Before social media, celebrities were held accountable by journalists. Now, with the easy accessibility of social media, celebrities and influencers are getting called out for their actions by fans.
Many influencers in varying spheres of social media have faced extreme allegations. As their audiences demanded an apology, these influencers did the only thing they knew how to: Make videos.
American influencer Logan Paul became famous for his confident personality and attractive videos. Throughout his career, he has had multiple scandals, but one of the most notable ones was the scandal of Aokigahara Forest.
Paul had recorded a video of himself going through the Aokigahara forest in Japan. The forest is nicknamed “The Death Forest” because more than 100 people committed suicide there in the years 2013 and 2015. In the video, Paul recorded a corpse hanging from a tree and laughed at it.
Fans were enraged by this behavior so on Jan 2, 2018, Paul posted an apology video that garnered over 24 million views. Many fans were especially angry because Paul monetized the video. Reports say Paul could’ve made up to $97,000 from his apology video.
Fans such as sophomore Hanna Jensen expressed their disappointment. “You wouldn’t expect him to be a bad person, his videos are so happy and him doing that is disappointing to me,” she expressed.
More recently, influencer and performer Colleen Ballinger, creator of the character ‘Miranda Sings’ has had allegations of speaking inappropriately with minors. In response to the allegations, she made a 10-minute YouTube video called ‘hi’.
In this video, she sang a 10-minute song on a ukulele about online harassment and spreading misinformation. However, fans expressed their distempt for the song because she had never explicitly addressed the accusations against her. She sang “to her audience in an accusatory tone, stating it doesn’t matter what she says, people just want to be entertained” journalist Edith Jennifer Hill wrote.
One longtime fan of Ballinger, sophomore Maddy Hollingsworth, stated “This song is a ridiculous way to not even apologize.”
Many fans were also upset by Ballinger using her fame to downplay the potential victims’ allegations. Hollingsworth thought “She put out this song in order to downgrade her victims.”
Similar to Hollingsworth, Jensen believed “It is wrong for Coleen to manipulate her victims like this. Since she’s widely known, more people will believe her instead of the victims…It makes me question what other things celebs have done.”
Sienna Mae Gomez is another influencer who received backlash for her apology video.
In 2020, Gomez reportedly sexually assaulted fellow influencer Jack Wright while he was unconscious. A video of the incident was posted onto social media, where Wright opened up to his followers and expressed “[She] got on top of me, took advantage of me, and groped me.”
Many fans were outraged when they heard about this and expressed their hostility towards Gomez. In response to the backlash, Gomez posted an interpretive dance apology video. Once she posted the video, Gomez received even more backlash than before.
Similar to Ballinger, Gomez did not explicitly state the allegations against her nor did she apologize. Instead, she made a motivational speech about self love after having a hard time before she started to do her dance.
People were also angered by her song choice. The song Gomez chose to dance to contained the lyrics “Get a little wild, get a little high…I’ve done nothing wrong, I’m just young.” People thought it was poor song choice considering what she was accused of.
Cases of sexual assault commonly cause a reaction out of teens because many have experienced it first hand. 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys have experienced sexual assault before the age of 18.
Nonetheless, students still find hope in finding out more about what influencers are actually like. As Jensen stated, “Apology videos truly bring out the type of person someone is— whether good or bad.”
