Shane Dawson addresses past YouTube videos after racism accusations

Longtime YouTuber Shane Dawson has come out with a video apologizing for his past content that many viewers have found offensive, including his use of blackface and caricatures parodying people of color.

Shane Dawson is one of YouTube’s OG content creators, having founded his channel back in 2008. His popularity skyrocketed due to his comedy sketches and skits, although he’s now known for documenting the scandals surrounding other top YouTube personalities.

However, Dawson’s past on the site is littered with controversy, as he created a blackface character hat appears to parody Black people, as well as making comments that critics deemed to be inappropriate on a previous podcast.

Having posted a lengthy Notes app statement regarding his involvement in the 2019 scandal surrounding James Charles, both Dawson and makeup mogul Jeffree Star have come under intense scrutiny from fans — and now, Shane has finally addressed the matter in full.

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Following Jenna Marbles’ viral exodus from YouTube after confronting her own past on the platform, Dawson uploaded a twenty-minute-long video coming clean about his own past, opening with an admission of racist behavior in regard to his previous content.

“I was at least 20 when I started YouTube,” 31-year-old Dawson explained. “I made the decision to play stereotypes of Black people or Asian people or Mexicans… I said, ‘Oh, this is funny,’ and I put it on the internet.”

“When I say I hate that person, I mean it in the most intense way possible,” he continued. “That person was filled with sadness, filled with anger about their own issues, in the closet, constantly projecting on others. …that person is someone I don’t like seeing.”

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Dawson also clarified that he’d made his apology video to become “part of a change and not part of a problem,” and went on to claim he would better educate himself and feature more people on his channel other than “white people in trouble.”

He likewise addressed the drama surrounding James Charles — more specifically, his Notes post where he wrote that Charles deserved a “slice of humble pie the size of the Empire State Building,” calling it a comment he “regrets more than anything in my life.”

“That note had so much anger in it, and it was just not good,” he elaborated. “I’m sorry, James. I’m really sorry. Nobody deserves what happened. The whole internet ganging up on someone… nobody deserves that.”

While Charles himself has yet to comment on Dawson’s video at the time of writing, it doesn’t look like Shane is leaving YouTube a la Jenna Marbles, instead promising his viewers that he will show them a “better” version of himself in the future.