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The YouTuber apology video is an artwork kind. A penitent creator should be remorseful, however not theatrical. Concise, however not rehearsed. Honest, 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, can be probably the most 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, are actually denying claims that she filed copyright infringement claims on movies reacting to her ukulele apology track.
The track, by which Ballinger addresses allegations of fostering inappropriate and exploitative relationships along with her teenage followers, is among 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 reside reveals and above all, abusing the ability dynamic between herself and her followers.
Her response? A track concerning the “toxic gossip train” — an agonizing 10-minute lyrical automobile crash that dismisses the allegations as misinformation fueled by the “mob mentality” of the web.
“Everyone just believes that you are the type of person who manipulates and abuses children. I just wanted to say that the only thing I’ve ever groomed is my two Persian cats,” Ballinger croons. “I’m not a groomer, just a loser who didn’t understand I shouldn’t respond to fans. And I’m not a predator, even though a lot of you think so, because five years ago I made a fart joke.”
It’s a large number. Here’s what’s occurring.
Who is 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 incapacity to truly sing. The character, who wears vivid crimson lipstick and has a speech obstacle, is egotistical, socially awkward and largely unaware of 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 fashionable with youngsters, and featured different youngsters’ creators like JoJo Siwa and Sophia Grace Brownlee on her channel.
As Miranda, Ballinger made offensive jokes that revolved round incest and racist stereotypes. Image Credits: Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images 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 journey round on her “Uncle Jim.” Affinity Magazine criticized the character for mocking disabled folks 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 recurrently toured as Miranda, performing reside selection reveals mixing comedy and music. Ballinger was in the course of a nationwide tour final month when former followers alleged that she had inappropriate and exploitative relationships with them after they have been minors. In the aftermath of her apology video, the remaining tour dates have been quietly canceled, NBC News reported.
The first 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 advised him that Miranda Sings wasn’t doing nicely “because she couldn’t really be problematic as the character anymore,” McIntyre mentioned in his video, and that she finally requested him for assist with rebranding the character.
He started suggesting social media concepts for each Miranda Sings and Ballinger’s private accounts, and he or she gave him entry to the Miranda Sings Twitter account in March 2020. In screenshots McIntyre shared in his video, Ballinger advised him that she wasn’t “planning on taking advantage” of his assist and supposed to pay him.
That month, McIntyre steered that Miranda ought to “come out” as a Meghan Trainer fan — which Ballinger accredited over direct message. When she acquired backlash for “queerbaiting,” nevertheless, she advised McIntyre that she would “never post something 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 everything.” She admitted to sending McIntyre a bra and underwear in 2016, and mentioned she believed it was “no different” than the opposite gadgets she despatched followers “as a joke.” Ballinger additionally mentioned that she was breastfeeding her son when she accredited the Megan Trainor tweet.
“This was my fault. He sent me a very long list of a ton of different things he wanted to post and I did not look over it closely enough,” 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 referred to as “colleeny’s weenies group chat.”
The group chat was for the choose inside circle of Ballinger’s followers, most of whom have been minors, to immediately speak to Ballinger herself. The messages Ballinger despatched have been extremely inappropriate. In one 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 advised the group chat that his “ass looks good today.” 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 among 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 durations.
“She would just come in randomly and stay stuff like that,” McIntyre mentioned within the video. “To a lot of people who were underaged.”
Ballinger handled the group chat of youngsters as her confidants, and shared private particulars about her divorce from YouTuber Joshua Evans. She advised the “weenies” that Evans was “emotionally abusive” — an allegation that Evans denied in an interview with HuffPost. Ballinger publicly referred to 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.
Another former fan, Johnny Silvestri, got here ahead the identical week in a video titled “There’s More to the Story (my experience with Colleen Ballinger).” Silvestri, who was not a part of the “weenies” chat, accused Ballinger of benefiting 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 without cost 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 one message she despatched Silvestri, she mocked a fan for altering her gender pronouns.
“I found solace and safety in this online group of people,” Silvestri advised 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 “friend and internet big 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 nicely. In a video titled “dear 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 parties” of Paytas’ specific content material with a view to make enjoyable of her physique. McIntyre equally alleged that Ballinger inspired him to physique disgrace Paytas.
Paytas, who can also 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 immediately 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 cruel” and mentioned that the podcast she co-hosted with Ballinger is over after simply three episodes.
“We already have a lot of stigma, misconceptions, allegations against us as sex workers … I do not condone at all unsolicited nudes, sending unsolicited nudes to anybody. Sex worker or not, I think using someone’s nudes as a way to hurt them, make fun of them, make light of them or be mean is the lowest form of human,” Paytas mentioned within the video.
She added that the content material Ballinger despatched to followers is paywalled for a motive, and that viewers should be a minimum of 18 to entry it.
Audience interactions
Other followers spoke out concerning the uncomfortable interactions they’d onstage throughout Ballinger’s reside reveals.
Her reveals typically included a “porn bit” and “yoga bit” which used volunteers from the viewers. In 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 tough, borderline sexual poses with an viewers member.
Becky, a Twitter and TikTookay 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. During 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 in the course of the pose, mentioned she felt “terrified” and sexually violated. She additionally mentioned she felt unsafe leaving the present due to the best way she was uncovered on stage. She posted a photograph from the present on Twitter.
“Colleen exploited my minor body for entertainment and money and did not protect my safety at this show,” Becky mentioned in a TikTookay video. “As an outside looking into the situation, it may seem like this wasn’t a big deal. But this was really pretty scary for my teenage self, especially as someone who loved and looked up to Colleen.”
Other former followers spoke out about Ballinger’s “search for a bae” bit, which concerned Miranda stuffing the entrance of her pants with a bag of cheese balls, and welcoming viewers members to seize the snack. In resurfaced movies on YouTube and Reddit, Ballinger carried out the act with youngsters as younger as six.
Other controversies
Yes, 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 a long time, and the crass humor that was excusable years in the past will be fairly offensive. But 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 reveals Ballinger performing a parody of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” 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 solely method to discover the video was by scanning a QR code in her 2018 ebook “My Diarrhe.”
Ballinger’s authorized representatives advised Variety that she was carrying inexperienced face paint, not black, and that earlier than the recording began, Ballinger carried out the quantity “As Long as You’re Mine” from “Wicked.” She painted her face inexperienced to mimic the protagonist, Elphaba, in her duet with Oliver Tompsett, who starred within the musical’s authentic London forged.
But different outdated clips aren’t so simply defined.
In her parody of the Korean pop track “Gangnam Style,” Ballinger recited gibberish blended with Japanese phrases like “tamogatchi” in a vaguely East Asian accent. In one other offensive caricature — this time trying 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 transient Netflix collection “Haters Back Off,” described working with Ballinger as “so, so uncomfortable” in a latest e-newsletter. Ballinger would typically pitch scenes that concerned Miranda and Uncle Jim getting caught in “compromising positions or stomach-churning intimacy,” Quioh wrote, and he or she would attempt to shove “as much incestual innuendo into the show as possible while assuaging the growing behind-the-scenes concerns that the show would be alienating to the intended audience” of kids.
Quioh additionally alleges that Ballinger insisted that the present forged “limited POC background actors” because it was set in Washington, and as soon as demanded that “all 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 “stupid enough” to get caught saying a racial slur, Quioh continued. Quioh identified that Ballinger mentioned the racial slur itself on this boast.
“It was almost like she took a weird pleasure in making me uncomfortable and knowing that even if I wanted to, there was absolutely nothing I could 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.
“A lot of people are saying things about me that aren’t quite true,” Ballinger mentioned over the chords. “But it doesn’t matter if it’s true, though, as long as it’s entertaining. All aboard!”
She then started singing concerning the “toxic gossip train” — a hook that returns again and again all through the 10-minute video. Her group suggested her towards saying something concerning the allegations, she continued, however they didn’t inform her she couldn’t sing.
She acknowledged that she could have “overshared” with followers, however accused her critics of making an attempt to wreck her life by dramatizing lies and profiting off of the backlash.
“I didn’t realize that all of you are perfect, so please criticize me, bring out the daggers from your perfect past, and stab me repeatedly in my bony little back,” Ballinger continued. “I’m sure you’re disappointed in my shitty little song. I know you want me to say I was 100% in the wrong. Well, I’m sorry I’m not gonna take that route, of admitting to lies and rumors that you made up for clout.”
The video instantly went viral for instance of the worst attainable method to apologize. Screenshots from the video turned response memes. Clips circulated on TikTookay. 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 behavior was my reality anytime I spoke up & disagreed with her actions & rhetoric during 2009-2016. I was gaslit too. I was made to feel like I was always the problem,” he wrote. “Any pain I felt was an inconvenience and was belittled. Every ounce of what you’re feeling, I understand.”
Soon 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 “Toxic Gossip Train” was uploaded to the music distributor CD Baby, and {that a} latest H3H3 episode discussing the apology was tagged for income sharing with the copyright holder.
Another 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 acquired a copyright strike.
Twitter customers speculated that Ballinger was both making an attempt to close down criticism by copyright claiming movies reacting to the track, or that she was making an attempt to revenue by getting a minimize of advert income from each monetized video that features the track.
Representatives for Ballinger disputed rumors that she was behind the copyright claims in a press release to BuzzFeed News. 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 publish a Notes App apology, they’ll possible 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 House member Jack Wright, is again on TikTookay regardless of the warmth she received for her notorious interpretative dance apology video.
Few really keep offline — Jenna Marbles, the YouTuber who referred to as out her personal racist movies in 2020 in an effort to carry herself accountable, is among the solely creators who adopted by way of.
Ballinger’s apology was performative, defensive and all too simply became meme fodder. Like different disgraced creators, she’ll should maintain a low profile. Whether she’ll really be capable to make a comeback, contemplating the allegations that proceed to pile up towards her and absolutely the absurdity of apologizing by way of ukulele, is questionable. What’s sure, nevertheless, is that in an ever-growing historical past of YouTuber apologies, Ballinger’s video will at all times stand out as a cautionary story to creators: If your group tells you to not say something, that’s not an excuse to sing it.