The Disturbing Truth about Amino

You may or may not have heard of the app, Amino. Regardless, Amino is a dangerous app for kids. There is inappropriate content and exploitation that goes on on this app. Join us as we dive into the dark world of Amino.

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CHAPTERS
0:00 - The Dark World of Amino
1:12 - The Anime Convention
3:18 - Bots are Taking Over Amino
6:03 - Aminocoins: The Corrupt Currency
8:31 - Do Not Click This Link
12:00 - The Darkest Time in Amino History
14:21 - Emi's Story
16:20 - I Thought Amino was a Safe Place
17:54 - Why Amino?

My name is Gerard and I make Internet Culture Documentaries. My mission is to spread awareness about the Dark Sides of the Internet.

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Watch more Internet Documentaries! 👇

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This video is sponsored by Brilliant.

[VisualVenture]

OUR GOAL: 500k by the end of 2023. CAN WE DO IT???

[Vincent.]

Mental issue glorification and trauma dumping was also a large thing. I remember I’d have to talk someone out of suicide at least once a week when I was 10-13 years old. I saw people praise and envy those with eating disorders, and I’ve seen a lot of posts and conversations glorifying SH as well. Absolutely horrible

[cookiekatzzz]

I was one of the lucky few who had a good experience with Animo. I made 4 lifelong friends there, and it was the place that got me into making my own art. I don't remember anything wrong happening to me on there. I did free art requests, and no one took advantage of them. Been on there for 6 years, and I still browse it once in a while.
But my other friends who I made on that app had horrible experiences. So I have nothing but my condolences and the other people who were negatively harmed by this app.

[ErisIsAnAbomination]

I was a victim of this app.

I was only 14 years old when I joined a chat with someone I thought was a friend. Things started out friendly; he sometimes talked about intimate actions like hugging/cuddling and wanting to meet someday, but I thought it was ok because he was a friend. Sometimes he’d make inappropriate references and talk about things like hentai and porn, but I brushed it off as just “harmless jokes”. And then it… completely devolved.

He started steering every conversation we had toward intimacy and sex. He pressured me into doing erotic roleplays (which he claimed was fine because it was “just my OC and not me”) and would get angry and threaten to leave if I was uncomfortable. He started calling me sexual pet names and saying he wanted to sleep with me if we ever met. One time, he messaged me “in tears” in the middle of the night and admitted that he was saving my selfies and pleasuring himself to them. This continued for 2 years of me being on the app.

When I tried to break it off with him, he began stalking me from alt accounts and tried to sneak into my friend group to send me messages. It never stopped, and I only got away when I deleted my account altogether and didn’t tell him.

I was 14 years old when we met, and he was… 26.

It’s been 7 years and I’m still completely traumatized by what he did. I still live in fear that he could somehow find me again, or that he still has the pictures of me as a child.

To everyone who was a victim… none of you deserved it. It wasn’t your fault, and you’re not alone.

[KnightShade]

18:16 "If you feel like you don't fit into this world, it's because you're here to create a better one." That sent chills down my spine man.

[solaniine_]

Amino had/has a huge p-dophilia issue. Majority of teen users throughout the years of amino are definitely victims and it's upsetting

[lorxlxi]

Amino is so terribly dangerous for kids. I was groomed multiple times on amino and all because I wanted to fit in with people but suddenly my dms were filled with older men asking to talk to me and see parts of me. There is really no way that could make this app safer even with regular monitoring from parents. Thank you for covering this!

[Lnk_lz]

I have MANY horrible experiences with this app, and I’m so glad you covered it!

Let me talk about my experience there. Now, I was basically a child, around 9-10 on the app, and I wanted to share my fan art for my favorite games. And so, I posted a shit ton. I was bullied into the GROUND for it. People would always leave these nasty comments and I just couldn’t take it anymore so, I made a new account.

Now THIS account was different. It was just me partaking in the fandom and having fun with other people. This account got so many fucked up DMs, asking me to “erp” or just full on sexual harassment. It got to the point of where I was ignoring them that they started to say things like “If you don’t reply, I’ll kill myself!” and so, I felt pressured, scared, and afraid. Only a few years ago did I fully stop interacting with this app.

It harbors many good memories but far to many bad ones.

[bruhmento]

As someone who didn't have a bad experience in Amino, I'm really sorry to hear the experiences that people had in that app. I hope you guys are doing okay now.

[quackityj]

I remember using amino as a child. I was literally addicted. Got groomed for years and even sent (bad) pictures at an extremely young age to people who were as old as 30. One specifically, was a moderator. Of course when I tried exposing him everyone took his side and I got banned. It's just crazy.

[Jasperth]

Good God, I hate this app. Biggest problem for me was groomers and moderation. I'll spare y'all the details of the first part, because moderation was absolutely ridiculous. Essentially, anyone picked by a leader or curator to join a mod position could easily misuse their power. I remember getting kicked from a chat simply because I said I didn't like Billie Eillish. I also got a strike for "not reporting someone using racial slurs" (despite warning them not to). And then I received a SECOND strike for the same incident a week or so later because they just weren't paying attention. In one community, the leaders had straight up dipped. No content mods AT ALL. It was the most toxic community I'd been in. It took half a year before the community got a new leader. Hell, I remember trying to be a curator once. But the community leader assigned an entire essay and put me on a time limit of a few minutes. It really irked me how leaders would act in these communities, and half the time were just children/teens who didn't know how to moderate well enough.

[Jabberwockia]

Former Amino mod for a medium sized community here. I was barely 18 at the time myself, the oldest member of the mod squad I was on was 25 and the youngest was 14. Before I was in my second year of college I knew the steps for making an fbi report by heart because grooming was just that common. No matter how many hundreds of foods we stuffed through a day the work always piled up. When I quit the app, it was because I’d found my first real adult job and couldn’t cope with the app anymore. My work didn’t ask me to deal with the worst types of humans regularly. When someone was rowdy at my job at the time, they got kicked out. They couldn’t come back. I didn’t have to see dick picks or sexts or anything graphic. It wasn’t until over a year of separation from the app that my psychiatrist told me I was exhibiting the symptoms of a person recovering from contact trauma. And like… how am I supposed to say “oh I got a clinical diagnosis from being an unpaid internet moderator”. I remember being mad for days on end that I couldn’t just ban someone. I remember tracing back usernames and photos to find the creeps real life accounts, and trying to contact local law enforcement in their areas when I could. I’m still not recovered from seeing some of the shit ya’ll endured. The worst of it went beyond sexual exploitation and into outright gore. I was barely an adult, and if it messed me up that badly I can’t imagine the children…


If you were a kid on amino who was groomed - I’m sorry. A lot of us were trying SO hard to protect you. I hope you know that we tried with the limited resources we had literally everything we could to protect you. That doesn’t justify what you went through. It never does. But I hope you all know it wasn’t normal, we knew it wasn’t.

[heartsgene]

as a young teen on a specific amino, alot of these grooming allegations were common. It wasn’t exactly the norm, but it was definitely a problem. I’m glad the communities (at least the ones I’m in) are more stricter and definitely brought more awareness to the issue.

[pomnii]

I had awful experiences on that app. I got groomed from ages 13 to 16, I had my IP grabbed, I had false accusations made about me and many other horrible things. The only good thing that came from amino was my boyfriend but we both agreed to leave amino a year ago.

[CrybabyMorphine]

My most traumatizing online experiences was on amino, I’m glad someone is finally covering this

[gowongoaway]

I have gotten groomed on that app and so much worse happened. And many of my other friends too. Plus the app is just toxic as a whole. There are some extremely insane people on there.

[cloroxart]

I don’t remember exactly when I left, but I remember Amino being so good around 2018. I was in a small community of artists and I found it amazing. So sad it lost its charm

[hotel_arcadia]

Can we also mention that Amino's new developers changed the premium membership so that even Amino+ members see inappropriate ads?

[DSMChip]

really great informative video!

as a survivor of amino, lots of stuff really stuck out to me, like the currency, the UI, and especially the communities
while i mostly left amino because of how much it fucked up my mobile speed, another reason i left was soley because of the community, more specifically the invader zim one
i used to love the show religiously and made so many friends there, but a multitude of problems arose
people emotionally manipulated me and mentally broke me to stay on amino calls for longer than i wanted, my first ex (which i met on there) was emotionally taxing, drama would spout out left and right, and when i couldn't take it anymore and left, everyone i knew followed me to other places like youtube or discord
some i'm still cool with, others i never want to interact with again, but still forced to because of my fractured mental state, all thanks to these lunatics manipulating me and emotionally draining me
i never wanted to involve myself with anything zim related afterwards, but some of these people remind me of my horrible times in there and never let me cut away from them
like this one guy named kevin, a stubborn asshole who starts drama for no reason, emotionally drains and harrasses people he doesn't like, and looks back on what he does to people with no regrets at all whatsoever, almost making a mockery of the suffering he caused others, myself included
i implore anyone reading to stay far away from this app as possible, you'll make acquaintances that think they care about you when they really don't

[floydboyentertainment]

As a user of amino, I can definitely vouch for the many many bot users it had. It really sucked because I loved using this app and I still do to this day for role-playing and talking with people that have similar interests. It just breaks my heart that they removed this app from the iOS or Apple store. I still have it on my phone to this day but I just have so many memories on that app but despite it’s flaws it’sis still one of my favorite apps.