Trigger warning: allegations of grooming, inappropriate conduct around minors and references to abuse
Rose Morelli
“The only thing I’ve ever groomed is my two Persian cats,” Colleen Ballinger joke-sang, plaintively strumming a ukulele as she looked straight into the camera. “I’m not a groomer, I’m just a loser.”
Colleen Ballinger, creator of the hugely popular and off-beat ‘Miranda Sings’ franchise, has recently come under fire. Why? She responded to renewed allegations of sexual behaviour around her young fanbase with a ten-minute ukulele song about the evils of cancel culture.
Inexplicably, Ballinger opted not to address these deeply serious allegations with the gravity they deserve. Instead, she went for gold in the ‘Worst YouTube Apology Video Ever’ competition, blowing worthy opponents like Shane Dawson out of the water with a jaunty little ukulele.
“My team has strongly advised me to not say what I want to say,” she said at the beginning of her video, simply titled “hi.”.
“But they never said I couldn’t sing what I want to say.”
An ill-advised “apology”
Ballinger, ever the confident room-reader, chose to ‘apologise’ with a ten-minute musical treatise on her own victimhood. The song hinged on a not-so-gracious chorus, dismissing allegations as a “toxic gossip train” destined for “manipulation station”.
The song is a masterclass in missing the mark, and Ballinger, with her misplaced self-pity and outdated millennial humour, has proven absolutely ripe for an internet roasting. It’s largely unclear why Ballinger chose to discredit her accusers by means of ukulele, but it’s safe to say she’s not convinced anyone she has the best interests of her young fanbase at heart.
As well as how surreal this four-chord spectacle is, it’s a harsh reminder of how YouTube and PR teams often fail to reign in the stars they platform. The video also raises a worrying lack of safeguarding provisions for the young audiences some stars market their personal brand to.
Like many other popular channels, Miranda Sings appeals to that “chronically online” PG-13 lower teenage bracket. If the “adults” in the room (as in, YouTube and the PR teams themselves) aren’t checking in with the teenage-driven content they’re platforming, then is it really safe to only rely on fellow the public and fellow YouTubers to call out problematic behaviour?
Ballinger’s escalating record of inappropriate conduct
When the first allegations against Ballinger came to light in 2020, she came out of the controversy largely unscathed. With a boilerplate, PR-manicured apology video, she responded to claims from former fan Adam McIntyre that she had fostered an “inappropriate relationship” with him and other teenage fans. Ballinger even confirmed McIntyre’s allegation that she had posted him lingerie (though she dismissed the act as a “stupid joke”). Despite this, she was still able to carry on marketing books and live shows to her teenage audience shortly after.
‘It wasn’t until Ballinger involved a four-chord instrument in her response that the media really took proper notice of the allegations’
With the combined power of informed PR and alleged doxxing tactics, Ballinger was able to delay the cultural microscope for another three years. In June this year, other testimony of her routinely inappropriate behaviour started to surface.
Even amid worrying testimonies from teenage fans that they were being inappropriately touched and humiliated during live shows, it wasn’t until Ballinger involved a four-chord instrument in her response that the mainstream media really took proper notice of the allegations.
Only after Ballinger’s video was propelled into infamy did other YouTubers and colleagues finally have their say. Notably, former friend and frequent Ballinger collaborator, Trisha Paytas made game-changing accusations that Ballinger had been forwarding Paytas’ pornographic OnlyFans content to her young fans. But the scandal hasn’t stopped there, either.
Since the ukulele video, all elements of Ballinger’s oeuvre have come under intense scrutiny by the general public. The results are largely what you’d expect. A YouTube (and Netflix) franchise for teenagers, littered with jokes about family molestation, racial stereotypes and rape culture.
It all begs one question. If all of this content has been available on the public record for this long, why did we only notice after Ballinger made a spectacle of herself?
Why Colleen Ballinger thinks accountability is “toxic gossip”
Ballinger asserts in her video that “it’s up to parents to decide what is suitable for their children”. However, she has also seemingly never been challenged for her choice to rely on routinely inappropriate jokes. It seems that, as long as she remained profitable, it wasn’t in anyone’s interests to properly investigate or check in with her content.
Let’s be honest, though. It doesn’t take much investigation to discover that forcibly bending a teenager into split-leg positions at live shows is inappropriate.
“It all necessarily becomes a big, jokey push-back against the evils of ‘cancel culture'”
But the most concerning part of this whole spectacle is perhaps Ballinger’s decision to hit back by musically dismissing allegations as “toxic gossip”. As most of the scrutiny has come from the public, rather than an official body, she can blame cancel culture instead of herself. In her head, it’s probably perfectly reasonable to dismiss the serious allegations surfacing against her. Why take them seriously when none of the adults in the room have ever bothered to flag anything up?
When your PR team tells you “not to respond” instead of doing any work to right the wrongs you’ve been accused of, it all necessarily becomes a big, jokey push-back against the evils of “cancel culture”. That’s the message Ballinger is communicating with her jaunty little song. There isn’t a single thought communicated for the parts of her fanbase who feel exploited or vulnerable at her hands – a fanbase she has been directly profiting from through book, tour and ad revenue sales for over a decade.
Has Ballinger highlighted a need for the YouTube market to change?
Clearly, we can’t rely on YouTubers like Ballinger to independently recognise the error of their ways. Who can we rely on, then? Is it time we started laying the groundwork for more serious intervening bodies when stars err from what is appropriate?
As admittedly funny as some of the memes about Ballinger have been, they are obviously no substitute for preventative safeguarding measures. We should remember that at the heart of this scandal, there are teenagers who have been exploited. I can only hope the affected fans are coping okay with the onslaught of memes and headlines, but are able to can glean some sense of vindication from Ballinger’s self-inflicted spectacle.
However, if I were them, I would be looking to the adults in the room to start properly reigning in their stars. Especially ones who rely on a primarily teenage audience for profit.
Unbelievably, there is no independent protective body designed to weigh in on teenager-driven content. Unlike traditional media, which is bound by thorough broadcasting laws and regulatory bodies, YouTube and other streaming sites are largely in charge of their own affairs.
While this is democratically better in terms of censorship, it also relies on the good intention of a site’s operators. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for YouTube to intervene, either. We’ve already seen them take stringent steps to safeguard copyright owners against infringement, so why have they adopted such a laissez-faire approach to safeguarding young audiences?
Maybe the answer is to copyright the general safety of children. Maybe then YouTube will finally intervene when there’s an infringement.
Read next:
-
Is the YouTube era over?
-
A child is for life, not just for YouTube
-
Shane Dawson resurfaces with new YouTube video upload
Featured image courtesy of Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash. No changes have been made to this image. Image license found here.
