In today’s era of ‘cancel culture,’ one mistake or misstep can result in the rapid decline of an influencer’s career. Therefore, it is increasingly essential for influencers to be genuine and sincere to their supporters in addressing the error of their ways.
Most popular influencers have posted at least one apology video in the past to admit fault in their wrongdoings; an iconic one is Faze Jarvis’s apology, where he genuinely cried for seven minutes because he got banned from Fortnite due to hacking. Although some apologies have been questionable in the past, such as Logan Paul’s apology for filming a suicide in Japan, recent apologies from influencers such as Colleen Ballinger and Sienna Mae Gomez have gotten completely out-of-hand.
Colleen Ballinger is a YouTuber, actress, singer, and comedian, who boasts over 8 million followers on each of her TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. She is most popularly known for her Youtube channel “Miranda Sings” where she makes satirical videos of a character of her creation: Miranda. Portraying an adult with child-like behavior, Ballinger often went on tour as Miranda for her beloved comical skits. Back in 2017, Colleen befriended a fan, Adam McIntyre, and shortly after, she began to write the minor inappropriate messages. While many fans hoped that she would be genuine about her mistakes, her 2023 apology disappointed every supporter she had.
The video, titled “hi.”, began with a spoken message from Ballinger, saying that although her team has strongly advised her not to say what she wants to, they never said that she couldn’t sing what she wants to. She then addresses these allegations through a corny song coupled with her ukulele playing. Even more outrageously, she doesn’t even apologize in her “apology,” but just said that she was a “loser” instead of a child groomer. This insensitive and ingenuine approach lost her hundreds of thousands of subscribers on her YouTube channels. It’s difficult to give weight to what someone is saying when they themselves aren’t presenting it seriously.
Sienna Mae Gomez is another YouTuber and influencer, who gained popularity in 2020 for her body positivity and life experience videos. In 2021, she was accused of sexually assaulting her ex boyfriend, Jack Wright. In early 2022, Wright posted a video to his YouTube channel titled “What Sienna Mae did to me,” where he reiterated his accusations against Gomez. This caused her to lose over a million followers amongst multiple platforms.
Gomez posted her apology video titled “Reflections from an 18-Year-Old Me”, which featured a voiceover of her apology over a background video of her. Midway through the apology, the voiceover stopped, and it was just a video of her dancing. She didn’t even address her mistake in the story; instead, she was only victimizing herself. Incorporating dancing in this video was extremely inappropriate– it’s no wonder she received so much backlash from her ex-fans from this video as it was completely unfitting for the circumstances she was in. Like Ballinger, she did not take her fans seriously, and instead treated this as a joking matter.
Famous celebrities can mess up big-time too. American celebrity Lizzo, who is a singer, rapper, and songwriter, was recently accused of weight-shaming her former dancers. Three of them accused the popstar of sexual harassment and creating a hostile work environment in a lawsuit to be settled in court sometime in February.
Rapper, Lizzo, released several statements on her social media channels, denying that she ever weight-shamed her dancers, despite growing numbers of witnesses validating the allegations. Many fans are now expressing their disdain for Lizzo on platforms like X, saying things like “she’s GUILTY guilty” and “we stand with the victims”. Even American celebrity Beyoncé skipped Lizzo’s name while performing a remix of her song ‘Break My Soul.’ What’s even more ironic is that Lizzo has created a brand around herself promoting body positivity, so she should not be found weight shaming people and discussing a topic that contradicts the same thing she appears to stand up against.
In today’s age of social media and digital entertainment, prominent individuals in pop culture must understand that all their actions can lead to serious consequences, and genuine apologies are necessary when they make mistakes. Ballinger and Gomez’s approach demonstrates the consequences of an insensitive apology and Lizzo’s statements show the result of mishandling allegations. Failure to be genuine can lead to the loss of followers, trust, and ultimately, an influencer’s career.
