Apologizing to the Mob
At some point, I want to sit down and write at length about cancel culture, public humiliation, and cruelty. This is not going to be that post, even though perhaps it is related to all of those things. Recently, content creators on a platform that I really care about (YouTube) have been bombarding their viewers with apology videos. I’m not going to spend time today trying to congratulate or condemn them for apologizing for what they have apologized for – they have been receiving enough criticism without my two cents thrown into the pot. Instead, I want to talk about how we should approach public apologies moving forward based on how people have responded to the public apologies of two notable YouTubers over the past couple of days: Jenna Marbles and Shane Dawson.
Jenna has been a content creator on YouTube since 2010. She is most well known for 2010 viral videos “How to trick people into thinking you’re good looking” and “How to avoid talking to people you don’t want to talk to” (which has been privated by Jenna on YouTube for reasons I will explain). In the earlier days of YouTube, there was demand for shock-value humor that our current cultural climate does not permit. In no way am I saying that we shouldn’t have made some of the cultural changes that we have made, like doing away with forms of humor that earnestly seek to disempower marginalized groups. I am simply saying that the internet was a very different place a decade ago. It was a place where Jenna felt comfortable enough uploading videos like the following:
A video where she put on a copious amount of fake tanner and caricatured Nicki Minaj,
A video where she made some off-color jokes about Asian people,
A video where she castigated women who were sexually promiscuous for being home-wreckers and attention-seekers,
And a series of videos where she made generalizations about men and women based on their clothing choices.
Not only did Jenna feel comfortable enough posting such videos, but she posted them to much positive reception. She built a fanbase around her unfiltered personality and humor which never ceased to push the envelope. Again, I do not state this to excuse any of her arguably problematic behavior. I say this only to point out that there are always many factors which complicate our understanding of what is right or wrong. For Jenna, I can imagine that wanting to continue making content that would help her pay her bills and advance her career blinded her to some of her mistakes. This does not make her actions excusable, but I hope it at least makes them somewhat explainable.
Shane Dawson is another content creator who has been on YouTube since 2005. More recently, he is known for his conspiracy theory videos and YouTube docu-series about other content creators. But, like Jenna, he was making content during the shock-value era of YouTube and made his fair share of arguably problematic content. He has made videos where he painted his face brown (blackface) and caricatured black people, where he made brazen pedophilia jokes, where he made jokes about suicide and eating disorders. And in the past, every time he has been confronted for making questionable content, he would defend himself tooth and nail.
Jenna Marbles, on the other hand, was very receptive to criticism and has changed her content considerably over the past decade. Most notably, Jenna made an apology video for making and uploading a video where she bought pet fish and placed them in a fish tank that they were not supposed to be placed in. Animal rights activists criticized Jenna for acting carelessly toward her pet fish, and Jenna responded by making an apology video that was almost one hour long.
Despite these differences between Jenna and Shane, the two have found themselves in the midst of much criticism recently, mostly for videos that they made years ago on YouTube. Both of them have published public apologies on their channels that, together, boast over 43 million subscribers. Here is Jenna’s apology and here is Shane’s. At the end of her apology, Jenna says that she is “moving on from YouTube” and that there is a distinct possibility that she may never return to the platform. Shane, at the end of his apology, does no such thing. This may be, in part, why Shane’s apology video has received far more negative reception than Jenna’s – but both of the content creators have been the object of dissatisfaction when it comes to their apologies.
I recently wrote a Twitter thread that articulates some of my thoughts on the matter. I hope to draw them out in a bit more detail here:
What is popular/acceptable on #YouTube now is not what was popular/acceptable on YouTube 10 years ago. Some content creators have been on the platform for at least that long. #JennaMarbles and #ShaneDawson are among these people. They both released apology videos recently. I am not of the mind that public apologies are useless or are necessarily disingenuous. But I am starting to think that apologies mean little to those who demand them, at least in our current cultural moment. Both Jenna and Shane sincerely apologized for doing things that hurt people in the past. Some might even have a reasonable debate about whether what they did in the past was really as problematic as critics claim. Many have expressed dissatisfaction with these apologies. Is it because they think Jenna and Shane don't mean it, or believe they won't change? I don't think so. I think it's because accepting an apology means relinquishing power that you have over someone else that manifests in the form of justified anger. Those demanding apologies from these public figures don't want to give up power. So they won't accept apologies. More and more I am starting to believe that public apologies are meaningless not because there aren't circumstances under which they should be made – but because people refuse to hear the apologies in good faith and reciprocate with forgiveness, even when it is the sensible and compassionate thing to do.
Clearly, I am not the sincerity police. That is, I am not the ultimate judge of when somebody is being sincere or disingenuous. But I watched both of their videos having followed their careers since they began, and I saw two people who were earnest in their expression of concern for those whom they have hurt over the years. Two people who were trying to do the right thing. Perhaps you see something different. But because I saw what I saw, it sickened me to see people on Twitter completely writing off Shane as if he, in no way, did the thing he was supposed to do when he apologized to someone.
The response to these apologies makes me believe that people don’t actually care about apologies. Those who are critical of Jenna and Shane now after demanding they apologize to them do not care that these content creators show remorse and improve themselves. Why are they demanding apologies, then? Making an apology is a humbling experience. It is an admittance of the fact that you are not perfect, no matter how hard you try to be. In apologizing to someone, you knock yourself down a peg and give that power to the person who deserves the apology. By demanding that Jenna and Shane apologize for all of these things that may or may not have profoundly affected them, viewers are able to wield control over them.
The difference is that in real life, oftentimes the transfer of power that occurs between an apologizer and an apologizee is that the apologizee will, after enough time has elapsed and if it is sensible and compassionate to do so, accept the apology and forgive the apologizer. When it comes to public figures like Jenna and Shane, their (former) viewers have no incentive to forgive. They don’t know Jenna and Shane. They don’t care about Jenna and Shane the way people do about their loved ones. All they know is that their anger and vitriol was powerful enough to get Jenna to leave the platform and to get Shane to call himself a fuck-up for 20 minutes on camera. They know that they have power. And as I explained in the case of making an apology, accepting an apology takes an impressive amount of humility that people apparently no longer revere.