I’ve never liked Shane and wondered why there wasn’t a thread here-he seems almost as deserving as Onision. But that’s not the point.
People always say Shane has kept modern-kept his popularity when others (Onision, Fred, KevJumba, Smosh, more I’m blanking on...) couldn’t keep up with the times and hung onto old humor.
Times change-nobody is the same at 20 as they are at 35. If you’ve been online for 15 years, something in your past can catch up to you. Especially with that type of “humor.” Racist jokes, jerking it to photos of teen girls, cumming on your cat have never been acceptable. But with the whole conversation, it can make sense. Not as sound bites though.
There was a time in history that Howard Stern was funny to the masses and people joked about this stuff. Now Stern is on some pay channel, is an anachronism, and even was on America’s Got Talent snd has lost his edge. People like him still but not as much as they used to. Now, everything is serious. Even stand-ups are afraid of certain material now.
We live in different times than just a decade ago. People are smashing Christopher Columbus statues, changing names of towns that were named after confederate generals (even though few knew of the origin) and ripping down memorials and history that isn’t acceptable in today’s understanding. Not listening or turning it off is not the answer, now it shouldn’t even be said.
If Shane had really changed with the times he would have quietly been deleting all these old videos off his channel for years-make a new one, delete 20 old ones. Somebody would notice but he could just say “it’s not me anymore, I’m not proud of it.” A virtual smashing of the statue.
He has changed his new content (mostly) but by not by smashing the statue -so nobody believes him. He’s eased away-but not always. He left it all there until a day or so ago then wiped it clean. That shows he’s scared, not that he has regrets.
He’s lucky though. For some reason, YouTube is protecting him so he has a chance to make video doco series focusing on blacks and other underrepresented people and stick to milder forms of what got him famous. He can distance himself from Starr and maybe partner with a minority-owned makeup company if he intends to stay in the beauty community.
I can’t stand the guy. I hate cancel culture more though. The best thing would be if he really figured it out but I press X.
I think Felix was very smart to get out when he did. Like Seinfeld, he went out on the top of his game leaving millions of fans. The world has changed so fast and so much that who knows how long it’d be until he had a cancel try too.
Hopefully, the pendulum will swing back but right now, it’s far to the left and people are dropping off and we are even losing history, a lot of which is racist but you don’t learn by erasure. Online, there will be more people cancelled if they don’t learn.
The days of YouTube Is disappearing. It’s not Broadcast Yourself now. They want a professional company with advertiser-friendly content. In the years to come, I don’t think we’ll see our fats or weirdos so much.
Times are changing, even for Shane.