Idea Guys

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“	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

Joshua Wise
Information
Name	Joshua Allen Wise
Also known as	John Yamada Johnson Wiles Ballzymaker94 BallzyCPU94
Date of Birth	19 August 1994 (age 30)
Gender	Male
Nationality	American (California)
Race	White

Stephen Boyd
Information
Name	Stephen Boyd
Also known as	Gwen Mikoto NinFreakLan Lan Mikoto Pikachudips
Date of Birth	5 February 1993 (age 31)
Gender	Male
Nationality	American (Kentucky)
Race	White

The Idea Guys were a group of trolls who validated Chris's delusional beliefs, brainwashed him over them, and are alleged to have blackmailed and extorted him out of $6,000. Beginning with Joshua Wise in October 2017, at some point Stephen Boyd and two anonymous followers partnered with him until the group was ousted in April 2018.

They are known for exploiting Chris’s escapist fantasies in order to plant their own ideas into his mind, affecting his sense of reality to an extreme degree by validating his beliefs and pushing him further down a path of delusion. Initially, their aim was to see how gullible Chris was, but this soon degenerated into taking advantage of him financially and coercing him into performing many degrading acts, including some that would put BlueSpike to shame.

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

Despite their removal, the Idea Guys' potent hold over Chris has led to lasting effects. To this day, Chris has retained many of the concepts they had influenced him into believing, such as changes to Sonichu canon, a polyamorous marriage, and the Dimensional Merge. Furthermore, in their wake, waves of fantasy enablers began appearing, copying their tactics to get an audience with Chris, with many succeeding. As such, 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 objectively 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 been increasing, evidenced when he believed he was dancing with Magi-Chan, one of his imaginary friends, during the 2017 BronyCon, which occurred only one month prior to Joshua Wise beginning contact with him.

Outside of Chris's fantasies becoming increasingly prominent, reality was beginning to set in on a level that made additional coping mechanisms appealing to Chris. 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. 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 would both prime Chris for falling under Wise's spell and eventually, encourage him to retreat further into his fantasy world to cope with his real world problems.

Role-playing

See also: Red Forest

“	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

A sample of the photoshopped images Wise created to convince Chris.

The key component of Wise's schemes was role-playing. By December 2017, Wise was role-playing as at least 13 different characters to Chris, including his persona John Yamada and numerous Hyperdimension characters. Chris believed the characters were borrowing John Yamada's computer to communicate with him.

Wise also utilized fake audio clips, such as Red Forest, and photoshopped images, which "Yamada" presented to Chris as documents from CWCville and Gamindustri.

• 

  Another of Wise's fake news graphics, used to reveal CWCville's Russian occupation.

• 

  A fake news graphic about Count Graduon.

Boyd role-played as his trollsona Gwen Mikoto and Jesus.

Brainwashing Chris

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.

Chris took diligent notes on Wise's lore.

After convincing Chris of his ability to access CWCville's dimension, Idea Guy Wise began to manipulate Chris's beliefs and insert his own ideas. 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."

Wise tricked Chris into believing this image depicts protesters in CWCville rioting upon Jamsta's acquittal for molestation. Photo is actually an image from the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

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.

This style of manipulation is also seen in the leaked The Bad Beginning and Cryzel Torture Discord chatlogs.

Changes to Chris's fantasy land/sense of reality

Main article: List of beliefs brainwashed into Chris

Wise manipulated Chris into drawing himself having anal sex with Sonichu by role-playing as Magi-Chan and prophesying that Sonichu would give birth to Crystal and by drawing it happening, Chris wouldn't need to do it in real life. Chris maintained belief in this long after the Idea Guys were ousted.

Chris digitally and physically revised bits from the Sonichu comic to match up with the new Idea Guys lore. In this example, he altered a page from Sonichu 15 to match Wise's assertion that Rosechu had been born as a male, indicated with a pointy tail (left: original image; right: a slip of paper glued over the original page.)

Midway through November 2017, observers began speculating that a new troll had gained control over Chris. This was because Chris's posts began to include references designed to go over his head. On 14 November, he wrote that 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. That same day, Chris recorded Freestyle Dance With Me, For Our World! while wearing a tinfoil hat to prevent "the man" from reading his mind. These suspicions of a troll wouldn't be confirmed to the public, however, until January 2018.

Sonichu #13 (originally Sonichu 16), or The Awakening of a CPU, as re-titled by Chris, is an issue heavily directed by the Idea Guy trolls. It features a story on how one of their fictional troll characters, John Yamada, came to influence Chris, and covers an incoherent series of plot threads involving material from existing fictional universes and real-world politics of interest to the Idea Guys.

The Kiwi Farms leaks also revealed a large amount of content that Chris made during the saga without releasing publicly, including several pages of Sonichu #16 covering the events Wise described to him. The pages show "John" – depicted in a gas mask and body armor from the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games – asking (real-world) Chris whether he still owns his Dreamcast, which John believes to be a portal to CWCville. In a page-and-a-half wall of text, Chris summarizes his adventures with John and the Hyperdimension Neptunia cast, and the salvation of Gamindustri and CWCville from the invaders.

Wise told Chris that Magi-Chan had a vision that Crystal would be born from Chris anally raping Sonichu; despite so blatantly going against Chris's beliefs and wishes, the message was convincing enough that Chris drew a horrifying piece of artwork depicting the act, where Comic Chris apologizes to Sonichu but insists that "destiny called us to make this baby".

Wise also duped Chris into believing he would receive various magical abilities in real life. This apparently emboldened Chris to begin making plans to travel to meet the creator of Rosechu's Story and to confront Cole Smithey in New York, possibly with the help of magic powers that he expected to receive. According to the leaker, Wise actually did the responsible thing in these cases and convinced Chris not to go. However, he also told Chris that Neptune would be waiting to meet him at a GameStop; Chris went, specifically, to the Forest Lakes GameStop (from which he had been banned) and waited outside in his car, honking his horn and peering inside.

Psychological torment

Main article: Cryzel Torture

Blackmail and extortion allegations

See also: 2018 Sales Listings

“	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).	”
Null describing the Idea Guys' sadistic exploitation of Chris.

The fictional superweapon Kadingir, as depicted in anime series Symphogear. The Idea Guys used this image to con Chris into believing they had the capability to destroy the moon and CWCville.

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.

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.

Excerpts from The Bad Beginning chatlog in which the Idea Guys use the threat of moon chunks leveling CWCville to pressure Chris.

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.

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.

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  Email confirmation of an item Chris bought for Boyd.

• 

  Receipts of items Chris bought for Wise and Boyd, including Amazon and Steam gift cards.

• 

  Chris retained many receipts.

Removal from power

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 doxxed 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.

Gradually, Chris's social media output over the next few months would insinuate 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 would later be 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

Main article: The Chris-Chan Extortionists‎

The Captain's photoshopped image of Chris's Amnyfest Ring, used to convince Chris to trust him instead of the Idea Guys.

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 had forced Chris to sell his Amnyfest Ring on eBay - the buyer would be 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 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 on how he helped stop the Idea Guys.

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 the Dark Tower 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 but the sheriff interpreted things as a matter of choice from Chris. Null also contacted the FBI, as the alleged extortion occurred across state lines, both through their online contact form and also by handing a copy to an FBI agent. 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

"Dark Idea Guy" as envisioned by Chris months after the Idea Guys had been ousted.

Despite the Idea Guys being removed from power in May 2018, the damage to Chris’s sense of reality was immense. Chris, even though aware of the Idea Guys’ malevolence, continues to believe in many of their concepts – 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. Other concepts that Chris still hold on to include his bisexuality, his polyamorous marriage (which ended the Love Quest), Robertchu, theories about Ted Bundy, and the 69 Sonichus and Rosechus.

“	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.

“	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

Main article: 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, how Chris reacted to some of his ideas and mentions content which had not been publicly released, such as Chris wanting intel on whether 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.

Identities

Joshua Allen Wise

Wise's Kiwi Farms profile.

“	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:

He's made Chris dance to his rhythm, and will continue to pull the strings until he gives up and tells us his tricks [...] or he'll [...] not give up a thing and leave even more people pissed that we learned nothing about why he did all this, or how he even made it possible.

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.

• 

  Wise's Facebook profile, which has since been privated.

• 

  Note his interest in My Little Pony & "Anime Huggies".

• 

  The aforementioned "Anime Huggies".

• 

  One of the photos used to confirm his identity.

• 

  "Congrats Josh, you're at a place 'where everybody knows your name'."

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:

But what kinda person would go back to doing this immediately after being doxed? It doesn't properly add up for Cunt Nugget to be Josh. Maybe Chris told Idea Guy 2.0 everything

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.

A doxx does seem a little extreme. I mean would we have done the same to Clyde Cash or Marvin for stupid shit they did in the past to generate Chris chimping when this is LESS than that?

Unknown Others

The other two Idea Guys mentioned by the Guard Dogs are unknown, Both contributed very little to the overall manipulation. The only known information about them is that one of them 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.

Gallery

• 

  A nine-page poster Wise, role-playing as CPU Neptune, requested Chris to draw, which he did for free. Chris later said it's the drawing that took him the most effort.

• 

  Chris coped during the Idea Guys' reign by mentally retreating to CWCville and talking to his imaginary friends there.

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  A map Joshua Wise made.

See also

• Bundychu
• Chris and reality
• Cryzel
• Cryzel Torture
• Kun T'Nyuget
• Idea Guy Q&A
• Misc Idea Guy chats‎
• Red Forest
• Sonichu 13
• The 69 Destined Sonichus and Rosechus
• The Bad Beginning
• The Chris-Chan Extortionists
• Teen Troon Squad, who leaked several videos from the Idea Guys saga.

References

    People