"You cannot ethically do what you're doing": mrgirl comments on Dr. K's mental health coaching

Max "mrgirl" Karson made some controversial remarks about Alok "Dr. K" Kanojia, including implying he may have some responsibility in Byron Daniel "Reckful" Bernstein's suicide.

Karson had been in conversation with a worker from Dr. K's mental health coaching company, Healthy Gamer. The company is said to provide specialized mental health coaching for those who are part of the "Internet" generation.

Note: While this article attempts to summarize mrgirl's thoughts based on clips taken from the stream, it does not fully convey the intent of the streamer's words.

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mrgirl says he called Dr. K's licensing board

During a recent stream, mrgirl spoke to a coach for Dr. K's company Healthy Gamer. Before the discussion began, the two disclosed that the coach had approached Karson to collaborate, and it had not been the other way around.

mrgirl voiced several strong opinions about Dr. K and the business he owns, Healthy Gamer, saying that it wasn't "ethical" in the slightest:

"Somebody should be taking you to task for this, like, you can't do this. You can't- you can't, you cannot ethically do what you're doing."

Karson paused for a bit, before revealing the following:

"I called the ethics board in Massachusetts. The uh- or not the ethics board, the uh- his licensing board. They haven't called me back but I left them a message and I- and I felt horrible the whole time- and I'm like, 'Why do I feel hor-.' This guy's publicly breaking ethics on stream for money in a way that I think is damaging to the audience and- the person you did it with killed himself."

This was a direct reference to the case of Reckful, who had been on Dr. K's streams several times to talk about various mental health-related topics. Their videos together are available on Dr. K's YouTube, HealthyGamerGG, to view. Reckful unfortunately passed away from suicide on July 2, 2020.

mrgirl continued,

"After clearly expressing he was suicidal, he still did not refer him out- and yet I feel guilty calling anyone to ask them for a response, or a quote, or... like, trying to get a professional to come on the record and say, like, 'What do you think of this?' I feel like I'm ratting on him."

Near the end of his stream, mrgirl read a comment that expressed to him their feelings on how it sounded, as if the streamer was blaming Dr. K for Reckful's demise.

Karson then attempted to convey his thoughts on Dr. K:

"I am not blaming Dr. K for Reckful, okay? If somebody- if you're smoking in your house and you fall asleep and that cigarette falls in your trash can and your house burns down.. that's your fault."

Following up with another analogy, mrgirl said,

"If a fire truck pulls up to your house and says, 'I don't feel like putting water on this right now. I'm going to livestream myself dancing in front of this burning house so that people will follow my channel.'"

Commenting on how Dr. K could've handled things, Karson added,

"That's just an example, that's not a 1:1 metaphor, but- I don't have to blame the people dancing for the fire, those are different things. I'm not saying anyone killing themselves is anyone else's fault except their own. I'm saying I think he mishandled the situation and I don't know what would've happened if he handled it better, but I know that he mishandled it."

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Viewers react to mrgirl's claims about Dr. K

Reactions from users of Livestream Fail were all across the board.

Several people brought up how Dr. K doesn't claim to be conducting therapy during his public stream conversations. Another point that was mentioned was how his website expresses that their coaching services are not a replacement for therapy.