The YouTuber apology video is an artwork type. A penitent creator should be remorseful, however not theatrical. Concise, however not rehearsed. Trustworthy, however not defensive. Above all, an apology video can’t be memeable, or it’ll by no means be taken significantly.
Colleen Ballinger’s apology saga, nevertheless, shall be some of the memorable in YouTube historical past as a result of it simply retains getting worse.
Representatives for Ballinger, who constructed a faithful following of younger viewers because the satirical and typically offensive character Miranda Sings, at the moment are denying claims that she filed copyright infringement claims on movies reacting to her ukulele apology track.
The track, wherein Ballinger addresses allegations of fostering inappropriate and exploitative relationships along with her teenage followers, is without doubt one of the most absurd makes an attempt at apologizing ever documented on-line. The followers coming ahead accuse Ballinger of sending them unsolicited nudes of one other creator to make enjoyable of her physique, utilizing her group chat of underage followers as on-call emotional assist all through her divorce, exploiting and humiliating minors throughout her dwell exhibits and above all, abusing the facility dynamic between herself and her followers.
Her response? A track in regards to the “poisonous gossip prepare” — an agonizing 10-minute lyrical automobile crash that dismisses the allegations as misinformation fueled by the “mob mentality” of the web.
“Everybody simply believes that you’re the kind of one that manipulates and abuses youngsters. I simply wished to say that the one factor I’ve ever groomed is my two Persian cats,” Ballinger croons. “I’m not a groomer, only a loser who didn’t perceive I shouldn’t reply to followers. And I’m not a predator, although loads of you suppose so, as a result of 5 years in the past I made a fart joke.”
It’s a large number. Right here’s what’s happening.
Who’s Colleen Ballinger?
Colleen Ballinger, 36, began posting YouTube movies as Miranda Sings in 2008. “Miranda” is a self-obsessed younger girl who’s obsessive about stardom, regardless of her incapability to really sing. The character, who wears brilliant pink lipstick and has a speech obstacle, is egotistical, socially awkward and largely blind to present occasions.
Ballinger’s musical parodies as Miranda turned a viral sensation, and at her peak she had roughly 19 million YouTube subscribers between her private channel and her Miranda Sings channel. Her movies consisted of vlogs (each as Colleen and as Miranda), trending YouTube challenges, satirical vocal classes and off-key covers of pop songs. Ballinger was notably well-liked with youngsters, and featured different children’ creators like JoJo Siwa and Sophia Grace Brownlee on her channel.
As Miranda, Ballinger made offensive jokes that revolved round incest and racist stereotypes. Picture Credit: Gregg DeGuire/Getty Photographs for Nickelodeon
As Miranda, she typically made jokes about pedophilia, incest and racially insensitive stereotypes — in movies, Miranda would reference the “Daddy Saddle,” an object that allowed her to trip round on her “Uncle Jim.” Affinity Journal criticized the character for mocking disabled individuals and perpetuating dangerous stereotypes about disabilities. In 2020, she apologized for impersonating Latina ladies in a since-deleted video along with her sister.
She additionally usually toured as Miranda, performing dwell selection exhibits mixing comedy and music. Ballinger was in the midst of a nationwide tour final month when former followers alleged that she had inappropriate and exploitative relationships with them once they have been minors. Within the aftermath of her apology video, the remaining tour dates have been quietly canceled, NBC Information reported.
The primary wave of allegations
In a 2020 YouTube video, then-17-year-old Adam McIntyre mentioned that he had been ghostwriting a few of Ballinger’s tweets as her “social media intern” with out pay, and alleged that she had abused her energy as a creator to foster inappropriate relationships along with her younger followers.
He mentioned that the connection began when he was 13 years outdated, and that at one level, Ballinger despatched him lingerie. In 2017 and 2018, Ballinger informed him that Miranda Sings wasn’t doing effectively “as a result of she couldn’t actually be problematic because the character anymore,” McIntyre mentioned in his video, and that she ultimately requested him for assist with rebranding the character.
He started suggesting social media concepts for each Miranda Sings and Ballinger’s private accounts, and she or he gave him entry to the Miranda Sings Twitter account in March 2020. In screenshots McIntyre shared in his video, Ballinger informed him that she wasn’t “planning on taking benefit” of his assist and meant to pay him.
That month, McIntyre advised that Miranda ought to “come out” as a Meghan Coach fan — which Ballinger authorized over direct message. When she obtained backlash for “queerbaiting,” nevertheless, she informed McIntyre that she would “by no means put up one thing like that.” She by no means responded to McIntyre after that, and allegedly by no means paid him.
Ballinger responded in a video titled “addressing the whole lot.” She admitted to sending McIntyre a bra and underwear in 2016, and mentioned she believed it was “no totally different” than the opposite objects she despatched followers “as a joke.” Ballinger additionally mentioned that she was breastfeeding her son when she authorized the Megan Trainor tweet.
“This was my fault. He despatched me a really lengthy listing of a ton of various issues he wished to put up and I didn’t look over it intently sufficient,” Ballinger mentioned.
Grooming allegations resurface
In June, YouTuber Kodee Tyler Dahl, 33, posted a now-deleted video about why they left Ballinger’s fandom, and shared screenshots of a Twitter chat known as “colleeny’s weenies group chat.”
The group chat was for the choose interior circle of Ballinger’s followers, most of whom have been minors, to instantly speak to Ballinger herself. The messages Ballinger despatched have been extremely inappropriate. In a single responding to then-15-year-old McIntyre’s request for inquiries to reply in a YouTube Q&A video, Ballinger requested, “Are you a Virgin?” She was in her 30s by then. In one other, McIntyre informed the group chat that his “ass seems to be good right this moment.” Ballinger responded with “pics adam.”
Days later, McIntyre posted an hour and 45 minute video titled “my relationship with colleen ballinger” corroborating Dahl’s allegations. He shared screenshots of interactions within the group chat that he and different members saved, together with one in all Ballinger asking him what his favourite intercourse place was. In one other, she requested the women within the chat to inform her about their first time getting their intervals.
“She would simply are available in randomly and keep stuff like that,” McIntyre mentioned within the video. “To lots of people who have been underaged.”
Ballinger handled the group chat of youngsters as her confidants, and shared private particulars about her divorce from YouTuber Joshua Evans. She informed the “weenies” that Evans was “emotionally abusive” — an allegation that Evans denied in an interview with HuffPost. Ballinger publicly known as on her followers to stay respectful to Evans, however by no means discouraged group chat members from attacking him in social media feedback and on gossip boards.
One other former fan, Johnny Silvestri, got here ahead the identical week in a video titled “There’s Extra to the Story (my expertise with Colleen Ballinger).” Silvestri, who was not a part of the “weenies” chat, accused Ballinger of profiting from her followers’ labor. His relationship with Ballinger began after he attended a Miranda Sings present when he was 16, and Ballinger’s then-husband Evans gave him his private telephone quantity on stage.
By 2018, when he was 22, Ballinger employed Silvestri as an assistant on her tour. He was paid $125 per present. He accused Ballinger’s shut good friend and collaborator Kory DeSoto of bullying him all through the tour, which Ballinger knew of however didn’t cease, and mentioned that Evans exploited the friendship he began with Silvestri free of charge assist operating his social media accounts. Silvestri additionally mentioned that Ballinger made merciless jokes about her followers and inspired him to affix in on the trolling. In a single message she despatched Silvestri, she mocked a fan for altering her gender pronouns.
“I discovered solace and security on this on-line group of individuals,” Silvestri informed Rolling Stone. “And these grown-ass adults abused it.”
Evans has since publicly apologized to Silvestri, and in a tweet posted after Silvestri’s video, acknowledged that he “failed” at being a “good friend and web massive brother.”
Silvestri additionally accused Ballinger of sending him unsolicited nudes of YouTuber Trisha Paytas in messages mocking Paytas’ physique, and shared screenshots of the messages in now-deleted tweets.
Ballinger allegedly despatched Paytas’ specific content material to McIntyre, who was a minor on the time, as effectively. In a video titled “pricey trisha paytas…,” McIntyre accused Ballinger of shopping for subscriptions to Paytas’ paywalled websites, downloading her specific content material, and sending it to him when he was 14. McIntyre mentioned he was initially reluctant to talk out about it till he related with Silvestri.
Silvestri alleged that Ballinger hosted “viewing events” of Paytas’ specific content material as a way to make enjoyable of her physique. McIntyre equally alleged that Ballinger inspired him to physique disgrace Paytas.
Paytas, who can be an OnlyFans creator and vocal about intercourse work, posted a response titled “colleen.” She and Ballinger turned pals by bonding over being new moms, and had simply launched a podcast collectively. Paytas mentioned that Ballinger denied the allegations when instantly requested, and that Paytas didn’t imagine the previous followers till she noticed the screenshots shared on-line. She described the messages as barbaric, misogynistic and “downright merciless” and mentioned that the podcast she co-hosted with Ballinger is over after simply three episodes.
“We have already got loads of stigma, misconceptions, allegations towards us as intercourse employees … I don’t condone in any respect unsolicited nudes, sending unsolicited nudes to anyone. Intercourse employee or not, I feel utilizing somebody’s nudes as a technique to damage them, make enjoyable of them, make gentle of them or be imply is the bottom type of human,” Paytas mentioned within the video.
She added that the content material Ballinger despatched to followers is paywalled for a purpose, and that viewers should be a minimum of 18 to entry it.
Viewers interactions
Different followers spoke out in regards to the uncomfortable interactions they’d onstage throughout Ballinger’s dwell exhibits.
Her exhibits typically included a “porn bit” and “yoga bit” which used volunteers from the viewers. Within the “porn bit,” Ballinger (in character as Miranda) would choose a fan carrying skimpy clothes and examine them to a fan dressed extra modestly. The fan carrying extra revealing clothes was “porn,” Ballinger would declare. For the “yoga bit,” Ballinger would try troublesome, borderline sexual poses with an viewers member.
Becky, a Twitter and TikTok consumer who goes by noitsbecks, posted that she was chosen for the “yoga bit” at a 2019 Miranda Sings present. She was 16 on the time. In the course of the present, Ballinger had Becky lay on her again, whereas she held up Becky’s legs and unfold them in entrance of the viewers. Becky, who wore a free romper that didn’t keep up through the pose, mentioned she felt “terrified” and sexually violated. She additionally mentioned she felt unsafe leaving the present due to the way in which she was uncovered on stage. She posted a photograph from the present on Twitter.
“Colleen exploited my minor physique for leisure and cash and didn’t shield my security at this present,” Becky mentioned in a TikTok video. “As an outdoor trying into the scenario, it might appear to be this wasn’t a giant deal. However this was actually fairly scary for my teenage self, particularly as somebody who liked and seemed as much as Colleen.”
Different former followers spoke out about Ballinger’s “seek for a bae” bit, which concerned Miranda stuffing the entrance of her pants with a bag of cheese balls, and alluring viewers members to seize the snack. In resurfaced movies on YouTube and Reddit, Ballinger carried out the act with youngsters as younger as six.
Different controversies
Sure, there’s extra!
YouTubers who’ve been round for the reason that platform’s earliest days typically have unsavory, insensitive content material of their archives. Comedy has advanced over the previous few many years, and the crass humor that was excusable years in the past will be fairly offensive. However Ballinger’s jokes have been particularly racist, and as clips of her outdated content material resurface in wake of the allegations towards her, many on-line query how she managed to stay round for thus lengthy within the first place.
An unlisted video on her Miranda Sings channel exhibits Ballinger performing a parody of Beyoncé’s “Single Women” on stage, with a darkish paint smeared throughout her face. Twitter customers questioned whether or not she was performing in blackface. The video, which was posted in 2018, seems to be a recording from Ballinger’s 2010 tour in London, in line with YouTuber Paige Christie. The one technique to discover the video was by scanning a QR code in her 2018 e-book “My Diarrhe.”
Ballinger’s authorized representatives informed Selection that she was carrying inexperienced face paint, not black, and that earlier than the recording began, Ballinger carried out the quantity “As Lengthy as You’re Mine” from “Depraved.” She painted her face inexperienced to mimic the protagonist, Elphaba, in her duet with Oliver Tompsett, who starred within the musical’s authentic London solid.
However different outdated clips aren’t so simply defined.
In her parody of the Korean pop track “Gangnam Model,” Ballinger recited gibberish blended with Japanese phrases like “tamogatchi” in a vaguely East Asian accent. In one other offensive caricature — this time making an attempt to mimic Native American cultures — she wears a feathered headdress and speaks in gibberish in a reenactment of the primary Thanksgiving.
April Quioh, a author who labored on Ballinger’s temporary Netflix sequence “Haters Again Off,” described working with Ballinger as “so, so uncomfortable” in a latest publication. Ballinger would typically pitch scenes that concerned Miranda and Uncle Jim getting caught in “compromising positions or stomach-churning intimacy,” Quioh wrote, and she or he would attempt to shove “as a lot incestual innuendo into the present as doable whereas assuaging the rising behind-the-scenes issues that the present could be alienating to the meant viewers” of kids.
Quioh additionally alleges that Ballinger insisted that the present solid “restricted POC background actors” because it was set in Washington, and as soon as demanded that “all of the Asian shit” could be faraway from a scene filmed in an Asian grocery store. Ballinger as soon as bragged that she would by no means be “silly sufficient” to get caught saying a racial slur, Quioh continued. Quioh identified that Ballinger mentioned the racial slur itself on this boast.
“It was nearly like she took a bizarre pleasure in making me uncomfortable and figuring out that even when I wished to, there was completely nothing I may do about it,” Quioh wrote.
The apology video
Ballinger responded to the allegations in a June 28 video, which began along with her sighing, reaching out of body and selecting up a ukulele. Then, she started strumming a cheery tune.
“Lots of people are saying issues about me that aren’t fairly true,” Ballinger mentioned over the chords. “However it doesn’t matter if it’s true, although, so long as it’s entertaining. All aboard!”
She then started singing in regards to the “poisonous gossip prepare” — a hook that returns time and again all through the 10-minute video. Her workforce suggested her towards saying something in regards to the allegations, she continued, however they didn’t inform her she couldn’t sing.
She acknowledged that she might have “overshared” with followers, however accused her critics of attempting to damage her life by dramatizing lies and profiting off of the backlash.
“I didn’t notice that every one of you might be excellent, so please criticize me, carry out the daggers out of your excellent previous, and stab me repeatedly in my bony little again,” Ballinger continued. “I’m positive you’re dissatisfied in my shitty little track. I do know you need me to say I used to be 100% within the unsuitable. Effectively, I’m sorry I’m not gonna take that route, of admitting to lies and rumors that you simply made up for clout.”
The video instantly went viral for instance of the worst doable technique to apologize. Screenshots from the video turned response memes. Clips circulated on TikTok. YouTubers posted response movies breaking down the track’s comically flippant lyrics.
Evans, who stopped posting on YouTube a few 12 months in the past, responded on Twitter.
“This habits was my actuality anytime I spoke up & disagreed along with her actions & rhetoric throughout 2009-2016. I used to be gaslit too. I used to be made to really feel like I used to be all the time the issue,” he wrote. “Any ache I felt was an inconvenience and was belittled. Each ounce of what you’re feeling, I perceive.”
Quickly after Ballinger posted the apology track, sure YouTube movies that included clips of the track have been flagged for copyrighted materials. The track was additionally uploaded to Spotify and Apple Music. It has since been faraway from all streaming platforms.
YouTuber and H3H3 Podcast host Ethan Klein tweeted that the track “Poisonous Gossip Prepare” was uploaded to the music distributor CD Child, and {that a} latest H3H3 episode discussing the apology was tagged for income sharing with the copyright holder.
One other Twitter consumer mentioned that their Roblox video that used the track was additionally flagged. YouTuber JabroneyTV tweeted that they uploaded the apology video on an unmonetized channel, and instantly obtained a copyright strike.
Twitter customers speculated that Ballinger was both attempting to close down criticism by copyright claiming movies reacting to the track, or that she was attempting to revenue by getting a reduce of advert income from each monetized video that features the track.
Representatives for Ballinger disputed rumors that she was behind the copyright claims in an announcement to BuzzFeed Information. They didn’t reply to TechCrunch’s requests for remark.
What’s subsequent?
Ballinger has not posted publicly on any of her social media accounts since importing her apology track.
When creators put up a Notes App apology, they’ll probably proceed current on-line with few, if any, actual repercussions. If the offending motion is so egregious that it requires an apology video, creators have a tendency to put low for an period of time, earlier than slowly rising from their disgrace den with extra content material.
James Charles, for instance, has been relentlessly pushing ahead together with his comeback into magnificence content material after apologizing, coming again and apologizing once more for inappropriately texting underage followers. Shane Dawson, who left each the web and California after outdated racist movies resurfaced in 2020, is again on YouTube and moved again to Los Angeles. Sienna Mae, who allegedly sexually assaulted her former good friend and fellow Hype Home member Jack Wright, is again on TikTok regardless of the warmth she acquired for her notorious interpretative dance apology video.
Few truly keep offline — Jenna Marbles, the YouTuber who known as out her personal racist movies in 2020 in an effort to carry herself accountable, is without doubt one of the solely creators who adopted by way of.
Ballinger’s apology was performative, defensive and all too simply changed into meme fodder. Like different disgraced creators, she’ll must preserve a low profile. Whether or not she’ll truly have the ability to make a comeback, contemplating the allegations that proceed to pile up towards her and absolutely the absurdity of apologizing through ukulele, is questionable. What’s sure, nevertheless, is that in an ever-growing historical past of YouTuber apologies, Ballinger’s video will all the time stand out as a cautionary story to creators: In case your workforce tells you to not say something, that’s not an excuse to sing it.