The mommy vloggers are at it again. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen a handful of family influencers join the ranks of the Myka Stauffers of the world, popping their kids in front of the camera and keeping their questionable parenting decisions in frame. These clickbait artists have been caught encouraging their kids to cry on-camera and using cancer scares for views, stooping to levels even Kris Jenner (probably) wouldn’t go.
Family vloggers exploiting their kids for clicks is not quite breaking news, and the genre has deep roots. In 2017, Time Magazine reported a 90% increase in time spent watching family vloggers over the year before, and that number has no doubt continued to grow. While millions continue to click subscribe, the family influencer space is far from universally loved. Most of us can agree that watching a 3-year-old open fake Christmas presents behind a ring light is weird, but while we’ve been looking away, the videos have only gotten more staged and more shameless.
This week, mommy vlogger Jordan Cheyenne, a “beauty and lifestyle content creator” who entered the scene in 2013, published a now-deleted video to her 538k subscribers titled, “we are heartbroken.” In the video, she shares the sad news that the puppy her family was in the process of adopting was in critical condition, closing out with an accidental inclusion intended for the cutting room floor in which she directs her crying son to amp up the emotion for the perfect thumbnail. She instructs, “look like you’re crying,” “frown for the thumbnail,” and “wait say that one more time in the frame.”
“No, mom, I really am crying,” says the devastated young boy. “No, I know, but go like this for the video,” says Cheyenne feigning tears and lifting her hand to her forehead in distress.
this is so DISTURBING what is wrong with mom vloggers omfg pic.twitter.com/krUjM5Sfit
— pots girl summer ♿︎ 25 (@givemepllants) September 8, 2021
In addition to peddling childhood trauma, Cheyenne also offers something she calls “Girlboss Academy,” giving social media tips (probably to the ladies behind those “Hey girly!” DMs you’ve been ignoring). For $300, you can enroll in her “Instagram Matrix” training course, where you’ll learn how to “turn your followers into paying clients” and master the art of the perfect caption. Alternatively, $200 will get you a spot in Cheyenne’s “Abundance Academy,” where you will learn to “attract wealth effortlessly and learn how to manifest money with ease.” The only thing abundant to me is the MLM energy that is radiating from this.
Facing backlash to her video, on September 8th, Cheyenne uploaded a seven-minute video, which has since been made private, titled “lets chat”. She explains that the ending clip of the now-deleted video was never intended to be included, a mistake on her part after an exhausting day of genuine off-screen emotion. The YouTuber’s apology came swiftly and seemed somewhat genuine. In a later video titled “8 years later, Im done. *please watch.*“, Cheyenne said that moving forward, she will not be including her son in any content. She added that she removed about 20 videos he was already in and will continue to remove him from her channel.
Still, the clip had already reignited the debate surrounding family vloggers’ exploitation of children and monetization of life’s very real traumas.
this is why i’ll never stop advocating for children exploited on social media. family vloggers prioritize money over their children’s well being, and that mentality will severely mess with their kids, yet their parents couldn’t care less because they’re focused on dollar signs. https://t.co/2rwf3UxUsw
— alayna doyal ☽ (@AlaynaDoyal) September 9, 2021
Enter the LaBrants. If this name rings any bells, you’re in one of two camps: you’re a fan, or you saw Cody Ko’s video in 2017, and the memory just resurfaced. If you’re in camp two, say hi to me at the next bunk meeting.
With more than 13 million subscribers, The LaBrant Fam channel has amassed over four billion views collectively. The couple also runs their 8-year-old daughter’s channel, Everleigh Opens Toys, which has nearly four million subscribers. Across their various channels and social media accounts, there is no telling how much money this family’s bleached-blond antics have made, but some sources put their net worth at around $12 million.
On August 28th, The LaBrant Fam uploaded a 43-minute video titled “She got diagnosed with cancer. (documentary).” The video, which opens with a viewer discretion advisory, details a health scare the family underwent with their 2-year-old child, who thankfully was not diagnosed with cancer, despite the clickbait. Basically, Cole LaBrant noticed bruises on the child’s leg, opened WebMD, scrolled past “injury” and “vitamin K deficiency,” set his sights on cancer, and picked up the camera.
The video emotionally detailed the LaBrants’ trip to the hospital, where they thankfully received only good news, but many families haven’t been so lucky. As if the title wasn’t enough, the LaBrants took the extra step to set the original thumbnail, which has since been updated, to an image of Cole LaBrant comforting a bald, sick child in a hospital bed. The comments on the video have since been turned off.
Labrant family with Cole Labrant have uploaded a video to get attention to childhood cancer.
Whats wrong with that you’d ask?
The thumbnail before was the picture on right sending fans into hysteria – do any of the kids have cancer? Nope.
They’re clickbaiting. Cancer. pic.twitter.com/PbySYoOa7y— Krista (@LestatsSanguis) August 28, 2021
To recap: this mega-popular and hyper-religious influencer couple took their child to the hospital for bruising, captured content with terminally ill children, and sauntered out of the pediatric wing with a clean bill of health and a million-dollar video.
If you’re wondering what the rest of the 43 minutes looked like, it was mostly rhetoric from LaBrant about faith, the power of prayer, and why the family’s fame was the ultimate invitation for a sentence as horrible as child cancer. He quite literally prayed away the disease that never existed, then deposited the check—jokes on you, sick people everywhere.
Who are the 13 million subscribers who have made this family so famous? Who built the pedestal on which the LaBrant family stands, pinning thumbnails of someone else’s dying child before closing their computers and running laps around their mega-mansion? Who are the hundreds of millions of people watching family vloggers each day? Who summoned the mommy vloggers, and who do we call to rein them in?
Cancer scares and dying dogs are child’s play to some of the top creators in the family vlogging space. With nearly nine million subscribers, The Prince Family is behind some of the most outrageous clickbait on the internet, including my all-time favorite video title, “CPS TOOK OUR KIDS FROM US | SEAFOOD BOIL MUKBANG.” That video was posted two years ago and has since been re-titled with a new thumbnail, “WE ALMOST LOST OUR BABY 💔😭 (KING CRAB SEAFOOD BOIL MUKBANG)”. In between bites of seafood, the Princes talk about how, when one day Biannca experienced heavy bleeding, they worried they were losing their baby. It’s unclear what CPS ever had to do with anything.
Other top hits from the creators include “BIANNCA TOOK THE KIDS & LEFT ME **PLEASE COME BACK**,” and “GIVING KYRIE UP FOR ADOPTION.”
GIVING KYRIE UP FOR ADOPTION 💔 https://t.co/ErYKF43Uks via @YouTube
— Damien Prince (@DamienPrinceJr) December 18, 2019
I wonder how many views the clickbait of my life could have mustered up. How many millions were waiting for me on the other side of a title like, “WE TOLD HER WE’RE GETTING DIVORCED AT STEAK ‘N SHAKE,” or “telling her she has no college fund *mukbang*.” Lucky for us, stage parents in our day had to really fight for it. You couldn’t create a YouTube channel and make millions off of your kid in 24 hours like today’s content creators—I mean, parents.
At least I can bank on the fact that my trauma wasn’t paying the bill that day at Steak ‘n Shake; today’s internet kids can’t say the same. Top family channels on YouTube are raking in multi-millions each year. With over 19 million subscribers, the ever-famous ACE Family holds a net worth of more than $22 million via monetized social platforms, branded merchandise, ad revenue, and sponsorships. Their most recent video? “ELLE CALLS FROM SCHOOL CRYING.. **SAD DAY**.”
The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the kids who grace YouTube’s trending page are working performers and actors, and “mom” and “dad” are fighting for Best Director nominations. Each year that passes brings these family vloggers more clicks, more subscribers, and more checks, but each passing year also brings us closer to the point when those internet kids will grow up and start asking questions. Have I ever had a private moment in my life? Did I have supportive parents, or was I routinely coached into tears? If my trauma made my parents millions, where is the money?
The massive popularity of family vlogger content begs a few questions. If an internet kid cries off camera, did it really happen? Probably not. If CPS takes your children away, will a mukbang bring them back? Probably not. If I ended this article with a fake cancer scare, would you send it to your friends? Probably.
Images: The LaBrant Fam, Jordan Cheyenne / Youtube; @givemepllants, AlaynaDoyal, Lestats Sanguis, DamienPrinceJr / Twitter
If you read that headline and had to check to make sure that April Fool’s Day was, in fact, yesterday, you’re not alone. Jeffree Star, YouTube beauty guru and lover of drama, has beef with Kourtney Kardashian’s 10-year-old son. If the global pandemic wasn’t strong enough evidence, I think this is confirmation that we’re officially living in The Bad Place. What is going on, and how the f*ck did we get here? Let’s dive in.
Despite all the drama that’s gone down since we got to know them, the Kardashians are generally known for keeping their sh*t tight on social media. They show us exactly what they want, when they want, which is mostly on TV and the fake Twitter fights they drum up to encourage us to watch them on TV. Like, Kylie Jenner is one of the most famous people on the planet, and she managed to keep her pregnancy a secret until after she had the baby! They might be tone-deaf or problematic, but the Kardashians are almost never sloppy on social media.
Well, I think it’s safe to say that the Kardashian ship has officially sprung a leak, and it’s none other than Mason Disick. Mason, Kourtney and Scott’s eldest son, recently discovered social media, and it’s been a f*cking trip already. A couple weeks ago, Mason made an Instagram account, and almost immediately went live for his followers. Normally, this wouldn’t have been that noteworthy—but Mason is a messy bitch who lives for drama. A viewer asked if Kylie and Travis are actually back together, and Mason said no right there on Instagram Live! An icon, honestly.
Shortly after that, Mason’s Instagram page disappeared, and Kourtney later explained that she shut that sh*t down. In her own IG Live, Kourtney said that her reason was that Mason is only 10, and Instagram’s age minimum is 13. That’s true, but I feel like the real reason was probably that Kris Jenner sent her a strongly worded text to get her son in line. The family that avoids PR crises together stays together!
So Mason’s Instagram is sadly gone, but don’t worry, he’s still on TikTok. He’s actually been on TikTok since January, and Kourtney has appeared in his videos, so it’s a parent-approved platform. But that might not last long, because Mason has now figured out how to use TikTok’s live feature. In his first live video, he talked about going viral on Instagram, and complained that he won’t get to go to Coachella this year “because of corona.” Aw, maybe he can do a Zoom Coachella with Vanessa Hudgens.
And, in a video from last week, he went live with major TikTok star Addison Rae, who has a casual 30 million followers. What am I doing wrong with my life? When a viewer asked Mason about his favorite beauty YouTuber, he answered honestly: “I don’t really watch makeup YouTubers, but I think James —he’s really nice. Because Jeffree Star is, like, spoiled AF.” Lmaooooo. Considering that James Charles and Jeffree Star are two of the messiest YouTubers around, you already knew this was going to cause drama.
On Wednesday, Jeffree Star was made aware of what Mason said, and as he always does, he made his thoughts known on Twitter. After declaring that six years ago, he only had $500 in his bank account, he suggested that Mason might be “confused with his own privilege versus mine being self-made,” and added that “hopefully his father can educate him soon.” OUCH.
Okay, so is everything that Jeffree Star said probably correct? Honestly yeah, it’s no secret that Mason has grown up extremely privileged, and with his aunt touted as a self-made billionaire, he might not really understand what that means. But does Jeffree Star realize that he’s dragging a literal child in front of his millions of followers on Twitter, just for calling him spoiled?
This is both a bad look and an unnecessary one, and someone must have pointed this out to Jeffree, because he’s since deleted his tweet about Mason. I’m hoping that Mason will go live again to address his beef with Jeffree, but I have a feeling that Kourtney won’t let that happen and she will be changing the Wifi password immediately. That’s probably for the best, because I don’t need to be spending my time thinking about a feud between a 34-year-old and a 10-year-old child. This might be the weirdest feud of 2020 so far, but with the way this year is going so far, who knows what will happen.
Images: Rosdiana Ciaravolo / Contributor/Getty Images; jeffreestar / Instagram
After all we’ve been through together, 2019 wouldn’t truly be complete without one more Tana Mongeau update, would it? When the year started, Tana was best known to us as Bella Thorne’s girlfriend, and then things got confusing when she started flirting with Miley Cyrus on social media. But of course, the highlight of Tana’s thirsty 2019 was her abrupt engagement and fake marriage to fellow YouTube star Jake Paul. Over the summer, we watched in horror as they shoved their alleged love in our faces all over the internet, all the while wondering when this nightmare of a PR stunt would come to an end.
Well, after six months of waiting patiently forgetting that these people exist, Tana put out a video on Sunday talking all about how she’s—wait for it—not that happy! If you can’t see the look of shock on my face through the computer screen, that’s because there is no look of shock on my face. Literally no one thought this relationship would work out, but it’s still interesting to hear Tana open up about some of the specifics. Her video, which has the appropriately dramatic title “the truth about everything,” is 40 minutes long, so I really don’t expect you to watch it, but I’ll go over some of the biggest points.
To start, Tana filmed this video after taking a two-day “break” from social media. She acknowledges that this is a short break, but I would probably classify it as “not a break at all.” Like, I was just home for the holidays, and I practically went two days without going on social media without really trying. Anyway, Tana spends the entire video lying in bed, facing the camera sideways. I was going to make fun of her for this, but then I realized that this is literally what I look like when I’m working from home. That’s right guys, I’m currently horizontal. Props to Tana for not sitting up.
Tana opens the video by talking a little about her f*cked up past, which I don’t know the details of, because she covered that in another way-too-long video that I’m not going to watch. Then, she gets into how she started talking to Jake Paul, which sounds like the plot of a twisted rom-com where the main woman just kind of sucks. Basically, she was super in love with one guy, and then she started dating a different guy so she could “fall out of love with” the first guy, and then while she was dating the second guy, she was texting Jake the whole time. If that means nothing to you, Jake was pretty much the side-piece during a rebound. Sounds healthy!
Tana says that lots of people warned her about Jake’s problematic reputation, but explains that she was actually more attracted to that, probably because she’s also problematic AF. She says that she and Jake “have gone through so much of the same sh*t that I wanted to be the one to like, save him.” Oh honey, rule number one of dating f*cked-up guys is that you can never save them. It’s a waste of time. In the video, she literally says “Jake could kill my whole family and I’d still love him,” which is exactly the energy we’re NOT taking into 2020.
After Tana and Brad broke up “over weekend two of Coachella” (yikes), she and Jake started hooking up, but kept it on the down-low until people recognized Jake’s bed in one of her photos. For like two seconds, she makes it seem like she was sad people found out, but then she starts talking about how much she loved being swept up in the world of Jake Paul. She claims that she never actually cared about clout, which I feel like is a blatant lie, because why else would their wedding or literally any of this right now be happening.
As for the wedding, Tana says that “the wedding sh*t literally started as a joke,” but then they both just kept going with it. Okay, this is the first believable thing Tana has said yet. She says that she ignored any and all red flags, and that the wedding night was “hell” for her, because her dad had a stroke. She also says that she was angry about the infamous wedding livestream, but she went along with it because Jake wanted it.
Obviously Jake and Tana were doomed from the beginning, but it sounds like the biggest single problem was their lack of communication about what their open relationship meant. Tana says she was envisioning a chill arrangement where the both might hook up with someone else occasionally, but Jake took it as “him still being able to have sex with a new bitch every night.” And I OOP. Open relationships can be great, but those are two very different ideas, and in general, if you go into an open relationship just assuming sh*t and don’t clearly define your boundaries, you are setting yourself up to fail. So, again, not surprised about this. It didn’t help matters that Jake was seen hanging out with his ex, Erika Costell, which Tana apparently found out about on Twitter. Anddddd it just keeps getting worse.
Tana rambles on about some other topics in the video, but we never really get clarity on what’s happening between her and Jake right now. She doesn’t say that they’re broken up, but she does talk about a lot of this stuff in the past tense, and also says that they don’t “ever want to hate each other.” Yeah, that doesn’t make it sound like things are in an especially good place. We’ll have to wait for an official announcement to call a time of death on this relationship, but six months feels like pretty much what we expected.
Images: Tana Mongeau / YouTube; tanamongeau / Instagram
A couple weeks ago, news of Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau’s engagement ripped through the internet like the world’s thirstiest tornado. Of course, it had to happen on the one week of the year I’ve been out of the office, so I wasn’t around to report on the initial fallout, but luckily this sh*tshow is still going strong. Even though we all still have our doubts that this relationship is truly legit, these two are in it for the long haul (or at least the long con).
Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau wasted no time creating content to cash in on their relationship, including a whole set of JANA merch. Yes, that was the sound of me screaming into the void. It’s fine, I’m fine. Yesterday, Jake and Tana took another step toward proving their relationship is legit, in the form of a classic engagement photo shoot. Even though it’s physically impossible for me to not roll my eyes at everything they do, I can’t really be mad at this. Basically everyone does engagement photos, so it was a natural next step for these two pinnacles of thirst.
Here’s Jake Paul’s post with a bunch of the photos.
The photos are pretty tasteful in general, at least as much as we can expect from someone who did a naked photoshoot for her 21st birthday last month. Jake’s dog Thor is very cute, but I’m curious why his other dog, Moo, wasn’t included in the photos. Maybe he was at the groomer’s that day, or maybe he doesn’t think this relationship is real either.
Here’s Tana’s post with more photos:
Okay, I do have to say that those rings are beautiful. There have been rumors that Tana’s engagement ring might not be a real diamond, but I’m not going to pretend to be a gem expert. But the rings in this photo also got people talking about whether or not Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau might already be married. I need to sit down for a second, these two are giving me whiplash again.
Between the ring situation and Jake’s location tag of “MarriageToday,” people quickly began to wonder if there was a surprise wedding happening. Of course, I don’t know anything for sure, but I’m fairly confident that this isn’t a thing, mainly because both of their captions directly refer to their engagement. These idiots might not have the best judgment, but I’m hoping that they’re at least smart enough not to get married only a couple months into their relationship. Even as I was typing that sentence, I realized that I might be giving them too much credit.
Whatever, I’m standing my by gut instinct, I don’t think they’re married.
Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau are all about love and light these days, but the news of their engagement was emotional for Bella Thorne, who dated Tana until earlier this year. On the day the news broke, she posted these selfies to her finsta.
In a subsequent post for Tana’s birthday, Bella seemed very supportive, but it’s still been a tough couple months for her, with the drama surrounding her breakup with Mod Sun, and the scandal that ended with her leaking her own nudes and feuding with Whoopi Goldberg.
Tana commented “i love u forever and ever” on this photo, so it seems like everything is good between the two of them. As crazy as Tana is, it makes me happy that their friendship is intact after everything they’ve been through together.
So for now, I feel fairly confident that Jake Paul and Tana Mongeau aren’t married, but literally anything could happen with these two. We’ll be patiently waiting for the next updates about their relationship, but knowing them, we probably won’t have to actually be that patient.
Images: jakepaul, tanamongeau (2), thatweirdbitchbella, bellathorne / Instagram
Hello, all. Today, I’m going to show you a different sort of Photoshop fail. I know you guys like the super messed up ones, but what I think is scarier are the ones that look almost real. The ones that don’t have any obvious tells. Any retouch work I do, for example, is seamless because I know what to look for and I have a degree in Digital Arts. But I also don’t edit people to make them look super thin and Barbie-ish and scary and strange. I fix basic issues like lighting, skin problems, weird bunching fabric, distorted perspective, etc.
The reason the ones that aren’t as obvious are so scary is because they do a great job of convincing you that this is what these people really look like. They don’t, not any of them. Even the very perfect ones still feel insecure and edit their photos. And with this, I bring you James Charles.
I only knew who James Charles was from his Covergirl ad where he had little freckles and was adorable and his makeup was amazing. Then 50 Shades of Betch blessed us all with his Youtube drama, so now I feel young and cool and like I know what’s going on, but without having to watch any of those stupid videos, because really, who has time for that? I am very busy bingeing The Office for the 200th time. So yeah, I don’t know, after all the updates, whose side I’m supposed to be on. Is James Charles cancelled again? Is Tati cancelled? Does anyone really know who Tati is? What does cancelled even mean, because it seems like millions of people watch their videos either way? So like they’re still making money, yes? IDK? Also, for people that “did not want to talk about it”, they sure did a LOT of videos about it… that I did not bother to watch. Anyway. Back to the Photoshop fail.
James Charles posted this look from the Met Gala.
And he looks fabulous. But also sort of superhuman. He has that same alien-esque quality of the Hadid sisters’ new faces. I assume this is the result of a ton of makeup/contouring and plastic surgery. However, the more I looked at this photo, the more I was confused by his… giant block head. Is he a reject from some Hey Arnold! reboot I was unaware of? That is a very, very blocky head.
But once I saw that…
Then I saw all of this. Like, yes Block Head is super unnatural looking. I’m sure he had the Hollywood Standard issue nose job, AND is probably wearing a lot of makeup, but isn’t that nose so minuscule and strange? It’s basically a dot at this point, like a cartoon! And then… the lady behind him seems to have a weird, lumpy neck, which is fine and definitely happens as we age, but it’s a LITTLE WEIRD that it happens to be completely parallel with James’s neck? And speaking of parallel, his waist is so even and straight and also perfectly parallel to his arm? We rarely hold our bodies in such perfect lines. In fact, if you do that in animation, it’s considered poor posing (my emphasis in my degree was animation, btw). Super, super weird coincidence. And interestingly enough, the carpet seems to bulge out right near his body.
Again, these are really subtle issues. But did beautiful creature James Charles with his little button nose and perfect makeup really feel he was still inadequate and in need of a block head? (I didn’t even realize that’s what the youths found sexy nowadays?)
Now maybe you’re like, “Hey, you’re really reaching here.” Maybe I am. BUT. Lucky for us, this is a professional photo taken by pros at an event. So I was able to find THE ORIGINAL.
Wouldn’t you know it? James Cancelled Charles has a regular shaped head. I have to say I’m relieved. And the carpet is straight. His torso and arm are not parallel. His neck is a bit thicker. And Weird Neck Lady actually has a straight neck. If I were her, I would be pissed about this edit. It’s inconsiderate to age someone’s neck just to make yours look thinner, James!
And if you’re having trouble telling the difference, I made a little GIF for you!
SO. I’m really confused. The original photo was great, so why? He literally went in and made his neck and torso slightly thinner. He also made his hips way bigger, made his eyes and lips bigger, shrunk his nose to replicate Michael Jackson’s, and most importantly, gave himself a GIANT cranium? Was he trying to fix his hair and it went wrong? (Psst. James. Next time hit me up, I will fix it correctly.)
He looks way better and less alien-y in the OG photo. He’s already thin, the editing made no real difference. I can’t believe a giant head is what anyone would aspire to, especially when it’s a strange shape. Does he do this to all his photos?
Well. Those are some very square heads. And the doorway is bent in the last one and he has a disappearing nose. Also, can we talk about how pretty/amazing his makeup is? James, you’re sooo young and fabulous, you don’t need to edit your body or give yourself a block head. Or remove your nose. Put down the Facetune, you don’t need it. It just perpetuates this horrible culture that no one is thin enough, pretty enough, perfect enough, or square-headed enough.
PSA: Also maybe don’t edit photos that are available to the public.
Images: Instagram (@jamescharles); Giphy (2)
In the last few weeks, YouTube drama has been in the news like never before. You might not have known about James Charles or Tati before, but now you probably have a deep understanding of their feud and who betrayed whom and which receipts might have been fake. Okay, maybe “deep understanding” is an overstatement, but we’ve talked through the drama. But if you’re new to the world of YouTube personalities, there’s a lifetime of drama for you to catch up on.
It would be literally impossible to explain all the dynamics of the various YouTube communities, but there are obviously a handful of people who rise to the top and dominate. And what do you know, the majority of them are problematic! Prepare to be frustrated and more than a little confused, because YouTube drama is like nothing else in this world. Literally so many of you guys have asked me (I say without a hint of irony) to break down other Youtube stars you need to know about, so I’m here to do just that.
Jeffree Star
If you’ve been following the drama with James Charles, then you know that Jeffree Star got heavily involved. He first said that James was a danger to society, then took a step back and apologized. Overall, he remained firmly team Tati, but that’s beside the point right now. Jeffree is one of the most successful YouTube beauty gurus, and he owns a massive makeup company, but his past is very interesting. Way back in the 2000s, Jeffree Star got his start on MySpace (tbt), making music that was a lot like Lady Gaga’s early stuff. He had devoted fans, but obviously he pivoted his career away from music and toward beauty. Sadly, Jeffree has a history of saying racist things, going all the way back to some videos that he made in the 2000s, where he says the N-word, and jokes about throwing battery acid on a black woman to lighten her skin.
Jeffree has apologized on multiple occasions in the past, but just last fall, his former hairstylist posted screenshots of texts from Jeffree, allegedly from early 2018, where he again uses the N-word. Yikes. Also last fall, popular YouTuber Jackie Aina posted an open letter on her Twitter denouncing Jeffree for his racist behavior toward her. It’s really baffling to me how he still has so many fans after the constant proof that he sucks as a person, but if Trump can win an election, I guess it makes sense that people are buying Jeffree Star eyeshadow palettes.
Laura Lee
As much as I wish I could talk about Laura Leigh from Vanderpump Rules right now, instead we’re talking about…more racism! Laura Lee is another major figure in the YouTube beauty community, and she was one of the most notable people to denounce Jeffree Star last fall after (one of) his racism scandals. But then, because irony is real and beautiful, people went and found some, um, questionable things that Laura Lee tweeted in the past. Here’s the worst one:
“Tip for all black people if you pull ur pants up you can run from the police faster.. #yourwelcome”
I mean, Jesus Christ. Laura lost hundreds of thousands of followers after she was exposed, and brands like Diff Eyewear and Ulta pulled out of deals with her. She posted an apology video, which is four minutes of her doing the fakest crying I have ever seen. She deleted the video, but luckily other people re-uploaded it, so please enjoy:
She was so widely mocked for the video that she literally made another video apologizing for her apology. I told you these people were messy as hell.
Logan Paul
Logan Paul and his brother Jake are hugely popular YouTube vloggers, but they also suck big time. Huge surprise. Back in December 0f 2017, Logan made a video about the Aokigahara Forest in Japan, which is known as a place where many people go to commit suicide. In the video, Logan calls the forest “haunted,” comes across a man’s dead body, which he SHOWS ON CAMERA, and then he also makes jokes about suicide. Understandably, people were horrified by this, and YouTube announced that they were kicking Logan out of their Google Preferred program, which is a partnership program for the top 5% of YouTube creators.
Dear Internet, pic.twitter.com/42OCDBhiWg
— Logan Paul (@LoganPaul) January 2, 2018
That’s his Notes app apology, where he says he was thought he could “make a positive ripple on the internet,” then talks for a paragraph about how hard he works and how anyone could’ve made a mistake like this. Yeah okay, next.
Tana Mongeau
Hey, it’s another one you might know! Outside of the YouTube world, Tana Mongeau is probably best known for dating Bella Thorne and flirting with Miley Cyrus, but there’s so much more to her story. Her crowning failure was Tanacon, and the story is literally incredible. Every year, there’s a giant convention called Vidcon, where top YouTubers do panels, performances, etc. for thousands of fans. Last year, when Tana didn’t get chosen as a featured creator, she decided to boycott Vidcon and throw her own convention for her fans down the street. The event was a complete disaster. The venue was way too small for the number of tickets sold, so many fans who had flown across the country to be there were stranded in a parking lot for hours with no food or water. Essentially, it was the Fyre Festival of YouTube. Afterward, Tana got very defensive and blamed everyone but herself for the disastrous event. (Fellow YouTuber Shane Dawson actually made a documentary series about Tanacon that is a fantastic watch.) Joke’s on Tana, because she just announced that she’s attending Vidcon this year. Lol.
In addition to Tanacon, my favorite Tana moment was her slutty Jojo Siwa Halloween costume, because it’s obviously appropriate to dress up as a slutty version of a real child. She also created controversy when she marked Mac Miller’s death with an Instagram post that was all about her, insinuating that the two of them were in a relationship when he died. Problem is, the night Mac died, she was making out with Trippie Redd on the red carpet at the Pornhub awards. I promise, I couldn’t make this sh*t up if I wanted to.
There are many more YouTubers who have posted racist/sexist/homophobic/otherwise offensive things, but I only have the patience for so much stupidity in one day. If you’ve now been sucked into the world of YouTube drama, let me know if you want to see more like this!
Images: Shutterstock; jeffreestar, K-Row / YouTube; loganpaul / Twitter; @tanamongeau (2) / Instagram
