So, Yung Filly is back.
Just like that. After nearly a year of radio silence, the guy whose real name is Andres Felipe Valencia Barrientos pops back up on Snapchat, posting… well, who knows what. The usual influencer fluff, I guess. Jokes, skits, whatever keeps the algorithm happy. It’s a calculated move, a soft launch back into the public consciousness. The PR playbook, chapter one: pretend nothing ever happened.
Except something did happen. Something is still happening.
While Filly is presumably trying to get his engagement numbers back up, a court system on the other side of the planet is holding a file with his name on it. And that file is getting thicker. On June 13th of this year, two new charges were quietly added to the pile: "sexual penetration without consent." These stem from an alleged incident back on September 28, 2024, when he was in Australia on a music tour.
This isn't a minor detail. This isn't a parking ticket. Let's be real about the scoreboard here. This brings the grand total of charges he's facing in Perth to a staggering number. We're talking at least six counts of sexual penetration without consent, three counts of assault occasioning bodily harm, and one count of strangulation.
This is a bad look. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a five-alarm dumpster fire of a situation.
One Screen for Laughs, Another for a Rap Sheet
The Disconnect is the Point
I’ve been watching this unfold, and the sheer audacity is what gets me. Here’s a guy who built a career on being the funny, relatable friend. He was on Celebrity Bake Off, for crying out loud. He was a BBC Three regular. He was part of the Beta Squad, one of those YouTube collectives that prints money by having a bunch of dudes yell at video games. He was mainstream. Safe.
Now, he’s out on bail, having pleaded not guilty back in March, with a condition that he had to return to Australia by January 7, 2026. He got to pop back to the UK for a bit, and now he's posting on Snapchat. It’s like a split-screen reality show where one side is a goofy influencer and the other is a grim legal drama, and we’re all just meant to—
And don't even get me started on the timeline. It's a mess. Some sources say his trial starts January 7th. Others say it's a ten-day trial starting July 20th. When the basic facts of your day in court are fuzzy, it just adds another layer of chaos to the whole thing. It feels intentional, designed to confuse and exhaust anyone trying to keep track.
Oh, and there’s the other thing. The little detail that he's also being investigated for an alleged rape of a tourist in Magaluf, Spain, from the summer of 2024. It’s a storm of allegations from multiple countries.
Yet, the social media strategy is… business as usual?
This is what drives me insane about modern celebrity. The complete and utter disconnect from reality. The belief that you can curate a digital persona so effectively that it overwrites the ugly facts listed in court documents. The reaction on X, formerly Twitter, is exactly what you'd expect. A mix of people rightfully calling him out and die-hard fans accusing the critics of being "haters."
It reminds me of my feed in general. One minute it's a war, the next it's a cat video, then it's an ad for socks that supposedly never get holes. The context collapse is real, and it's making us all dumber, less capable of processing that a person can be both a beloved entertainer and someone accused of truly heinous acts. We're supposed to pick a side, a team. You're either with him or against him. Nuance is dead.
Welcome to the Pre-Trial PR Campaign
So, What's the Play Here?
I keep asking myself, what is the actual goal of this Snapchat return? Is it just pure narcissism? An inability to stay out of the spotlight? Or is it something more cynical?
Is he testing the waters? Seeing how many people have forgotten, or how many are willing to forgive without a verdict? Is he trying to generate income because, I assume, legal fees for an international case like this ain't cheap? Is he trying to normalize his presence, so that by the time the trial actually happens, his return to public life is old news?
Offcourse it’s the latter. It has to be. You don't make a move this bold without a team of crisis managers telling you it’s the right play. "Engage the core audience," they probably said. "Activate the base. Drown out the negativity with positive content."
He’s maintained his innocence, pleaded not guilty, and that's his right. The courts in Australia will decide his fate based on evidence. But this... this public-facing performance feels like a different trial altogether, one being conducted in the court of public opinion, and the strategy appears to be deflection. Look over here, at the funny video! Don't look at the court filings in Perth.
Then again, who am I to judge? I'm just some guy typing on a laptop. Maybe this is the new normal and I'm the dinosaur who still thinks actions should have consequences beyond a temporary dip in your follower count. Maybe the ultimate currency really is attention, good or bad, and the specifics don't matter as long as people are still watching.
It’s a bleak thought.
Just Another Tuesday on the Internet
Let the Australian legal system do its job. That's the only thing that actually matters here. But while we wait for verdicts, we're being served a masterclass in modern crisis management, where the crisis itself is treated like an inconvenient piece of trivia and the "content" is the only thing that's real. Give me a break.
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