The High Horse and the Blind Spot.

There’s a certain type of person who loves nothing more than climbing onto a soapbox and declaring the moral high ground as their personal property. From that elevated perch they look down on everyone else and announce, with great solemnity, that their crowd is pure, good, perfect. No criminal records. Clean sheets all round. The implication is clear: the people over there are the shady ones, while we, the enlightened, walk with unblemished consciences.

It’s a comforting story. It’s also incomplete.

When someone insists that no one in their circle has ever been in trouble with the law, they are either carefully curating the guest list or simply choosing not to look too closely. Because the record is not quite as spotless as the speech suggests.

Take Tony Quigley, better known in our crazy corner of YouTube as Harry Munker. He was convicted of arson after setting his then-girlfriend’s car on fire following a breakup. He served time for it. That is not rumour or gossip; it is a matter of court record. Yet somehow this inconvenient detail rarely features in the collective self-portrait of moral superiority.

Then there is AJ Lashbrook. He has a conviction for animal cruelty after beating his dog in public. His explanation was that he was “disciplining” the animal for running into the road. The courts disagreed with the method. Again, this is not hearsay. It is a recorded conviction. And again, it tends to vanish from the narrative when the same circle is busy polishing its halo.

And then there is the persistent, still unconfirmed and officially denied rumour surrounding Wavy (Gary O’Brien) — that he once served a substantial prison sentence, sometimes put at seventeen years, for an undisclosed offence. Whether that claim is true or not remains unsettled. What is settled is that the mere existence of the rumour does not stop the same voices from presenting their group as a collection of unimpeachable citizens.

The larger pattern is harder to ignore. A striking number of people in that orbit prefer to operate under online handles and carefully managed anonymity. Anonymity has many legitimate uses. It also happens to be an effective way of keeping past convictions, court appearances, and prison time out of the conversation. When the public face of a group is built on first names, nicknames, and blank profiles, it becomes considerably easier to claim that “none of us have records.” The records may simply be harder to find.

None of this means every anonymous account is hiding a criminal past. People have the right to privacy, and not every past mistake defines a person forever. But when a group’s public messaging rests so heavily on the claim of collective moral cleanliness, the selective blindness starts to look deliberate. Pointing at outsiders while declining to acknowledge the documented convictions closer to home is not high principle. It is convenience dressed up as virtue.

Soapboxes are free. Facts still cost something, and criminal convictions are more common-place than some would like to believe.