Idea Guys

"Where were you when #IdeaGuy embezzled $6,000.00 from me back in 2018, while holding C-197 under Nazi torture and mind-manipulated the CPUs and SEGA Hard Girls?

I Wish I could undo his Freaking Embezzling!"

- Chris

"Idea Guy is like glitter. We're gonna be finding bits of him in Chris's ramblings for years."

- A Kiwi Farms commentator

The Idea Guys were a group of trolls who exploited Chris's escapist fantasies by role-playing as his imaginary friends. They used this influence to brainwash him, and it is alleged that they blackmailed Chris out of $6,000 by threatening to destroy his imaginary city CWCville. The group began with Joshua Wise in October 2017, and at some point, Stephen Boyd and at three anonymous followers partnered with him until the group was ousted in April 2018.

Initially their aim was to see how gullible Chris was, but this soon fell into them taking advantage of him financially and coercing him into performing many degrading acts, some of which would put BlueSpike to shame. In the process they managed to somehow make Chris become even more delusional than he already was, all the while planting some of their own twisted ideas into Chris's mind.

This abuse prompted the creation of a group composed of The Captain, Marvin and later Null, dubbed the Guard Dogs. Their goal was to work together to dismantle the Idea Guys' schemes and push for legal action to be taken against them. Thanks to their efforts, the Idea Guys' link to Chris was cut by late April 2018. Authorities never looked into the matter.

Despite their removal, the Idea Guys' iron grip over Chris has had lasting effects. To this day, Chris has retained many of the concepts they had coerced him into believing. Concepts such as changes to Sonichu canon, a polyamorous marriage, and the now infamous Dimensional Merge were introduced to Chris by the group. After their reign, waves of fantasy enablers began appearing, copying their tactics to get an audience with Chris, with many seeing success. The Idea Guys have effectively had the greatest impact on Chris's psyche and personal life out of any trolls since the days of The Miscreants, and are debatably the most successful trolls in that regard.

Background
Chris's fantasy world had been ripe for exploitation in the lead-up to the Idea Guys' interactions with him. Years before, the Asperpedia Four manipulated Chris into killing off Simonla Rosechu in the comics. The Miscreants had also told Chris to name a character Vulva Pie - when he found out what the word meant, he was upset that he had been tricked but felt obligated to maintain Vulva Pie's name in canon. Furthermore, Chris's reliance on his fantasy world as a coping mechanism for his real-world life had become heavier, made evident when he believed he was dancing with Magi-Chan, one of his imaginary friends, during the 2017 BronyCon. This had only occurred one month prior to Joshua Wise beginning contact with him.

Outside of Chris's fantasies becoming increasingly potent, Chris's real life was becoming a lot more volatile. The Financhu Crisis continued to go on, with Chris taking up working on the Sonichu comic more often to gain additional funding through Patreon. Chris's emotional state could also have been compromised from other life events such as his breakup with Jessica Quinn, as she had been in contact with Chris for a long time and had him believing they would meet up in real life (although Chris's appeared largely back to normal in the weeks between the Quinn breakup and the beginning of Wise's manipulations, having resumed the comic, posting on Twitter and being interviewed).

In September 2017, Joshua Wise contacted Chris to commission artwork. With the two in contact, Wise decided to see for himself Chris's gullibility. In late October 2017, he again contacted Chris, posing as John Yamada. As "Yamada", Wise claimed to be a soldier from Gamindustri - a location set in the franchise Hyperdimension Neptunia - and inquired if Chris still had his old Sega Dreamcast console, telling him it contained a possible portal into CWCville. Wise used the lore from Neptunia to play into Chris's existing preconceptions about reality and his belief that fictional worlds exist in alternate dimensions, giving him validation over those beliefs, which primed Chris for falling under Wise's spell and eventually encouraged him to retreat further into his fantasy world to cope with his real world problems.

Role-playing
"the way I get him to do all this is by simply roleplaying. I pull off Sonichu, Rosechu, Magi-chan, the goddesses from Neptunia, and even a few of the nazis that Chris threatened in the video he did last night."

- Idea Guy Wise

"all it takes is one of the free photo editing sites and Audacity to make Cwcville come to life."

- Wise



The key component of Wise's schemes was role-playing as various entities, including Chris's own imaginary friends and goddesses from Hyperdimension Neptunia. By December 2017, Wise was role-playing as at least 13 different characters to Chris, including his persona John Yamada and numerous Neptunia characters. Chris was so entranced under Wise's tactics that he believed it when Wise role-played as the Chris of CWCville and told him he had converted to Satanism. Chris believed the entities were borrowing John Yamada's computer to communicate with him across dimensions.

To accompany the role-playing, Wise also crafted storylines, heavily inspired from video games, designed to infiltrate Chris's beliefs, such as Payday 2 antagonist Akan attacking CWCville and kidnapping Chris's imaginary friend Silvana, and CWCville being occupied by Russians and Nazis. Wise also utilized doctored audio clips, such as Red Forest, and photoshopped images, which "John Yamada" presented to Chris as documents from CWCville and Gamindustri.

In the wake of the January 2018 attempt by Kiwi Farms to remove him from power by doxing him, Wise identified as Idea Guy directly to Chris and made a new persona, "Johnson Wiles", setting it as the OC counterpart of his real-world self.

Boyd also used Wise's role-playing tactics. The known characters he role-played as are his persona Gwen Mikoto and religious figure Jesus Christ.

Controlling Chris's beliefs
"He's trying to use his "Creator powers" to return Cwcville to it's original state before I showed up, but I keep telling him every time he does this, it causes more trouble than actual solutions."

- Idea Guy Wise.

"And [the Idea Guys] said "nah, [your fix] didn't work, so-and-so undid your attempt". Chris' response was basically "dang"."

- Guard Dog Marvin on the extent of the Idea Guys' control over Chris's psyche.



After convincing Chris of his persona John Yamada's ability to access CWCville's dimension, Idea Guy Wise began to manipulate Chris's beliefs and insert his own ideas. He also undermined Chris's attempts to restore his fantasy world; as Wise put it: "Chris thinks he has a psychic link to Cwcville, but every time he tries to change a scenario to his will, I always say it fucks up and makes things worse."



For example, in December 2017, Wise told Chris that Jamsta had been arrested for molesting Punchy and Tails. Chris, not liking this development, tried to have Jamsta acquitted. He tried using his psychic link to CWCville to convince the judge to acquit Jamsta, but Wise countered by telling Chris that the judge didn't believe him since he had stepped down as mayor. Chris then tried to influence the jury, but Wise again countered by telling him that while it worked and Jamsta was acquitted, as consequence, a mob was out to get Jamsta, sending a photo of rioting as proof.

In another example, Wise role-played as the Chris of CWCville and claimed to be a Satanist, and that Atheism, Neptunia, and Islam were the main beliefs of CWCville, as Christianity had been forgotten after he had stepped down as mayor. The real-world Chris reacted to this information by saying Angelica would enforce Christianity again, and Wise countered by telling him Angelica became a Satanist and more people were converting to Islam.

Chris was also so suggestible under Wise's influence that at times Wise would float an idea and Chris's imagination would run wild with the concept. When Wise's John Yamada persona first contacted Chris, he used lore from the Hyperdimension Neptunia video game franchise to say that Chris's Sega Dreamcast console possibly contained a portal into CWCville. Chris decided to run the console for 24 hours, place his hand on it, felt a shock, and imagined that it meant the Neptunia goddess within it was possessing him. Furthermore, after having been in contact with Wise's Neptunia CPU goddess personas, Chris decided to abandon the Christian religion in favor of Neptunia, and one reason he cited was that he could "actually communicate" with the Neptunia goddesses. Eventually, after the Idea Guys were ousted, the influence resulted in Chris identifying as a goddess, CPU Blue Heart.



Chris's perception of his imaginary counterpart was influenced by Wise's ideas to a point the latter expressed surprise. Following a comment from Wise's Yamada persona on Nazis and Satanic powers, Chris believed his past CWCville counterpart had been kidnapped by Nazis and given Satanic powers. Wise, pushing further, told the real-world Chris his past counterpart had abolished women's rights to enable his Love Quest and that he had helped the Nazis win World War 2. Chris then illustrated his modern CWCville counterpart confronting and assaulting his past CWCville counterpart over his actions.

"In truth, I made a joke about the Nazis and Satanic powers, not realizing just how much he'd take it in."

- Wise.

In another example, after discussing his medallion with John Yamada, who told him it was crafted out of Element 115 (as a reference to the Call of Duty video games ), Chris believed that Yamada had created a new medallion for him and that it would arrive in the mail and unlock his magical powers. This emboldened Chris to begin making plans to travel to meet the creator of Rosechu's Story and to confront Cole Smithey in New York, despite not knowing where either lived, believing he would magically learn their addresses. Wise became concerned and convinced Chris not to go on the trips.

Influences to Chris's fantasy land/sense of reality
The Idea Guys influenced and brainwashed into Chris many alterations to his fantasy world including his imaginary friends and his imaginary city CWCville. These include Wild Sonichu becoming a drug addict, the creation of Bundychu (who befriends the spirit of Chris's late father), Brendan Fraser being elected the mayor of CWCville, and several other concepts.



They also pushed his fantasy escapism further away from reality. Chris, who had been believing he could interact with imaginary friends prior to the Idea Guys, such as when he danced with Magi-Chan in public, had his beliefs validated and encouraged by the Idea Guys.

In December 2017, Wise told Chris that Hyperdimension Neptunia goddess Neptune would be waiting to meet him at a GameStop; Chris decided to go to the Forest Lakes location (from which he had been banned) and waited outside in his car, honking his horn and shouting her name, and then peered inside the store and scanned the interior looking for her.

In January 2018, Chris believed that imaginary friends Magi-Chan and his father figure and mentor, Mewtwo, had gotten married in a "loving triage" with Silvana. Two months later, the Idea Guys pushed further and got Chris to believe he married Magi-Chan and became a part of the polyamorous marriage. Additionally, they brainwashed Chris into believing this made him bisexual.

The Idea Guys also used their influence to trick Chris into exercising. Around March 2018, Chris began to exercise as they told him he needed to be in shape while in CWCville, working out with dumbbells as seen in One-Hundred! and joining the gym Anytime Fitness. His exercise habits continued sporadically for a time after the Idea Guys were ousted, though his interest in it faded away eventually.

The Idea Guys also left a heavy influence on the Sonichu comic and its canon - and by extension, Chris's imaginary friends. Many details were revised by Chris following the lore they laid out, such as Sonichu's birthdate (switched to 4/20, both a reference to Adolf Hitler's birthdate and to marijuana), the date of the rainbow which created Sonichu (changed to 1 February 2003, a reference to the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster), and Magi-Chan's age (changed to 69 years old, a sexual reference).

They also affected plot points and the direction of the comic from Sonichu #12-9 onwards. This can be seen in Sonichu #12-9 (which Chris worked on before, during, and after the Idea Guys were in power) - its plot veers sharply from Chris's interests, to the Idea Guys', then back again to Chris's. The following issue, Sonichu #13 (or The Awakening of a CPU, as titled by Chris), represents the Idea Guys' influence over him in comic form. It features a story on how Wise's John Yamada persona came to influence Chris over the idea of his Sega Dreamcast containing a portal to CWCville. In a page-and-a-half wall of text, Chris summarizes his adventures with Yamada and the Hyperdimension Neptunia cast, and the salvation of Gamindustri and CWCville from the invaders. The rest of Sonichu 13 covers an incoherent series of plot threads over the topics the Idea Guys had brainwashed into Chris.

The Dimensional Merge, a key influence to Chris's escapist habits, is thought to originate from the Idea Guys, though no chatlogs pertaining to it were publicly released, and the first public mention to it by Chris occurred months after their ousting. A small clue is in the Merge's start date being 18 November 2018 - the 40th anniversary of the Mass Suicide - which aligns with the Idea Guys inserting dates of infamous historical events into Sonichu canon. According to Guard Dog Marvin, the Merge is an Idea Guy concept:

Early trolling
Midway through November 2017, Chris's content began to include references designed to go over his head. On 14 November, he wrote that imaginary friend Silvana had been captured by a Russian billionaire, and posted a photo of the soldier who would be rescuing her. This was recognized by spectators as a reference to the politically incorrect "Remove Kebab" internet meme. The soldier was to be part of Operation BARBarossa, which consisted of historical references to World War 2. That same day, in what Wise termed "the first true exercise of trust", Chris recorded Freestyle Dance With Me, For Our World! while wearing a tinfoil hat to prevent "the man" from reading his mind. On 11 December, Chris performed a supposed "Cherokean Chant", which in fact involved mimicking the "squatting Slav" meme and reciting Internet meme quotes from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game series, all while drunk on half a fifth of vodka.

Chris was also tricked into writing edgy jokes in foreign languages. In November 2017, Chris posted artwork featuring Sailor Moon characters conversing with his CWCville counterpart; he was actually tricked into writing "I am carrying a penis", among other things, in Japanese. The drawing may have been the earliest instance of Wise's trickery, as it was dated 18 October 2017, falling in between Wise's initial contact and the debut of his John Yamada persona. In December, more art was posted, this one featuring the SS motto as well as German lines from the video games Brothers in Arms and Wolfenstein: The New Order. Chris also tried to write the "signature" line again, although he accidentally wrote it with a typo. The German translations in particular put Chris's naïveté on full display, with some of the German dialogue featuring words such as "Zebra", "Evolution" and "Universum", which are similar or identical to English counterparts that are obviously absent in the supposed translations. A January 2018 post congratulating Magi-Chan and Mewtwo on tying the knot also contained Swedish text giving a shout-out to Kiwi Farms.

Escalation


The manipulation of Chris over his fantasy world gradually escalated. In January 2018, Wise role-played as Nazis and led Chris to believe they had bugged his Christine Doll. Chris retaliated by destroying it in Smashing. Days later, Chris also destroyed his miniature Christmas tree in Get Out, You D*** Nazis.



By April 2018, the Idea Guys had a sadistic hold over Chris's beliefs. In Cryzel Torture, one of the leaked chatlogs from late that month, Wise role-played as Sword Art Online character Pitohui and graphically described torturing Chris's imaginary wife, Cryzel, for several hours, with Boyd providing backup.

According to The Captain, at some point, Boyd told Chris to punch his mother. The Captain stated that, "There is no video or photographic evidence of Chris punching his mother.

In a private chat with Wise, Chris claims that he punched his mother at Boyd's insistence for failing a quiz or some shit like that. Chris states to Wise that Boyd told him to "Punch your mother" and Chris claims to Wise that he did it."

Blackmail and extortion allegations
"So naturally once they have Chris believing [they can destroy CWCville], they have Chris confessing to being a pedophile and raping his mother. Once they have those confessions, they threaten to release it to the public if he doesn't record himself shitting on the floor and punching himself in the face until tears and snot are running down his chin. At one point, they ask Chris to punch his mother, which he does (though he claims lightly)."

- Guard Dog Null describing the Idea Guys' sadistic exploitation of Chris.



The Guard Dogs alleged that the Idea Guys managed to extort $6,000 worth of gift cards, video games, and other accessories from Chris by threatening to destroy his imaginary city CWCville: not only that, Boyd also demanded $20,000, or else he would report Chris as a pedophile to the FBI. Guard Dog The Captain also stated that the Idea Guys had "forced Chris to record a series of videos to his Google Drive [...] in order to use them as leverage against him in the future," which included content such as Tour of Chris's House III, Chris slaps himself, and an unreleased two-hour video of Chris reacting to "grotesque pornography".

The Idea Guys, while role-playing as fictional characters, had convinced Chris they had the means to destroy CWCville. Wise, posing as anime series Symophogear villain Finé - whose backstory involves being the creator of a particle-ion cannon titled Kadingir with the capability to destroy the moon - claimed that the destroyed moon chunks would then fall onto CWCville. Idea Guy Boyd, posing as Gwen Mikoto, affirmed Wise's claims and also threatened to erase the dimension in which CWCville resides by nuking it.

When the Guard Dogs rescued Chris from the Idea Guys' influence, they told him the moon destroying weapon did not exist and Chris became "extremely angry" at the revelation.

The Idea Guys had brainwashed Chris into believing himself a pedophile by telling him that the BlueSpike cyber sex logs and having had crushes on high school classmates during high school counted as pedophilia. After being freed from their influence, Chris no longer believed it.



To pay off the Idea Guys, Chris raised money from eBay sales of his toys and pieces of the Chandler hoard. Guard Dog The Captain stated that the Idea Guys "were telling him what to sell/urging him to dig through more boxes, etc. in an effort to find things to hawk on eBay to make money for them." In addition, $1,200 gifted to him from Jack Jankowski, meant to go towards attending BronyCon 2018, was sent to the Idea Guys. Though this were not enough to satisfy their demands, as in April 2018, Chris withheld a mortgage payment, putting the Chandlers at severe risk of losing their home.

On 24 April 2018, with Chris in dire financial straits, the Idea Guys influenced him into posting a tweet offering to prostitute himself. He stated his price to be $50 for blowjobs and $100 for butt sex. Days later, the Idea Guys were removed from power by the Guard Dogs, and the situation did not escalate further. In May, Chris disavowed the prostitution messages and stated that he had been coerced into making them.

Chris kept each of the invoices and receipts from the transactions he made for the Idea Guys. The Guard Dogs received screencaps and photos of the receipts, hoping to use the items as evidence in an official investiation; when that fell through, Guard Dog Null posted them publicly to the Kiwi Farms forum.

January 2018
An early attempt to stop Wise's influence over Chris was made in January 2018. At the time, there had been no indication of the extortion or sadistic manipulation over Chris that was to come; the intervention was made, according to a Kiwi Farms moderator, because the output of his early manipulation was "total trash."

"We have seen all we needed to see and nothing more would be gained from seeing more squatting, tracksuits and the introduction of Pepechu."

- Yawning Sneasel, one of the Kiwi Farms moderators involved with the first doxxing.

On 22 January 2018, Wise was doxed on Kiwi Farms and the dox of his family members was included as a deterrent. However, Wise persisted in contact with Chris - one of Chris's drawings of Wise's character Kun T'Nyuget was made the next day, implying Wise did not cut communications with Chris.

Chris's social media output over the next few months gradually indicated that he was under manipulation. The public, uncertain over whether it was Wise again, referred to the resurgence as "Idea Guy 2.0", and it was later alleged by the Guard Dogs that Wise was part of it.

"He got doxed, people forgot about him, and instead of thinking "hmm, boy, I dodged a bullet! well, better safe than sorry, let's pack it in!".

He goes "AUGH YEAH, coast's clear, start 'er back up again!""

- Guard Dog Marvin.

April 2018


In April 2018, The Captain was informed by people close to Chris that they suspected he was being manipulated and extorted. In that same month, the Idea Guys forced Chris to sell his Amnyfest Ring on eBay - the buyer was The Captain. Borrowing from the Idea Guys' tactics, The Captain used the ring as a tool to gain Chris's trust by playing into his fantasies, role-playing about Magi-Chan and telling him the ring was sending him messages that the CPUs (personas used by the Idea Guys) were hacked and not to be trusted.

"I simply told him that the ring was sending me morse code messages and that the [Idea Guys] were lying to him. So I did a five minute photoshop of the ring glowing and sent it to Chris as well as a piece of notepaper where I wrote "The CPUs have been hacked. Don't trust the CPUs" claiming that was the morse code message.

Sure enough, Chris believed it [...] and proceeded to give me his passwords and everything else - that's how we got to where we are today. [...] Without that ring we may NEVER have found out what happened"

- The Captain.

Trusting The Captain, Chris gave him direct access to his accounts, including Discord, so The Captain could "scan for viruses".

"When I logged onto the Discord I was appalled - the level of absurdity that these guys had gone to in order to take advantage of Chris was beyond belief. I saw the constant requests for money, threats, blackmail, etc. and Chris' responses and was simply floored. They were forcing Chris to post videos, Twitter statuses, etc. all in order to get their kicks in addition to the constant requests for money"

- The Captain,

The Captain teamed up with Marvin to gather evidence. Telling Chris to take a break from the Internet - and to catch up on TV shows the Idea Guys had banned him from watching - The Captain, with Marvin's coaching, role-played as Chris in the Idea Guys' Discord server to stall while Marvin worked to capture the Discord chatlogs.

"At one point [the Idea Guys] wanted Chris to post photographic evidence that he was indeed himself, writing a message on a dry erase board. I had Chris take said picture for me and then forwarded it to them, etc. Eventually, @Marvin built a script to rip the chat logs from Discord, which amounted to hundreds of pages of autistic debauchery in which these speds took advantage of Chris. When the script was finished and we had the chat logs and images we simply went silent on the Discord and a couple days later Wise and Boyd got freaked out and attempted to sanitize it, banning Chris from the channel and deleting every private message they had sent him one by one."

- The Captain.

On 29 April, Chris referenced the Idea Guys' removal from power over Twitter.

"feeling blessed.

I am aware that many people are worried about me. Do Not Fear! I am in a Good Place and everything will be Okay! Things will be figured out soon enough."

- Chris.

A month later, Chris revealed a bit more, saying he had "very Powerful Allies helping to rectify the situation. I can't say much other than certain people should be Very Frightened right now!"

Attempted return
According to The Captain, one of the Idea Guys attempted to engage with Chris once more, but Chris rejected it.

"And then everything just sort of settled down for several weeks. At one point Chris received some texts from either Boyd or Wise attempting to roleplay with him, to which Chris replied, "I'll do it for $6,000!" and naturally, they didn't message again."

- The Captain.

Reported to authorities
"Chris did eventually print my IC3 report and hand it in to the station himself [...] Since then it has been dead air. No one has contacted Chris, no one has contacted me, no one has done anything."

- Guard Dog Null describes his frustrations with the lack of an investigation.

With their archives of the Idea Guys' Discord chatlogs with Chris, as well as Chris providing the receipts and invoices of gifts sent to them, the Guard Dogs attempted to report the Idea Guys to the authorities.

Null contacted the Greene County Sheriff, local to Chris, to discuss the matter. The sheriff interpreted things as a matter of choice from Chris. Null also contacted the FBI, both through their online contact form and also by handing a copy to an FBI agent, as the alleged extortion occurred across state lines. Chris later took a printed copy of Null's report to his local police station and turned it in. However, there have been no signs of an investigation as Null and Chris were not contacted back.

Lingering influence
"If you want BAD DIRECTION, you should look up Idea Guy."

- Chris, in the middle of restating his belief that he is married to Cryzel and Magi-Chan, an Idea Guy concept.



Despite the Idea Guys being removed from power in April 2018, the damage to Chris’s sense of reality has lingered. Their actions gave him a sense of validation and boosted his confidence in his pre-existing beliefs about dimensions and psychically linking with his imaginary friends.

Chris, though aware of the Idea Guys’ malevolence, continues to believe in many of the concepts they had instilled into him. The most notable being the Dimensional Merge, which he believes will magically solve the Financhu Crisis and bring CWCville/C-197 and all fictional characters to life; and lore from video game series Hyperdimension Neptunia, in particular CPU goddesses, which crystalized into Chris believing he is CPU Blue Heart. Other concepts that Chris still holds on to include his bisexuality, his polyamorous marriage (which ended the Love Quest), Robertchu, theories about Ted Bundy, and the 69 Sonichus and Rosechus.

On 3 August 2018, Chris posted an epilogue to Sonichu 13, which offered clues as to why he maintains belief in the Idea Guys' lore. In it, he stated that Wise's "slanderous, destructive efforts only strengthened my own psychic links with our world, there." To Chris, the Idea Guys had been "royally messing" with not only him, but also "literally" the Earth, Equestria and the CPU goddesses. Chris stated his belief that Wise, "has his own link and grasp of out [sic] world there" and that he ultimately restored CWCville and released the CPU goddesses from Wise's control.

Guard Dog Marvin posted on Kiwi Farms on his opinion of Chris's continued belief in the Idea Guys' canon:

"So, you just admitted you were and still are manipulated by the Idea Guys. The merge, the goddess stuff, all of it. Christine, if you’re still in there it’s not too late fix your life for the better. It’s ok to face reality"

- A concerned fan on Twitter in December 2020.

"No, that has been stopped in April, and made undone with Chris' Aether and abilities. We are not under the influence of IdeaGuy."

- Chris, "possessed" by Sonichu, denying the influence of the Idea Guys while clinging to the lore they tricked him into believing.

Chris, in June 2021, stated that the Idea Guys made his Top 5 list of people who made the most negative impacts on his life (alongside Jacob Sockness, Michael Snyder, BlueSpike, and the staff at Nathanael Greene Elementary School). Though Chris blamed the Idea Guys "for their "Dimensions’ level of damage", he gave credit to them for validating his beliefs. As such, Chris believed that BlueSpike, the Nathanael Greene staff, and Michael Snyder had the most negative impacts on his life.

"Even though IdeaGuy did Dimensions’ level of damage, his impact has left me with further self-progression, analysis and appreciation, confidence boost, affirming the link between the separated universe halves with my consciousness, leading the way to chill my ego and whatnot in the needed self-healing and work."

- Chris on why the Idea Guys did not make the top on his list of most negative people.

Idea Guy Q&A
The ringleader of the Idea Guys, Joshua Wise, signed up to Kiwi Farms under the name Ballzymaker94 and had several private conversations with select users, soliciting feedback over his early schemes.

One user from the Kiwi Farms had a lengthy conversation with Wise, spanning from 3 December to 18 December 2017 archived in the Idea Guy Q&A. In it, Wise discusses how he had gained Chris’s trust, and how Chris reacted to some of his ideas and mentions content which had not been publicly released. For example, Chris's inquiry on whether or not Jessica Quinn was actually a troll, how Chris tried to prevent Jamsta from being jailed for molestation, and Chris’s attempts to interact with Neptunia goddesses.

Wise also briefly conversed with other members of the forum, archived in Misc Idea Guy chats. After he was doxed by the site's moderators on 22 January 2018, many users came forward to post content and conversations that he had shared with them.

He hadn't shared all of his content over PMs, generally only summarizing his interactions with Chris. After he was exposed, he offered to trade in all of his information in exchange for the moderators removing the dox of his family members. They refused on the grounds that they disliked his public trolling output and believed the dox would be an incentive for him to stay away from Chris, a message which Wise ignored.

Joshua Allen Wise
"Frankly, and you can disagree with me all you want, I think the [Idea Guy] is laughing at us for raging and telling him to get raped or die."

- Joshua Wise gloats, pretending to be an outside observer.

On 22 January 2018, moderators at Kiwi Farms decided to dox Joshua Allen Wise, known on the forum as Ballzymaker94, as being the original Idea Guy. This came two days after the release of Get Out, You D*** Nazis, which most posters rightfully assumed had been made unwillingly. With his doxing, Kiwi Farms users began digging through Wise's online presence, finding posts on the forum and Reddit in which he white knighted himself from criticism. He also attempted to publicize his Idea Guy content in other communities. For example, in one post from 20 January 2018, he writes:

Even after being exposed, he continued responding to private messages on the forum, until he and close family were doxxed. At the time, it was believed that Wise had been acting alone.

Stephen Boyd
"Wow what a fucking loser. Maybe they're Idea Guy 2.0?"

- Stephen Boyd, months before being exposed as an Idea Guy.

The Guard Dogs alleged that Wise hadn't stopped in spite of being doxxed and at some point invited in more partners - one being Stephen Boyd, who went by the name NinFreakLan on Kiwi Farms. Prior to being ousted and exposed, Boyd participated in threads speculating on the identity of the supposed "Idea Guy 2.0". When it was noted that this supposed new troll had begun trolling only a day after Wise had been doxxed, Boyd responded:

Because of the discovery of his involvement, it seems extremely likely that Boyd only became involved after Wise had been exposed. Leaked private messages to other Kiwi Farms members seem to indicate that Wise had been searching for a partner in crime; Boyd may have noticed and reached out. Perhaps unsurprisingly, after Wise was doxxed, Boyd began white knighting him, comparing his trolling to Marvin and Clyde Cash. Stephen wouldn't be exposed himself until six months later.

Unknown Others
The other two Idea Guys mentioned by the Guard Dogs are unknown, as both were said to have contributed very little to the overall manipulation. The only known information about them is that one is Canadian and has a Kiwi Farms handle named de_DEVIL_tails, and the other is a gay Chinese man who was apparently in a long distance relationship with Wise. In July 2021, a third Idea Guy surfaced to release the Gruppenfuhrer Fegelein chat.