For Millennials. By Millennials.
After Jenna Marbles’ honest video of taking accountability for her actions and making a sudden decision to quit YouTube, Shane Dawson also takes accountability. In a 20-minute video, titled ‘Taking Accountability’, Shane sincerely apologizes for all of the past mistakes in his YouTube career. He even apologizes for putting on Blackface, using racial slurs, and making pedophilia jokes. Moreover, Dawson also addresses the James Charles Tati Westbrook drama, which some people think he orchestrated.
Shane Dawson thinks he should not have gotten out easy of doing Blackface
In his early YouTube years, Shane Dawson donned the character of ‘Shanaynay’, a caricature of a white Ghetto girl that was mocking the Black race. Other than that, there are also incidents of him doing actual Blackface:
Shane Dawson stated that he has apologized for these things in the past but those apologies were done out of fear and he didn’t do them properly. He says the excuses he gave at that time were ‘stupid and wrong’. Now, he’s owning up to everything he did, and he feels utterly disgusted and appalled at the fact that he participated in Blackface and used racial slurs:
I’m so sorry to anybody that saw that. And also that people were lifting me up and saying ‘You’re so funny Shane, you’re so funny!’….I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be Black and to see this white f*cking guy do blackface and the whole internet at the time being like LOL. That’s insane. I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to even fully apologize because it seems like it’s something irredeemable.
Shane is convinced that he should lose everything for that. During Black Lives Matter, many Black people share personal stories of how they’ve dealt with racism over the years. Hence, Shane Dawson understands the pain now.
The YouTuber wanted to emphasize that he didn’t have hate for anyone
Shane explains that he never disliked any particular group of people:
I can tell you this. I don’t have any hate for any race, or people with weight issues or [people with] special needs, I don’t have hate in my heart for anyone. But it doesn’t make up for the fact that I made jokes about everyone. And some of the jokes were way too far.
Moreover, Shane says the biggest thing that was wrong with him doing Blackface was normalizing it for young people watching him out there. For that, he feels the worst. It made him realize that he was part of a huge problem.
Shane Dawson apologizes to people who previously called him out
Some girls at that time called him out on his problematic jokes, but Shane got super defensive and used to fight with them. Now, he regrets his actions and apologizes to them.
He mentions one of the people is a YouTuber named Franchesca Ramsey. Shane also shares an incident where he once talked about murder fantasies on his podcast, ‘Shane and Friends’. It was wrong, and he apologizes to Franchesca and the other girls that called him out on his past actions. Shane Dawson explains that he has no anger for anyone now.
The YouTuber also regrets the Pedophilia Jokes.
Shane Dawson explains that in the same podcast, there was one time when he was making pedophilia jokes, and the audio was cut and edited in a way by someone to make it sound like he was normalizing pedophilia. He called it ‘gross’ and said he would never actually say that. But he admits that he shouldn’t have even joked about it in the first place.
He also says that he would never talk about a child inappropriately anyway. Moreover, Shane Dawson says that his childhood was filled with a lot of pain, so he took the pain and converted it into lame jokes:
My childhood, my past. I have had a lot of pain. I’ve had a lot of bad things happen to me. I’ve had a lot of issues with my family. And I took that pain and I turned it into jokes. and I think instead of joking about them so much. I should have probably went to therapy earlier and talked about them.
Shane Dawson also says that he has apologized for these things in the past, and he has learned from his mistakes, and he doesn’t do those things anymore. The Youtuber also addressed the lack of diversity in his channel as he mainly has white YouTubers in them. All the docuseries he has done have focused on white YouTubers such as Jeffree Star, Jake Paul, and Eugenia Cooney. Hence, he will make an active effort to make his YouTube channel more diverse.
Shane Dawson apologizes to James Charles.
After addressing the racism and pedophilia jokes, Shane Dawson addresses the James Charles drama. When the Tati Westbrook and James Charles drama occurred, Shane and Jeffree Star took Tati’s side. Even though all parties resolved issues behind the scenes, people such as Kameron Lester and Ashlye Kyle (former friend and employee of Jeffree Star) have come out and claimed Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star orchestrated the whole thing.
Shane was hurt hearing this, and he denied it. He posted a really long note on Twitter on the day his Conspiracy palettes were being restocked. Shane Dawson calls that Twitter notes a ‘miss’ and said that he was trying to be funny but instead, the note came off as pretty angry.
Hence, he apologizes for the things he said. Firstly, he directly apologizes to James Charles and admits it wasn’t fair for literally the whole internet to gang up against him:
The part of the Twitter note I regret more than anything in my life was the part where I said James deserved a slice of humble pie the size of the empire state building…Im gonna come out of this situation by first apologizing. I’m sorry, James. I’m really sorry. First of all, nobody deserves what happened. Nobody. The whole internet ganging up on somebody. Nobody deserved that. And who am I to say somebody needs to be humbled. Me. Like who am I to say that. I literally have put so much hate on the internet.
Shane Dawson expresses that he had no right to say it, even if he has changed and become a different person now. Plus, he also agrees with those who say he was never a part of the beauty community, Although he wants people to know that his love for makeup is still genuine and he’s not faking that aspect of it. He was sorry to all the makeup influencers and YouTubers out there when he called the beauty community ‘dramatic’.
Shane also thinks it’s wrong that he holds his own friends to a lower standard than he does other people.
Fans were calling Shane Dawson out for being friends with people who have been very controversial in the past and present, such as Trisha Paytas and Jeffree Star. Though he wants to make it clear that he doesn’t accept their behavior:
I almost feel like Im attracted to other broken people. Who have issues. And I wanna help them Or I wanna fix them. Or help people see a better side of them. Im aware Im friends with some people that have done some bad things on the internet. And I don’t condone it. I don’t co-sign it. And that is something I’ve always addressed with them privately.
On the ending note, Shane Dawson hopes that people can understand how hard it must be for him to come forward and admit all of his mistakes. He is also aware of the fact that a lot of people won’t accep his apology. But he wants them to know that he’ll only be putting lots of love and positivity out there from now on.
