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
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.
Talking about the title
I think you must have missed their last sentence. The title uses young because it wasn’t just underaged girls he was texting, and texting the 18 and 19 year olds at his age is also a pretty bad look.
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.
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.
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I tend to give jokes a pass. Humor is often contextual and cultural so some jokes really do require an explanation.
Per the article, he explicitly did not pursue underage fans, though.