem... He cut out all of the end cards. All of them. I know I wasn't the only writer he worked with. How many other people went uncredited in these compilations besides me?
The second problem... Going back to the point I made about residuals. How do you even calculate something like that? Compilation content is meant to ride the wave of super-longform content like Arlo's 'A Big Fat Review of Breath of the Wild' or Quinton Reviews' series on Dan Schneider. It's meant to play to YouTube Premium viewers, where creators get a payout based on watch time. A big one. A proportional share per-viewer of 55% of their subscription cost, based on how much of their watchtime went to which channels each month. Both LinusTechTips and Arlo have referenced longer-form content being some of their highest-earning content as a result of this.
So, at best? Maybe he figures out how much money he got from YouTube Premium and tries to split that up based on the retention charts. I can't imagine that'd be reasonable to expect someone to do for seven compilation videos on an ongoing basis. Maybe he just divides all the YouTube Premium money, and the $2 to $3 CPM, across all 310 videos equally. But that doesn't ensure people are paid for the specific viewtime for their specific videos, and on a 10 hour supercut of as many as 60 videos, the CPM split would be negligible.
The third problem... The Season 5 thumbnail has the Agent 8 'white ink' image again, one of a few videos the thumbnail references.
I know that this is a drastically different tone than the rest of this post. But this isn't just 'a good guy making mistakes' anymore. This is systemic abuse of everyone who ever worked with him. Not just writers, but editors, special thanks to people who contributed in other ways... What does he call it? "The vast majority of Lockstin's "Gnoggin" videos, with the sponsorships, needless outros, and end cards removed".
My work. My credit for my work. Is "needless".
And among the videos that he removed, he references 'videos with very incorrect information (such as predictions)'. The Season 6 video removes my Splatoon 3 prediction video. The video that I think was my best work for him, that yes got some things wrong but got a shocking amount right, that has value not just to me but to him on that merit alone. Just proof he didn't understand the content.
I'm sorry. I'm just, angry. I know this is a change in tone but I'm angry.
I've been on a ZaneGames/DeliciousJames/ScarecrowSketch crack lately, and I'm really hyped for the goncharov situation going on with Timothy Chestnut's Guide to Saving Christmas, it's fascinating to see, really
Fanart I made for Lockstin & Gnoggin’s Kaskade region, more specifically the gym leader and cute chef girl Elna, plus one of her Pokemon Vitisquatch because it’s a good boi.
