For Millennials. By Millennials.
With almost a three month wait with teasers, trailers and speculations, Shane Dawson’s conspiracy series has officially premiered. The first episode dropped today with loads of anxious fans impatiently waiting for the almost two hour video. The YouTube, author of I Hate Myselfie and It Gets Worse, has transformed the YouTube landscape by redefining what it means to be a content creator. In this first episode of his conspiracy series, Shane Dawson takes on several huge companies and exposes their shady practices. Apple, Hollister Co. and Abercrombie and Fitch make the cut.
Shane Dawson also mentioned the multiple theories people have over the California Woolsey fires that forced him and his partner Ryland Adams to evacuate their Calabasas house. Though, this article will focus on the capitalist companies and their unethical practices.
Shane Dawson’s Apple FaceTime Conspiracy
Our privacy not being our own is something that doesn’t shock many anymore ever since Edward Snowden , an ex-NSA employee revealed that the United States of America’s government keeps records on virtually every digital device we own. Companies like Facebook and Apple not respecting our privacy is not new news either.
But this Apple FaceTime conspiracy Shane Dawson demonstrated for us was pretty shocking. Shane’s friend Garrett Watts got a call from his mother and upon receiving the call, something alarming happened. Apparently, Garrett Watt’s mother could hear what Garret had said before he even accepted the call!
Apple previously talked about this glitch on their iPhones that allowed callers to hear and even see from the phone of the recipients before they even accepted or rejected the call. Apple was under hot fire for this and vowed to fix the bug:
“We’re aware of this issue and we have identified a fix that will be released in a software update later this week”
The New York Government took this privacy issue seriously though. Their Attorney General Letitia James is investigating the matter.
“This FaceTime breach is a serious threat to the security and privacy of the millions of New Yorkers who have put their trust in Apple and its products over the years,”
This doesn’t seem like a conspiracy theory anymore. It’s a serious privacy issue that we have been dealing with for a long time now. Shane Dawson isn’t exposing Apple’s shady features on their iPhones for the first time either. In his previous conspiracy theory video, he mentions how our iPhones saves our pictures long after we’ve deleted them. In this current one, Shane and his friends tested out the Live Picture feature of iPhones. And saw that the camera records 3 seconds before!
A collection of my favorite live photo’s that i didn’t know were videos. Ryland moving in with me, Garrett freaking out about Oreos, my mom at Kathy griffins mansion, making a thumbnail with Jeffree, and us scaring a waitress. I love this :,) but I still don’t trust u Apple! haha pic.twitter.com/TL12W89ePn
— Shane Dawson (@shanedawson) January 31, 2019
Shane Dawson noted that the phones must always be listening to us because how else would Siri, the AI, respond to our “Hey Siri”.
Racist and Bodyshaming Practices of Hollister Co., Abercrombie & Fitch
The clothing brand Hollister Co. owned by Abercrombie and Fitch has had questionable and unethical practices of how they dealt with employees and customers. Shane Dawson started the conversation from how companies in general utilize manipulative marketing techniques to get the customers to buy more.
That’s pretty normal in the consumerist world of today, but Hollister Co. clothing brand definitely went the extra mile. Apart from their really loud music and low lighting that disoriented customers from buying their clothes, they used to hire salespeople whose sole purpose was to look attractive in Hollister Co’s clothing.
These salespeople had to fulfill a certain criteria. They had to be skinny, incredibly attractive, and preferably white. Yes, you heard that right! Whenever Hollister Co. used to hire people of color, they used to give them jobs in the back of the store where they did not have to interact with any customers.
Moreover, their parent company Abercrombie and Fitch refused to make clothes for plus size women. This business model was mostly due to their former CEO Mike Jeffries who insists on having sex appeal as the major selling point for the company.
They want the “cool kids,” and they don’t consider plus-sized women as being a part of that group.
Abercrombie & Fitch Lawsuits
This is taking branding a bit too far, isn’t it Abercrombie and Fitch? Shane Dawson rightfully exposed this company and it’s past unethical practices. He added in clips of former employees who talked about their experiences there. If it was a white and skinny teenager, the experience was a good one. Though, if it was from a person of color it was a horrible one.
Fortunately, it has received multiple lawsuits from employees for its pointless practices. It got sued by sued from 250,000 of its employees because employees were forced to wear Abercrombie and Fitch’s clothing whenever they were working on the job. There has been no exact law suits that highlight the racism as of yet.
Shane Dawson himself went into a Hollister Co. clothing store to see for himself. The lighting and music wasn’t disorienting anymore and there weren’t attractive models as salespeople walking around. Their employee told Shane that the company was changing its practices after multiple lawsuits.
Even though Shane’s videos are meant to be conspiracy theories, he sure does extensive research to back them up. That’s why his fans respect him so much, because he goes the extra mile to give quality content now.
