Chris and remorse

"Please, just forget about me in total; please, disband all online groups and individual hatreds against me; please, remove everything about me off of the Internet, your minds, and your hearts."

- Chris, after making a public apology on Facebook.

"He's malicious! He... he knows that doing these things are wrong, and he doesn't care! Because if he gets away with it, that's all that matters!"

- Null, recounting a revelation that he had about Chris during their final interaction.



Every so often, one of Chris's less flattering deeds catches up with him, and he is forced to apologize. These apologies, like most of the other times Chris tries to come off as emotional, often feel very forced and insincere, leading many trolls to wonder if Chris is even capable of feeling remorse.

It's not out of the question. A common trait of autism is a lack of cognitive empathy, meaning it's likely that Chris has a difficult time trying to understand what other people feel. Time and time again he's shown himself unable to understand others' feelings of loss or sadness. He seems equally incapable of understanding how his actions could possibly hurt or anger others. Additionally, Chris is also shown to be incapable of sharing the emotional experiences of others, being affected by them, and being able to respond with an appropriate emotion due to his narcissism. This ultimately shows that Chris is incapable of understanding and feeling other people's emotional states.

When he is expected to show remorse, it often seems as though he is just going through the motions, making the absolute minimum effort to get whoever he has upset to stop pestering him, so he can go back to his oblivious existence playing PlayStation 3.

Concept of wrongdoing
Developing an understanding of right and wrong is an important part of a child's development. Very young children don't take into consideration what is ethically the right or wrong thing to do. They base their actions on whether they are punished or rewarded before they eventually internalize a consistent value system and learn to police their own behavior. Chris seems to be stuck in the former, childlike state. If something makes him feel bad, or if experience tells him he'll get in trouble for doing something, it must be wrong. If it makes him feel good or looks like it could have potential rewards, it must be right. Other considerations, such as what his supposed faith proscribes or how this will affect others, simply do not rank.

An excellent example would be how Chris managed to destroy his relationship with Megan Schroeder. Chris was at war with Encyclopedia Dramatica, who were, among other things, calling him gay. In an attempt to disprove their allegations, Chris uploaded a certain image to the website, apparently under the belief that that sort of information overload would get them to shut up. When the denizens of ED assumed the image was of Crystal, Chris was quick to correct them. At no point did he even consider Megan's feelings. When she called him out, Chris didn't realize he had done anything wrong and assumed she was upset simply because she didn't watch enough porn.

"I understand. You may or may not have had much exposure to sexual images as I've had, so the idea of a "hand job" (which was the act drawn there) as part of outtercourse (versus intercourse) was a surprise to you. I'm sorry."

- Chris, not getting it at all.

As such, Chris isn't really capable of remorse or a sincere apology. The natural precursor to an apology is the internal realization that one has done something wrong, a realization that Chris's childish, self-centered mindset will not allow him to reach. In his mind, he's done something "wrong" only when the people around him react negatively. Furthermore, as a rule, he assumes that their reaction is just the result of some misunderstanding, reasoning that if he was just given the chance to explain what he was trying to accomplish, they would understand, and all would be forgiven.

Judging by his plea for a hobby store's manager to "forgive and forget", it's very likely that Chris still operates on kindergartener-level moral philosophy in that he expects recipients of his apologies to immediately retract their disapproval and let him off the hook (which he might have experienced since it's a common scenario with smaller children and authority figures) despite being a grown adult, not realizing such a thing no longer applies to social situations after a certain point. Given his track record for selfishness, issues with growing up, and resistance to change, that would come as no surprise.

Moreover, Chris doesn't seem to understand that the purpose of an apology is essentially a promise not to repeat whichever negative behavior led to recompense in the first place, instead seemingly interpreting it as a magic phrase to clear his slate so he can continue his self-serving endeavors unimpeded.

Motivation to apologize
As explained above, Chris's logic when it comes to matters of right and wrong is almost wholly reactionary. His rationale for apologizing follows the same pattern. He issues them only when made fully aware that he won't get what he wants unless he at least tries to appear genuinely remorseful.

Every apology Chris has ever made can be immediately connected to something Chris wants, and thinks he'll get if he says the magic words "I'm sorry". We almost never have to guess what that thing might be, he almost always mentions his desired goal in the same paragraph, sometimes even in the next sentence. "I wish to apologize to Michael Snyder for that mistake I made over nine months ago that got me kicked out of The GAMe PLACe... I miss my Friday nights over there… and also... y’all are the only place in town that has, uh, Eye of Judgment cards."

- Chris, apologizing in order to buy stuff.

"I apologize for the past unformalities[sic] and emotional outbursts in past communications... I ask for 25% of all money... you have and will have made from all [the audiobooks] you have put together and sold."

- Chris, apologizing for sending Vivian a fucking death threat ... so that she'll pay him.

Because Chris's apologies spring from this simplistic cause-and-effect mentality, things tend to get interesting when whoever he's issuing them to tells him that all is not well and that he is not forgiven. In one notable case, he admitted to ungentlemanly conduct regarding his feud with Asperchu. It was a fairly obvious attempt to get certain ads removed from the CWCipedia, but, notably, he announced his intention to kill off the character of Simonla Rosechu, in accordance with her creator's wishes. He didn't act quickly enough, and CWCipedia was taken down from the web altogether. Although his anger was understandable, Chris revealed in his next video that he had never intended to kill Simonla in the first place, and that the apology was not TRUE and HONEST. We had all suspected as much, but it's nice to get a confirmation once in a while. After CWCipedia returned, he did indeed kill Simonla, but only under pressure, and in the most contrived, dull, yet very lulzy way possible.

The one apology that arguably highlights Chris's insincerity the most is his in-comic apology to the Asperpedia Four, which takes place while condemning them to death. The cognitive dissonance this creates would be overwhelming to any sane person, but for some reason, Chris thought that this ludicrous non-apologetic apology was both okay and that the recipients would accept it as genuine. In that very same issue, in fact, Chris at one point sheds a tear after sealing up the populated 4-cent garbage.com building and destroying it. You know, because faking remorse with crocodile tears totally justifies mass murder.

Chris's insincerity can also be seen in Chris's misadventures with The Wallflower. When the shit hit the fan and she cut off all ties with him, he made his usual pathetic display of sorrow, making it very clear in the process that he had only wanted her for sex. When his apology failed to work as planned, Chris became very angry and spiteful, and started demanding that she apologize for hurting his feelings.

Another came from his apology note on his Facebook discovered in October 2012. In it, he seemingly came to the realization that he had massively messed up, that about as many laughs had been gotten from him as possible and that he was sorry for it all happening. Surprisingly, it was a very well-written, unselfish apology that would seem somewhat convincing - right until he demanded that all instances of trolling and websites dedicated to him be stopped and removed, and there was absolutely no mention made of him making any attempt to straighten up. All he wanted was all the bad stuff about him removed so he can feel better about himself. Had he not included that, people might have actually taken him seriously, but, as usual, he had to fuck himself over.

Explanation
One recurring element in Chris's admissions of guilt is an explanation of why he did whatever he's apologizing for. The way these speeches are worded often indicates that Chris believes that if we just understood his intentions, we would all agree with him and that nobody would be offended.

A famous example appears in the Captain's Log, Stardate April 28th, 2009 video. Chris explains that yes, he videotaped himself performing a selection of disturbing sex acts, but it was all for his sweetheart Ivy, and this evidently renders his actions understandable and acceptable. Supposedly speaking to a young child who was deeply disturbed by his behavior, he tells her that his behavior was perfectly reasonable because he is both an adult and human. This combination of warped logic and an even more warped worldview was a crucial component of his breakthrough into mainstream infamy.

Another good example would be the time he used the worst terrorist attack in American history for an exceedingly bad joke. After learning that Kacey came from a military family, Chris did what was expected of him and made a public apology. However, he was more concerned with continuing to slander Clyde Cash and assuring us he was a good American (although he didn't know the words to his own national anthem) than with actually expressing remorse and making an attempt at recompense. "The joke was mainly directed to how WEAK Clyde Cash was only, I had no idea or intention of offending anyone, other than Clyde, on such a massive world-wide level."

- Chris's written apology.

Within the same video, he changed the photoshop he'd done of the World Trade Center towers into birthday candles. That he saw no problem in presenting an image of the two buildings on fire and repeatedly calling them weak while he asserted that he was a good American proves that he completely missed the point of what he was supposed to be apologizing for. He was far more concerned with sullying Clyde's name than with any blowback or offense his comments might have caused.

Rationalization
Chris is incredibly self-righteous. In his mind he is the only decent man left in the world, and everybody else is a stupid, evil JERK whose sole mission in life is to cockblock him because he is special, and furthermore out of jealousy for his many "successes" in life. This mindset gives Chris all the justification he needs to mistreat others, because as far as he's concerned they're all the bad guys, standing in the way of his heroic quest.

This "Everything I do is right" mindset shows through when he is forced to talk about his prior transgressions. Chris might offer a half-assed apology, simply to conform to the wishes of whoever he's talking to, but it will often be accompanied by a long explanation as to why he had to do it.

"I was wrong... I pretended to be him yet he was the liar. I'm the real deal... So on that one part I was wrong for the right reasons."

- Chris, almost admitting wrongdoing.

He exhibited this self-righteous attitude many times in the Liquid Chris saga: because he is the TRUE and HONEST Christian, this gave him the right to attempt to steal Liquid's girlfriend by pretending to be him, and then gloat about it once he apparently achieved his aim. Once again, Chris saw no wrong in this. Since Liquid wronged him by trolling him in the first place, anything he did in response was entirely justified.

Though as it would later turn out, ego is not the only culprit behind Chris rationalizing deeds he should be apologetic for.

For a more recent example, Chris (in statements he wrote to interested parties following his arrest) justified himself initiating his affair with Barb by arguing he did it as a form of divine intervention to "purify" his elderly mother of her sins. To pour salt on an open gash, he eventually flat out denied that his "Soul-Bonding" was ever sexual in nature (despite earlier admissions to sexual conduct with his mom existing), once again proving that Chris doesn't truly feel remorse for any wrongdoing he commits.

"Maturing"
"I Have Matured."

- Chris' catchphrase

Ever since the Doopie Saga, Chris had the tendency to claim that he has not only learned his lesson but that he has also "matured". More than anything, Chris uses this as an excuse to avoid any kind of responsibility or backlash from trolls, who understandably view him as childish for many of his interests and actions.

Retraction
Chris, believing that his actions are always right, nearly always has to be pressured into making any form of apology at all. Most, if not all, of his apology messages, are motivated by the people he physically desires (be they obvious troll or otherwise) or desires to appease, rather than the public outcry he causes, and certainly not by any true sense of guilt. His retraction of an apology is often redundant because nobody believed he was truly remorseful in the first place, and just as hollow as the apology itself, in that Chris is quite happy to lie to save face or to gain something he wants. For instance, Chris finally 'sincerely' apologized to Alec and Mao for his actions towards them on 2 March 2010. However, only a month later, on 8 April, he was talking to Jackie and, in an attempt to gain sympathy from her, claimed that Alec was "trying to one-up [him] for months now".

When trolls hacked his PSN accounts, Chris made a near public apology. A blatant attempt to get his PSN account back, the apology was, of course, chock full of lies and insincerity.

One of his favorite ways to smite his invisible internet enemies and real-life foes alike is to lay a Curse-ye-ha-me-ha upon them; thinking that he has powers akin to something more along the lines of Wicca, Voodoo, or Goku from DBZ than with the Christianity he supposedly practices. He only issued the Curse-ye-ha-me-ha Retraction after his latest e-girlfriend told him that he shouldn't have used the Curse-ye-ha-me-ha in the first place.

Considering that he quickly returned to his ways of cursing, threatening, and insulting his enemies, the sentiment obviously didn't stick.

Shifting blame
When Chris isn't trying to justify the trouble he causes, he usually resorts to blaming others. The most famous example is him blaming ED for the end of his friendship with Megan, even though it was because of a picture he himself thought up, drew, and then uploaded to his article. Chris had it literally screamed at him in Mumble 3, but then, as now, he still doesn't know the true reason. The best anyone has ever been able to extract from Chris is that he came on too strong. While technically true, this is a vast understatement that fails to capture the massive amount of fault which lies with Chris (that is to say, all of it).

The Wallflower
Chris went to great lengths to keep the knowledge of The Wallflower away from the slanderous trolls of the Internet. However, he really wanted to credit her in one of his sycophantic Little Big Planet levels. Chris asked Wallflower if she thought it would be safe to credit Wallflower by her FF.net penname. Wallflower agreed as she was unable to find any obvious trails leading from her FF.net account to her Facebook account. Unfortunately for both of them, trolls still managed to find a link between the two accounts within 24 hours of Chris dropping her pen name. After she was linked to the site and promptly horrified by how much of her personal information had been compromised, she politely requested that the article be reworked with her privacy in mind. As much of the information in the original Wallflower article had very little to do with Chris, the request was deemed reasonable and the admins of the CWCki complied.

Frightened and disgusted by what she had found, she broke off all contact with Chris. She also clarified to the CWCki admins that they had never dated, never had any kind of relationship beyond casual association, and before her introduction to the CWCki she really didn't know much about him at all. Chris, however, not to be deterred, proclaimed many times that they had been on several dates, and "Shared DNA", along with enjoying a kiss and massage. Since this would have been Chris's "real" first kiss (aside from "Chloe", a lie), it was considered important by obsessive CWCki editors to see if he remembers it later (The Wallflower CWCipedia page article was written on April the 19th). However, leaked e-mails from Jackie show that by the 10th of April, nine days before making this highly suspicious claim, Chris had either momentarily forgotten that he had been kissed, something that would have been a monumental occasion in his life, lied on his CWCipedia about being kissed, or lied to Jackie about not being kissed (though that is very unlikely). Either way, he still lied about the kiss, although it's possible he's basing his story on a gross exaggeration of the truth (the two sharing a drinking straw is the current troll favorite for this).

In the month following their "breakup", Chris would go on to blame The Wallflower for having an internet presence at all. From Chris's perspective, the whole incident was Wallflower's fault for having a Facebook page for trolls to discover in the first place. Chris repeatedly insisted that Wallflower was the one who needed to apologize to him (as she had okayed the use of her screen name), despite the fact that putting her screen name in the level was his idea in the first place. More than a year after the debacle, Chris made it obvious that he believes that the person who should apologize to Wallflower is Surfshack Tito rather than himself.

Forgetting
Aside from directly shifting the blame by lying, Chris has been frequently known to "forget" important, critical details of his life, typically memories that either make him either look or feel bad. When Jackie was flirting with him by e-mails and found out about the CWCki, she asked Chris about cheating on Ivy with Vanessa, the full details of which are documented right here. Chris, of course, claimed flat out that the whole thing was a troll deception and that Jackie shouldn't believe it. When Jackie informed Chris she found a video of him admitting it and confessing, Chris claimed he "forgot" this "portion".

On October 27th in 2008, Chris nervously announced he had found his one true sweetheart; Chloe. Many things immediately leapt out at the trolls as being lies, including his previous announcements on an IRC chat. Due to Chris's unreliable short-term memory and inaction on the part of trolls, after the 27 October video Chloe was never mentioned again in a video by Chris. A little more than a year later, in Mailbag 13, rather than simply admit he was lying, Chris claimed "I currently have no recollection of a Chloe", even though she was supposedly the woman he had his first real kiss with.

In Mumble 6, the troll army called out Chris on his statements regarding transgendered women. Chris claims that he forgot his previous statement, which may or may not be completely honest. In any event, Chris has discovered that (real or otherwise) a faulty memory is a socially acceptable way to dodge probing questions about one's past lies.

Index of Chris's apologies
Below is an abridged list of Chris's various apologies for his many, many misdeeds. Small apologies may have been missed here and there, but these are the big ones.


 * When Megan called Chris out on his reprehensible actions regarding the porn he drew of her, he first copy-pasted "Megan, I'm sorry for hurting you." fifteen times in an e-mail to her, then went into detail about how a handjob works, figuring that sexual frustration and ignorance were the root causes of her anger. Yeah, about that...
 * After Chris was banned from The GAMe PLACe, he tried several times to get unbanned. The first was a video where Chris apologies just so he can buy more junk. The second was where he prepared a script, stashed a camera in his pocket, then walked into The Game Place to confront Michael Snyder, claiming he had changed and apologizing for his actions. After Michael flatly refused to listen and called the cops, Chris berated him and hoped God would forgive him for being so "heartless and cruel". Mike responded "He probably will", and Chris stormed out, but not before calling him a Jew.
 * After threatening Vivian's life when she made better audiobooks than he did, Chris apologized to her... then made a demand for a cut of her "profits", the two sentences separated by only a single dot.
 * Chris made an apology video after releasing a series of videos insulting various YouTubers. Aside from sounding half-assed and insincere about it, Chris's motivation for doing so was clear: his PSN account was being held hostage by the last YouTuber he had insulted.
 * In I am Alive, Chris apologizes for his ungentlemanly conduct in regard to Asperchu. This was a transparent attempt to get the homo ads removed from the CWCipedia and his behavior subsequent to this apology proved he meant nothing he said in the video.
 * In Sonichu 10, Chris apologized to the Asperchu Four while simultaneously having them brutally executed, including having one of them killed by a toddler.
 * After filming himself performing sex acts for Ivy, Chris apologized for his actions, supposedly to a young girl who had found the footage and was scarred by it. But he structured his apology to state that his behavior was, in fact, completely normal and that she shouldn't feel bad for watching it.
 * In Matthew 5 27, CWC Confessions, Chris apologized for cheating on Ivy.
 * In 2009, Chris apologized to Mary Lee Walsh... for slandering her via his fictionalized villainous counterpart using her name (not for his actively defiant and vindictive behavior towards her, mind you). The contradictory nature of the retcon aside, Chris drew up a picture depicting this very act of remorse and even went to the trouble of delivering a hand-framed copy to her office, to which she responded with legal action. Chris took this as well as you'd expect.
 * After mocking the worst act of terrorism in United States history, Chris made a subsequent apology video...which featured the Twin Towers as candles on a birthday cake, complete with multiple gouts of flame flying from the top.
 * When Kacey discovered Chris had pretended to be the other, better Chris in order to get a travel visa to China, Chris apologized by way of his video I Love You Kacey, where he claimed he "...was wrong for the right reasons."
 * Chris finally 'sincerely' apologized to Alec and Mao for his actions towards them on the 2nd of March. However, only a month later on the 8th of April, he was talking to Jackie and, in an attempt to gain sympathy from her, claimed that Alec was "trying to one-up [him] for months now".
 * On 21 October 2012, Chris posted a public Facebook status apologizing for past misdeeds. He immediately asked that all online groups and "individual hatreds" be disbanded.
 * On 17 December 2014, three letters were leaked on the CWCki Forums that Chris wrote to the Charlottesville Fashion Square, Wal-Mart, and Mary Lee Walsh. Naturally, in each one, he shoehorns in references to trolls causing stress.
 * On 29 October 2015, Chris uploaded a YouTube video explaining his apology for his prior homophobia. However, barely 1 minute into the video, he stressed the importance of Sonichu and Rosechu being straight, showing a facet of his old self that hadn't truly disappeared completely.
 * On 20 December 2020, Chris was forced to apologize for being accused of stealing mods (which was backed by evidence). Chris, being controlled by Sonichu Prime denounces these claims yet "apologizes" anyway, owing to the issues being due to him still learning about modding and using Blender. He ended the tirade by telling the haters to be grateful and stop badmouthing him.
 * On 24 September 2021, in a letter dated five days prior, Chris stated that he intended to enact 'repentance' for his crime of stealing 750 dollars from his aging mother's bank account - a crime he attempted to rationalize only moments before by citing his own poor finances and his fears arising from being made temporarily homeless, and for which he attempted to shift blame by claiming that Null had personally betrayed his trust and failed his 'destined test' by alerting others of his act of theft. Not a word was spared for certain other offenses, just as recent and even more damning.

Conclusion
To Chris, remorse is nothing more than a formality that he must pantomime in order to get what he wants. Chris rarely, if at all, ever feels guilt for something he has said or done and expects either pity and sympathy or for those he hurt to forgive and forget. If you expect that he would ever be sincerely sorry for anything he does without an ulterior motive behind it, you are expecting way too much of him.