Shane Lee Yaw, who is most commonly referred to as Shane Dawson, is a popular YouTube veteran, actor, seasoned writer, comedian, director, and make-up artist who has even dabbled in the music industry.
A well-known senior of the media, Dawson was one of the first people to rise to fame on YouTube after joining in 2008. He quickly delved into the world of fame, garnering over half a billion views by 2010 and becoming a sensation by the age of nineteen.
In the earlier years, most of Dawson’s videos were sketch comedy videos where he would dress up and play multiple original characters, impersonate celebrities and make light of popular culture. Many other content creators around that time were also creating similar content — but for most people, Shane was on center stage.
“I was really young and I didn’t really start watching Shane until I was about nine years old. I would always remember seeing his videos and they were always over the top, so to nine years old me, they were the funniest thing ever. He was one of the only ones at the time who was doing parodies and all kinds of skits and then, later on, everyone else started adding their own spin to it with channels like Wassabi Productions and Bart Baker being born,” states Marilyn Fonseca, a junior in Communications at MLEC.
With his success from YouTube fueling momentum, Dawson was able to drop parody singles — and by 2013 he had launched Shane and Friends, a podcast that successfully ran for four years and produced 140 episodes.
In 2014, he then went on to drop Not Cool, his first and only feature film, and appeared on an accompanying 10-episode docu-series, The Chair, along with many other small film appearances.
Being one of the first to come to the YouTube scene and lead what was going to be a popular trend, he smoothly rose to fame and has maintained a prevailing online presence ever since.
Recently, however, Shane Dawson’s past has come to the forefront of public criticism.
In 2018, a subject of controversy came to question regarding comments he had made about pedophilia on a 2014 episode of his podcast Shane and Friends. An apology video followed after the outrage-sparking scandal, stating that his comedic style at the time was built upon shock humor.
“What’s really sad about this whole Shane Dawson thing is that he seems to be blaming his problems on it being just jokes rather than really taking accountability,” states Fonseca.
These comments were brought up once more in March 2019 and became the subject of another uprising controversy regarding some comments he had made on a 2015 episode about engaging in inappropriate activities with his cat. Dawson later stated that he didn’t actually engage in any inappropriate activity with his cat; rather, his propositions were also included in the shock humor act.
Regardless of his apologies many still criticized him for his insensitive jokes — and for a while, many people lost support for the tainted internet star.
Dawson had now come under fire again for resurfaced videos that show him being racist and predatory; the notion of protests, police brutality, and BLM in 2020 only served kerosene to the fire. In several skits, Dawson would dress up in blackface, make fun of Chinese people, portray Black women as loud and ghetto, use the n-word, and would make “ghetto pranks” at VidCon in 2012.
“It’s definitely disturbing how many people I looked up to have done some pretty messed up things. As a young black woman, it’s kind of disheartening because at the time everybody would laugh and think this was funny and no one really said anything,” states Ceylon Philip’s a Global Studies student at MLEC. “I’m glad it’s all coming out now and I really hope he learns from his actions because they were really gross and insensitive.”
Many have even submitted to the notion that Dawson, along with popular beauty presence Jeffree Star, who had his own share of controversies surrounding past actions, were purposefully trying to end James Charles’s career back in 2019.
In response to all of this controversy, on June 26, 2020, Shane Dawson posted a 20-minute video titled “Taking Accountability”, in which he addressed all his past issues and criticism for his use of blackface, the N-word and other offensive comments he made since launching his YouTube channel. Dawson also included an apology to James Charles.
Dawson concluded his apology video by stating he was only dealing with the pain of his childhood with these jokes and was vowing to better his “actions”, but said he understands if people do not want to accept his apology or no longer support him.
But not a day after his apology was posted, musician Jaden Smith accused Dawson of sexualizing his then eleven-year-old sister Willow Smith, after an old video resurfaced of Dawson appearing to touch himself inappropriately while looking at a poster of her.
Since then many companies and corporations, such as Target, have announced that they are removing Shane Dawson merchandise from their stores such as his two published books I Hate Myselfie and It Gets Worse from their shelves and many of his makeup kits.
The final arrow struck on June 30 when YouTube, the spring of Dawson’s career, has indefinitely suspended monetization on all three of Dawson’s channels. Although he has yet to publicly address this issue, he is still an active player on social media.
The string of drama, scandals, and controversies has everyone wondering what path his career will take next, or if it can ever crawl out of the pit it has carelessly fallen into. For now, the tension is impending.
