Justin Roiland is in a pickle. Ha! Get it? Because in the show he turns himself into a pickle? I turned myself into a pickle who’s been charged with domestic abuse! I’m pickle Justiiiiiin! When you add the details in, it’s significantly less funny. Roiland has been charged with serious crimes (and accused of more still), but we don’t seem all that concerned by it. Buoyed by the dark and nihilistic humour of the era Roiland himself capitalised on with Rick & Morty, people have rushed to meme on and joke about the situation. Or worse, spinning the situation as a mitigating factor in new Rick & Morty episodes being delayed. Please, grow up.Whenever situations like this arise (as in, when a popular but edgy celebrity is accused of doing bad things by a woman), the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ screechers come out in force like they do for no other crime. But ultimately they are correct. Roiland has been accused and charged, not convicted. Nowhere in this article will I say Roiland is definitely an abuser and all of his work should be stripped away from him and deleted from the cultural consensus. But he has been credibly accused, and as a society we should take that more seriously than what it means for new cartoon episodes or as alley-oops for some sick memes.On Friday, it emerged that Roiland is “facing charges for a felony count of domestic battery with corporal injury and one felony count of false imprisonment by menace, violence, fraud and/or deceit.” The complaint was first made in 2020 by a woman Roiland was dating at the time, and included her being granted a 100 yard restraining order which also forced Roiland to turn over his firearms. Friday was the initial pre-trial hearing, although most of the details have not been made public yet. The court will meet again in April.
Since then, several other accusations have poured out against Roiland, with journalists reporting they have been tracking the story for years. It has also emerged that Squanch Games, Roiland’s studio that most recently made High on Life, has also been hit by allegations. In 2018, an employee sued the company for sexual harassment, discrimination, and wrongful dismissal; a claim Squanch initially denied but later settled.Perhaps most uncomfortably, Twitter user @Holitabun shared messages Roiland had allegedly exchanged with her when she was 16. She has since locked their account, but this link contains the screenshots. In the messages, Roiland says he followed her because she was cute and looks older (in a picture the user shared, they look far younger than 16 with a small frame and braces on her teeth), and he continued to talk to her once he learned of her young age. Worse, he constantly asks her what she’s doing at school, tells her he’s drunk, and nicknames her “jailbait”, a term he appears to also use for her even younger friends.
The screenshots also show Roiland mock the Chinese accent, call her abusive names like “dumb homo” and “faggot”, and try to arrange to meet up. He also tells her not to screencap and share their conversation. Holitabun says they also had deeper conversations with Roiland but did not feel inclined to share them. It is worth noting that these are the least credible claims so far, but Holitabun has tweets dating back years that mention excitement over being followed by Roiland, and they do appear to be legitimate - other users have corroborated versions of similar behaviour from Roiland and he and his team have not responded.Twitter user @opossumopunk previously accused Roiland of grooming them back in November 2022, and had reshared their story in light of the new accusations, which includes screenshots of Roiland joking about rape. In the replies, others share similar stories and screenshots of messages.
Inappropriate flirtation with minors on top of domestic abuse and harassment make for a very nasty pile of accusations. And, while Roiland is innocent until proven guilty, these are serious enough topics that we should not be joking about them. As for the memes and questions about new Rick & Morty episodes, it’s likely a mixture of the online zeitgeist being desensitised to accusations like this, the online conversation rewarding nihilism and disaffection over authenticity, and society being a very selfish beast who only considers its own need.
I don’t want to hear speculation or jokes about the new episodes. If Roiland is found guilty of these crimes then it’s difficult to imagine the show can continue anyway. Far more interesting is where Roiland might go from here. Hitting your wife and texting underage girls with cringeworthy and uncomfortable messages is difficult to come back from, but I expect him to reinvent himself and angle towards the left. Rick & Morty takes cues from South Park in that it thinks both sides are bad and everything sucks, but underneath it all it has politics.
The edgy humour and misanthropy of Rick hides them, but Rick & Morty leans left. Not so much that right wingers get turned off, and if you asked Harmon or Roiland point blank I think they’d dodge the question, but it teaches left wing values far more than it believes in conservative ideals of anti-progress. Despite the dark humour and Roiland’s apparent personal penchant for racist accents and homophobic insults, Rick & Morty is fairly tolerant and inclusive. If Roiland faces conviction, will we see him lean into his most controversial urges more and try to garner support from an audience whose primary goal often seems to be simply pissing the other side off? The cultural fallout from Roiland’s accusations will not be whether or not we get more episodes of Rick & Morty, but in how Roiland himself continues to engage with and satirise pop culture.
But even that is not a question for now, and it’s definitely not meme fodder. Roiland has been credibly accused of some upsetting crimes, and we’re supposed to, as a society, be united in thinking it’s wrong to hit your partner or repeatedly flirt with underage children. Roiland has not been convicted yet, but the accusations are substantial enough that we should be beyond jokes. Unfortunately these days, it feels like we never are.