These are the most catastrophic YouTuber controversies ever

It’s just a prank bro!

4 years ago | UPDATED 4 years ago

YouTubers are the biggest bunch of reprobates going and, although there’s some good ones with some great content, mostly they rely on drama and misfortune (often of others) to earn their crust – even national newspapers are reporting on these idiots as they’re garnering more controversy than ever.

2019 alone has been a great one for scandals with every YouTuber under the sun becoming embroiled in some sort of fuck up, from Austin Jones being sent to prison for the abuse of underage fans to Shane Dawson having to publically deny sexual relations with his cat. Yeah, it’s been a weird year.

From the smallest slips of the tongue to the fuckiest of fucky wuckys, here’s a few of the very best.

James Charles v Tati Westbrook

The YouTube beauty world is as toxic as several of the chemicals that have been found in their products, with the biggest stars not only competing against each other to come out on top with their video content, but also now with their vast makeup empires. In the pettiest YouTube argument in years, James Charles and Tati Westbrook, two of the YouTube makeup heavyweights, butted heads over competing brands.

What happened? When James promoted a vitamin gummy product that was a competitor to one of Tati’s products (yeah, it really is that petty), she fired back with a now-deleted 43-minute long video calling him out for this, as well as adding that he acts in a predatory and inappropriate manner toward various straight men. Ouch.

The fallout: James filmed an apology video, before taking some time out from YouTube (losing millions of subscribers in the process). When he returned, he debuted his 40-minute-plus short film “No More Lies”, in which he called Tati out for the way she went about the whole situation and vehemently denied claims he harrassed straight men. Long story long: they’ve since got over their fight about vitamins, he now boasts over 16 million subscribers and money makes people act stupid. Moving on.

Deji’s dog gets destroyed for biting his neighbour

Deji has always lived in his older brother KSI’s shadow, but up until the last year or so this hasn’t been massively problematic for him. Recently, however, he has lost many subscribers after a number of public spats, robbing him of the 1o million plaque he was so close to claiming.

What happened? It was announced through various mainstream news outlets recently that Deji’s beloved neighbour-mauling dog “Tank” was being destroyed for… well, for mauling their neighbour who was returning a parcel that had been left at her house. Deji naturally defended the animal by saying the neighbour lashed out first.

The fallout: Whose fault is it? a) the violent dog or b) the irresponsible owner? Deji’s legion of child fans swarm to the comment section to pick c) the neighbour, in his latest reaction video that, in true YouTuber fashion, finds a way to capitalise on personal tragedy for that sweet AdSense. Other than that he still makes videos relying heavily on clickbait sensationalist titles and still lives with his parents – road to 1omil baby!

Jake Paul cons his fans into gambling with MysteryBrand

Why would you stop at bleeding your adoring fans dry with shit merch, when you could be paid to con them into thinking they’re likely to win luxury goods, from Lamborghinis to hyped shoes?

What happened? Jake Paul (along with other creators like RiceGum) promoted MysteryBrand, a raffle site that encouraged users to pay to open mystery packages with the promise of winning high-value prizes. Several exposed videos later showed the likelihood of winning anything of value was extremely low, and that users were essentially wasting their money gambling. Jake was criticised heavily, obviously.

The fallout: Jake is still creating video content for his young fans, such as most recently pretending he got married to Tana Mongeau for a new MTV series of hers. He has an upcoming fight this month against fellow YouTuber AnEsonGib, but overall his views have taken a hit as presumably more and more of his fans became put off with his outlandish and controversial behaviour. And Team 10 is still a thing?!

Alfie Deyes £1 Video

The bread and butter of the 12-year-old girl’s subscription feed, Alfie Deyes and Zoella are quite possibly as interesting to vicariously spend time with in their videos as a cardboard box, and that’s not giving enough credit to the hours of fun I’ve had with the latter – however, their string of controversies are anything but boring.

What happened? Alfie and Zoella have both been embroiled in various controversies, from Zoe selling a £50 calendar to them sharing a lighthearted joke about Alfie sexually assaulting her, but the real winner of the power-couple’s wrongdoings has to go to the “Living on £1 challenge” video. Alfie seemingly mocked the struggles that people on low incomes face – because there’s nothing better received on YouTube than putting a big middle finger up to poor people!

The fallout: Alfie attracted widespread criticism, most notably from the brilliant Jaackmate, as well as negative press coverage. He released an apology video and, after a brief sit-down chat style video with two of his critics, ImAllexx and iNabber (naturally without Jaack), he was back at it with the overwhelmingly average videos, but the standout line of his career will forever be “I’m not a Tory”. Yeah, neither am I bud.

Pewdiepie’s “death to all Jews” sign and N-word incident

There couldn’t be a list of YouTube controversies without Pewdiepie; as the biggest individual creator on the platform, he is admired by as many people as he is despised. His two biggest controversies have been centred around his controversial and often misguided sense of humour.

What happened? In one video he paid two men to hold up a sign saying “Death to all Jews” via the freelance service Fiverr, and on a live stream he used the N-word. These were both criticised heavily in the media.

The fallout: He released an apology video for both, but the damage was unfortunately done. The two men from Fiverr were removed from the service, despite English not being their first language. Pewdiepie lost his Disney deal and his series “Scare Pewdiepie” was scrapped. He remains the most subscribed individual content creator on YouTube, much aided by the #subtopewdiepie movement.

Sam Pepper’s murder and sexual assault pranks

A somewhat loveable weirdo, Pepper made his name on Big Brother when he appeared in 2010. One of the early adopters of YouTube as a platform to make big money, he was one of the YouTubers creating content in the golden years before the Adpocalypse.

What happened? Unfortunately, his success on the platform quickly ran out as he, like many YouTubers at the time, became involved in creating more and more risky prank videos. He was majorly criticised for two videos: “Fake Hand Ass Pinch Prank” and “Killing Best Friend Prank”, both of which are pretty self-explanatory.

The fallout: After accusations of sexual harassment and assault arose from his videos, Sam decided to move abroad and reassess his life, just as various other YouTubers caught up in sexual assault allegations seem to have done. He now spends his time Twitch streaming around LA with his merry band of mates, such as IcePoseidon.

Nicole Arbour’s fat-shaming

Nicole Arbour, famed for classic videos such as “Dear Black People“, “Dear Refugees” and “I Love Donald Trump“, is the archetypal example of someone who relies on the shock factor of their videos to boost their career, and for the most part, it works. Her channel has over 53 million views, but not with good reason.

What happened? Nicole’s most notorious video, titled “Dear Fat People”, was met with accusations of fat-shaming, moving her from a *fairly* reputable YouTuber who dated wetty nice guy Matthew Santoro, to criticism from all angles and the added pressure of abuse claims from Santoro later on.

The fallout: Who knows. She uploaded four times in 2019, but from what it looks like she has been removed from any priority she would have in YouTube’s search engine as it took us a while to find the above video despite searching both her name and the title of the video. Cya Nicole.

Logan Paul suicide forest

The somewhat less douchey Paul brother was always asking for a huge scandal to come his way as he pushed the boat out further and further with his content, and in 2018 he produced arguably the most controversial video to ever be uploaded to the site. During his visit to Japan, where he not only behaved like a massive dick in public, he filmed a dead body in the Suicide Forest for a vlog.

What happened? Paul “stumbled” across a dead body and continued to make jokes, film the dead body and edited it into a vlog for his YouTube channel where it gained millions of views – and he wore a stupid hat whilst doing it, which made what he did seem so much worse due to the sensitive nature of the video.

The fallout: Paul removed the video, posted a written apology on Twitter and then released an apology video. It wasn’t enough. He had the usual decline from there; loads of hate, a disappearance from all socials for several months and then a grand return, going for a short film that essentially said: “I do care about suicide! Here’s some footage of me chatting with a man who tried to kill himself”. He’s doing okay now though, having earnt more in two fights with KSI then I’ll ever get my hands on.

Daddyofive child abuse scandal

Daddyofive, arguably one of the biggest pieces of shit on this list and the subject of many a YouTube commentatory video, was a family creator that vlogged his ordinary day to day life with his kids and wife… apart from the fact that his “ordinary day to day” was encouraging and perpetuating the mental and physical abuse of his kids.

What happened? Several of his videos were picked up by various creators such as Keemstar and Philip DeFranco, who criticised them for the abusive environment they put their children in. This included slapping, pushing and even throwing the children through doorways. Psychos.

The fallout: They lost custody of two of their children, and eventually their channel was terminated fully in 2018. They tried to keep up a subscription-based website for a while, but clearly this didn’t work out as they removed all their videos and announced they were giving up a life in the spotlight. They haven’t left much of a trace on the Internet since – good riddance.

Shane Dawson’s VARIOUS scandals

Fucking hell, which group HASN’T Shane Dawson had it in for? Whether he’s joking at the expense of black people, Jewish people or making unsettling remarks on paedophilia, he’s never been too far from saying something earth-shatteringly stupid, but people have had enough and have cancelled him all over Twitter.

What happened? Twitter users started unearthing old videos (watch here) which showed him doing blackface, using racial slurs and doing a whole host of other offensive shit on his YouTube channel (such as pretending to pleasure himself over a photo of 11-year-old Willow Smith). This, with the added pressure of accusations from Tati Westbrook about him scheming with Jeffree Star to cancel James Charles, caused him to be in some deep deep water.

The fallout: He made an apology video which didn’t seem to go down well with viewers judging by the copypasta in the comments, which reads: “Depression and anxiety isn’t an excuse to sexualize children, Shane.” He hasn’t responded to any further allegations.