B11- Avoiding Social Media Pitfalls

     With the internet being so engrained in our society and public, everything we post and create will be able to be tracked down to us. This is expedited especially for celebrities and influencers who have a plethora of haters and paparazzi who will search for anything to tarnish their image. Cancel culture has made it so something you have posted over eight years ago can put your entire career to a screeching hault. Countless times have old tweets from ascertain celebrity come out where they have to then damage control in order to save their image. Not only do the celebrity or influencer try to save their image by apologizing or taking accountability for their actions, companies will cut ties with celebrities in controversy in an effort to protect their overall revenue. An example of this is with popular youtuber PewDiePie. PewDiePie, also known as Felix was the highest paid Youtuber in 2017 when a video of him using the N-word surfaced with later being accused of antisemitism multiple companies cut ties with him. Disney, Google, and YouTube Red all ended their contracts with the youtuber who later apologized claiming he was an "Idiot" while this did not fully end his career his number started to decrease leading to him mostly stepping away from the influencer life. He now lives in Sweden with his wife and son and makes family vlogs.

    Some influencers are not able to recover from controversy, another popular youtuber Shane Dawson was one of the first bigtime youtubers with his skits and eccentric content reaching millions of views. He was even able to co-write, produce, direct, and star in a movie that played in theatres around the country. Dawson had been in the face of controversy multiple times with old videos resurfacing of Dawson doing skits with racial stereotypes and using slurs, however he was mostly able to maintain his image. In 2020 Dawson became friends with another controversial influencer Jeffree Starr, they collaborated on a makeup palette but when faced with accusation from another popular makeup guru Tati Westbrook, Starr turned on Dawson and more allegations of Dawson's racist past even including blackface resurfaced. Other media user found old tweets from Dawson and even called Animal Protection Services to his home. Dawson apologized multiple times on different platforms but ultimately has taken a hiatus with few failed attempts at regaining his media popularity.