To paraphrase from the great Robert Pattinson: “You know, isn’t it funny how whenever someone is playing a “character,” that “character” always just so happens to be an a**hole?”
You were better off not knowing. I heard of her when a random video about how she let her toddler play with empty prescription medication bottles as toys & store snacks for him in them popped up in my recommended. After hearing about that, I wasn’t surprised about other inappropriate behaviour she was engaging in
I’ve been WAITING for someone to (even casually) mention her being cis to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. Trans women are being accused of grooming for breathing in the general direction of children, but Colleen gets accused of actually predatory behavior and feels comfortable enough to post that awful ukulele “apology”.
@@estelao.b.1473 Cis is a prefix that means "on the same side of." In this context, RSStarfire is talking about someone who identifies as the gender that they were assigned at birth, Colleen.
@@estelao.b.1473 you know trans fats? cis fats are like the healthier version of them, like the above commenter said… scientists mostly use the term to refer to molecules or whatever being on the same side but most people have actually heard of transfats and know there’s healthy fats but not that the name for those are cisfats
yup!! the whole crowd of "i'd never leave my kids alone with a MAN or a TRANS PERSON or a GAY PERSON, my kids are only safe with STRAIGHT WOMEN" - we know they won't learn anything though
I get the feeling that if the ukulele or other allegation videos were intentionally sent to a conservative to make a political statement about grooming, they would say Colleen is trans, thinking "we could see through it" and perpetuating the trans grooming narrative. Two ignorance birds with one stone! Transphobes (and anti-LGBT+) will grab at anything to perpetuate queer people are terrible people.
The other issue that I NEVER hear people talk about is how susceptible unpaid interns are to sexual harassment. I had a summer internship working in a theater during college, and the in-house lighting designer (who was a permanent member of the staff) harassed every young woman in the internship, placing one of us into a very scary situation. We never felt like we had anybody we could go to for protection because we were unpaid interns and therefore didn't have anything like HR to truly protect us. Maybe this wouldn't be the case at a large corporation, but I'd bet pretty good money that there are a lot of nonprofits and small institutions where stories like mine routinely happen
Heck, even paid interns can be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, especially if they *need* this gig to advance in their degree or their career! But, yes, unpaid interns are in an even more precarious position.
You could've gone to your school. Internship coordinators exist for this reason. They oversee all the interns from their school, and determine if an internship is eligible for college credit. Even if you had to stick it out, they could stop accepting internships from them after that semester. If you haven't already, you should reach out an inform your school. They could very well be still sending young women there
@@FIRING_BLIND Mine was not through my school. It was an internship I took for post-studies networking. So, unfortunately that was not an option for me. This kind of internship is very prevalent in the arts -- it's basically a short-term apprenticeship, and you apply independently of whatever school you're at
As someone who remembers that "pedo bear" moment in memes circa 2008, Colleen goes way beyond that. It's so detailed and explicit where even most of the "mainstream" gnarly stuff would just put "brazzers" under a photo and let the viewer make their own implications. Colleen doesn't let anything be left to imagination, and it goes from ~edgy~ to disgusting. Add in how the internet's meme culture has changed so drastically over the last decade, Colleen has only dug herself into a deeper hole. MirandaSings should have been left in 2012.
Spongebob also did the subtle adult humor that still works as an innocent joke. When he’s trying to lure Gary into the bath by making it a fun pirate treasure hunt, he picks up two bars of soap and goes “look, dubloons!!” Then he leans into Gary and winks “don’t drop them” As a kid I was like “yeah, don’t want to drop and lose the gold!” As an adult, I GASPED 😂
Your point is totally valid, but I want to give my two cents that prison rape jokes are vile and their social acceptance is indicative of a complete denial of the humanity of incarcerated people
@@haleyalaym6231 oh I agree, that episode was over 20 years ago though and probably at least 10 years since I last saw it and understood that, so I definitely laughed out of “what the FUCK that sure went over my head”
lol that’s because SpongeBob’s humor has a lot of innuendos, which is surprisingly not uncommon in kid’s media. Innuendo is the perfect way to slip more adult humor into your kids show because it doesn’t rely entirely on the more “adult” part of the joke to be funny. Definitely a step up from Colleen’s humor which lacks a lot of self awareness in that way.
I think she thought her humour was intelligent/satire but it lacked any subtlety or nuance and was actually offensive. There’s a fine line and she crashed that toxic train right through it.
Love the observation at the end that the more ridiculous and offensive Miranda got over the years, that was actually Colleen putting more of herself into the character. Never saw anyone else put it that way but you're so right. And comparing all the awful things she actually did to the "satirical" portrayal of Miranda being an awful person. Great conclusion to the video
I don't think Colleen had a kid when she wrote those books so the kids she used for photos were likely her neices and nephews. What was that line about being a creepy aunt again? 🤔
would make sense. i used to work for a live show company who would need specific consent forms signed by parents if they wanted to use photography featuring minors in their marketing
Swoop's doc shows a clip of Colleen telling Colbert that she often uses Miranda as a way to voice thoughts that she has and thinks but knows that she shouldn't say. So....yeah, she's absolutely told on herself, and doesn't get to hide behind the excuse of "Miranda is just a character" now that ppl want to hold her accountable for her shitty behavior.
The charitable way to read that tho is that Miranda is just the embodiment of "the intrusive thoughts won" Cuz most intrusive thoughts are intrusive because you don't actually believe those things.
I think, however, “letting the intrusive thoughts win” through an alter ego is just a Jekyll/Hyde situation- a way to break taboo or harm others and blame an external scape goat of your own devise. She may or may not have believed or agreed with the intrusive thoughts, but she still chose to put those out in the world and make them real.
@@FIRING_BLIND If you actually watch the clip, the explanation of it being "intrusive thoughts" does not fit the tone in which she answers the question. But as DracoTriste below put it, even if that were the case, it's still no excuse.
What I have learned so far: If anyone ever pulls out a ukulele and starts a song with "Hey. It's been a while" I am just going to be immediately suspicious from now on.
As if it wasn't bad enough, she goes and copyright strikes videos that play her "song." Now, she gets the $ and minimizes the videos impact on the algorithm. She is evil That's it. I don't know what else could explain this type of behavior. She seems to have absolutely no remorse for what she did, only for getting caught.
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if that was her plan. Maybe it's a bit tin-foil-hat of me, but causing drama, then recording a song about it, then using it to police and profit from the resulting discourse sounds like something a master manipulator would do.
I want to note, quickly, that she's copyright claiming and not striking these videos. It's an interesting choice, considering that by striking them she could in theory get the discourse taken off the platform, but then discovery in court would likely bring even more of what she's done out into the public consciousness 🤔
dude i think that was her plan. she knew her career was done and there was no comeback, so let's cash out and retire. how to do that? well, make the video 10 minutes long so you can run mid-roll ads, knowing that it'll get at least 10 million views, and THEN put it on spotify and copyright it because you KNOW people will be using it in their videos.
@isaacbenrubi9613 While I don’t think she caused drama in infer to make the song, I do think that once her behavior was exposed she made the song knowing people would react to it by playing it thereby opening them up to copyright strikes or copyright claims and so punishing those people she saw as “haters”. Of course we know these people actually have legitimate criticisms of her, but I don’t think she can see that and this feels justified in punishing them. Of course that’s just a theory. A game theory.
Actually, in the livestream she does joke about how inappropriate it would be to send the underwear and how she hoped his parents wouldn’t open the package. So she was aware it was not the right thing to do
This video was very informative. As a genXer, I really appreciated the explanation of 2000s humor. That is context that I think a lot of Ballinger's critics are missing. Her actions make much more sense when you put them in context. Also, looking at how the character "Miranda" started helped me to understand her intentions. At a time when TV shows like Glee were popular, I can see how this character would have been a humorous critique of annoying theater kids. Before watching this video, I was thinking, "What kind of person would think this is appropriate for kids?!" But I think it's important to know that Miranda Sings wasn't _designed_ to be children's entertainment. It _evolved_ into that. And I suspect that Ballinger had different priorities while this evolution was taking place. At that point, she probably considered Miranda to be merely a steady source of income, and she didn't want to put much effort into understanding her audience or developing appropriate content. And she was perfectly ok with letting other people do work for her if they offered, so she didn't have to think about it. "Not thinking" about your actions is pretty much a recipe for disaster. It's like being in the driver's seat of a running car while you're engrossed with something on your phone. People are going to get hurt, and so are you. One other thing I'm SO glad you mentioned was Jerry Seinfeld. I've noticed that the "villains" people love to attack are typically women. This reminds me of Contrapoints' video on The Witch Trials of JK Rowling. At the end, she points out that JK Rowling is not the "final boss" in these situations. There is an entire level above her of white men who are using JK Rowling to do their dirty work and take the heat when this dirty work is called out. I see this happening with iiluminaughtii and Colleen Ballinger, too. They are being demolished while white men who are _much_ worse, like Jerry Seinfeld, are relatively unscathed. But Ballinger could only do what she did because the Seinfelds of the world have normalized this behavior and offered protection to other white men who engage in it. Some women and POC foolishly believe they will be protected, too, if they support these white men, but, as we've seen, they won't. As a society, we need to call out people at the highest level, not stop at the hangers-on, if we want the exploitation and abuse of children and young people to stop. The same scrutiny and outrage that we apply to a "Colleen Ballinger" should be applied to a "Jerry Seinfeld" as well. Thanks for not sweeping Seinfeld's grooming under the rug!
I really appreciate you going back in time and explaining why audiences initially found Miranda funny. I was an OG Miranda fan after being introduced to her videos in 2008, when I was in high school. I went to her magic show at the historic Magic Castle in Los Angeles, which I think was in 2010. At that time the audience was mainly teens and adults. I’ve found a lot of RU-vid commentators are missing this context when talking about Miranda, and they say things like, “I don’t know how an older audience would ever find her funny.” You put the “random/cringy humor” information very well. As a teenager I would’ve found Selp Helf hilarious if it had been published in 2008-2010. You’re right that Colleen didn’t adapt her content to fit the times, and she ran with the child audience when her character was too inappropriate for them.
I remember in about 2006 my Aunt and my mom were very concerned with our overuse of the word "random" and how we found the teen trends of the era amusing. I think even though we lived through it, some of us have forgotten.
thank you!!! i think a lot of people are missing the analysis of humor in context of the cultural moment. i think we can talk about the past accurately while still recognizing how exploitative and creepy colleen is.
@SAVYWRITESBOOKS I agree. It’s important to understand why these people went under the radar for so long, because frankly there are going to be modern examples of the exact same thing. We need to learn to recognize the signs even when they hide behind internet culture trends.
The thing I haven't heard w regard to the "uncle" jokes, is a reference to the statistically huge number of kids of all genders who are in fact victims of sexual abuse/incest. I can't think of anything worse than a popular youtuber influencing the other kids at school to make jokes about that kind of thing when it is in fact your life. Awesome!
Animal abuse jokes are absolutely unacceptable. I wouldn't want kids to think they were funny and to then try it out, for one thing. Kids like to emulate their heroes and even their antiheroes. Beyond that, though, the allegations in terms of inappropriate behavior with underage fans is deeply disturbing. I've never heard of her (I'm grateful for that), and she sounds like someone who went from extreme parody to disturbed.
Yeah---again, the actual point of the joke matters, as does the intended audience. Wile E. Coyote getting hit by an anvil or even, the Happy Tree Friends dying in cartoonishly gory ways is meaningfully different from joking about actively hurting people or animals in realistic ways, especially when your schtick is intended for a younger audience!
I always assumed that Miranda was similar to Mable Pines (But annoying)where she was a celebration and parody of young tween girls desperately trying to fit in and be cool. Finding out she was this Shane Dawson weirdo who's substance was wildly inappropriate is like whiplash.
Savy: LOOK AT THESE OLD MEMES Me: Do not cite the old memes to me, Savy... I was there when they came out on Ebaums World. Great video, Savy! I'm glad that you're calling attention to this behavior, but also the bullshit double standards our society has!
The silver lining is that Colleen has provided everybody with a practically-textbook example of a classic abuser and literal groomer. I hope people have been taking notes for future reference! I reckon her little ditty is a literally-and-figuratively perfect demonstration of DARVO! What genuinely amazes and puzzles me is how she managed to fly under the radar and get away with her schtick for so long. I'm no prude, but what I've learned about her books and her comedy routines has made my skin positively *crawl.* It's like Dan Schneider turned up to 11! Where were the normally hyper-vigilant Concerned Parent groups who are usually immediately on the case when a cartoon character says "butts" or "crap?" I'm genuinely, sincerely worried about Collen's real-life children, because if she's this crass, creepy, and cavalier about crossing boundaries with her fans, I don't want to imagine what she's like as a mother!
So glad that you addressed the unpaid internship part of this so thoroughly!! I know it's small potatoes compared to the other allegations, but creatives (or anyone) not getting paid fairly for their work really bugs me, and I haven't seen any other RU-vidrs addressing the fact that it was ILLEGAL for Adam to not get paid. I think that's largely because most people don't know that most unpaid internships are in violation of the law (even if that law isn't regularly enforced). The more we can make people aware of that, the less people will get exploited in the name of "education".
I can’t believe dead baby jokes made a comeback. Way back in junior high (1991-1994) I had a book called Truly Tasteless Jokes and it had a plethora of dead baby jokes. I let my friend borrow it and her mom found it and threw it away! I was pissed!
It just kind of feels too try hard to me. Like, people that immediately jump to 9/11 or Holocaust “jokes” because they know it’s gonna be controversial and make people mad. 🤷♀️
What's killing me about all this is the vast majority of shitty shit she's shat has been public all this time. And yet, people keep saying "it's only just resurfaced" as if she wasn't a publicly crappy persona all along.
Don’t forget, some of the people who might be surprised is because they were also in the demographic of enjoying her content when they were kids or early teens and didn’t know any better or didn’t realize what was actually happening because they didn’t see the red flags and toxic signs. I remember I actually used to watch a few MIranda videos when I was a kid. I thought she was funny. Looking back on it now, I realize how naive I was (mostly because I was a LITERAL child) and all the horrible jokes or things that I didn’t realize or went over my head. Some people have also only seen some of her content, and then forgotten about it and her for many years until suddenly all this information is everywhere. This is basically what happened to me, so I was surprised since I hadn’t heard anything at all about her for years until now, when apparently, there’s so much evidence and information being discussed now
@@humantoon With respect, I'm not talking about her fans. I'm talking about commentary channels who allegedly dedicate their channels to exposing stuff like this. It's a really annoying thing about algorithms, that stuff like this only gains traction when it because "cool" to talk about it, and therefore people don't talk about it until it becomes "cool." That's my real gripe, if that makes sense.
@@justhearmeout3959 ohhhhhh. Yeah, I agree with you. You’re right, why have those channels only just started talking about it now when her horrible behavior has been public this entire time? The only reason I can think of, other than the algorithm stuff that you said, is that the channels literally didn’t know who she is. Other than that, it’s probably for the reason you said
completely off topic but "shitty shit she's shat" is excellent phrasing and deserves acknowledgment 😂 on topic: There's been a lot of sugarcoating of how things were then from what I've seen. Even her awful CSA jokes weren't unheard of then. I know because those jokes were incredibly triggering for me (because that's trauma I had experienced but not yet worked through) and it would completely throw me off kilter when people did it so I'm not excusing it here. It just affected me a lot so I remember how much it happened- you could be watching a funny movie or show and it would be a throwaway joke outta nowhere. She did it VERY often, which wasn't as normalized but it's just inaccurate when people say it wasn't a common thing to joke about back then. It unfortunately was. Again, no excuse and she was still overboard in that context; it's just strange to me how much people overlook about that time period. Like you said, it's been public all this time.
honestly Fred did a great job of adapting his content for certain audiences. i was completely unaware of his other content and i was definitely a fan of his show. i never ended up seeing his other adult content until this video
Lucas genuinely seems like a pretty good guy, and even as far back as 2018 (when I found his current channel) he had long since stopped doing his Fred character and now he just does silly RU-vid videos.
Colleen Ballinger is the first reverse milkshake duck. The only thing I've ever heard about her are the terrible things she's done and I had to dig to find out why anyone liked her to start with
Honestly I appreciated this video because Savy did such a good summary of Ballinger's RU-vid career arc - when all this broke I was drawing blanks on who she was and why she was famous at all.
But wouldn’t the reverse be finding someone awful and then it turns out they’re great? Cause the milkshake duck phenomenon is about finding something wholesome you enjoy and then finding out that wholesome thing was made by someone terrible.
@@TheSlipperyNUwUdle If that's a reverse milkshake duck, I'd say that's like Imagine Dragons or AJR. Godawful music but the people making it seem like solid dudes
Savy, I’ve been immersed in this Colleen situation for the past week and I really want to commend you for including a few positives! I think it says so much that you weren’t just digging for dirt. You were truly trying to evaluate these books. I’m just impressed because nowhere else have I heard anything positive to the point where it took me offf guard when you did that! So nicely done.
so when i was around 9-10 (2012-2013) jokes about SA (mainly just screaming r-e for no reason), dead baby/animal cruelty jokes, and racist jokes were very popular but even tho that’s what we were doing at that age it def doesn’t make it appropriate. as an adult it concerns and weirds me tf out that kids were joking about shit like that so damn young
We were taught those things were funny. I'm honestly a little sick of ppl making videos about these singular bad individuals instead of dissecting the larger problem that our culture encourages this kind of inappropriate sexualization and overall treatment of minors
Yup. Around 2009 I made a SA joke in my sex ed class coz I thought it was edgy and didn't understand the extent of what I was joking about, and the teacher LAUGHED and said he would "use that one". He was a teacher specially hired by the school to teach sex ed, and he did so at other schools. Me as a teenager making that joke was awful and ignorant, he as an adult and an educater ENCOURAGED and PERPETRATED that behaviour rather than correcting and educating or even drawing a line/barrier/boundary.
Important memo Colleen clearly never got: Kids swapping tasteless jokes with each other is different from an adult swapping the same tasteless jokes with kids. Just because a 12-year-old finds something funny doesn't mean you as the adult should encourage or enable it!
I think the books really prove it. She is gross and creepy. And now she has fully accepted herself as the person she always was deep down. She seems particularly pleased with herself and her new villain status during her song.
Regarding unpaid internships. I work in the medical field as an occupational therapist, and unpaid internships/fieldwork are required in many if not most medical positions. I had really great clinical instructors who helped me learn and didn’t exploit me, but many of my colleagues were just treated like an extra set of hands
@@Mama_Bear524 Who knows, there are a lot of degrees that have a student placement as a required part of the degree. I live in Australia and nursing students do placements each year with how many weeks they are for increasing each year. Psychologists have to gain 1500 hours to get their registration, Exercise Physiologists 500 hours across all their placements. Teachers also do student placements. These are just a small example. Some of it is so that when they graduate they are able to work independently, I think the rest is so that the person is sure that they want to work in that field when they graduate.
@@Mama_Bear524 I don’t know, it could be because we need the internships in order to become licensed. There may be a legal barrier to paying someone for services if they’re not licensed. The purpose of these internships is to learn, not become another employee for that company.
@ville__ I watched your video days ago. Even if he was the most toxic person to exist, it wouldn’t mean she was in the right to send him underwear, ask if he’s a virgin, or ask his favorite sex position. That’s excluding her allegedly sending him Trisha’s nudes and only because I haven’t seen solid proof of them being sent to him specifically. Do you find those to be acceptable conversations for adults to have with minors?
Appreciate the acknowledgment of the jokes that actually were funny. Also, picturing these scenarios with genders reversed was eye opening. Finally, the ukulele “It’s Always Sunny” mashup was friggin hilarious! You rock!
52:03 tbh this is giving md throwbacks to the Jenna scandal. The "blackface" was actually green paint imitating the Hulk (this was Nikki's Roman phase iirc, so she had this really rough voice she would do, and it works as a "shes hulking out!" joke) But Jenna had a really orange-y spray tan at the time....and guess what green + orange makes? Edit to add: tho as a musical theatre person, Colleen-and tbh even Miranda-should know that Elphaba is a MUCH lighter green. She could've had Miranda be like " so I couldn't find the right paint", and then apply that cucumber-melon facial goop they use in cartoon spas to her face instead
Honestly I would not put it past Colleen to know what that would look like tho. I know she obviously might have changed since she made that video mocking Latina women, but I’m still side eyeing the “blackface” part.
I felt like I was taking crazy pills when RU-vidr after RU-vidr said they never found Miranda funny and wondered who in the world her comedy was aimed at. I guess it was quirky random weird girls like me that grew up in the 2000s (bonus: I also grew up in a strict sheltered environment and was homeschooled some like Coleen). I remember laughing my butt off at old Miranda "music videos" when I was a teenager with my theater kid friends. I always remembered those original videos, but I mostly forgot about Miranda till I saw Selp Helf (also thought the title and concept of a self help book parody was hilarious) in the ADULT section of the library I worked at. Some of the jokes were weird and gross, but I was used to that stuff from my teen years and also enjoyed the stupid random humor (though those jokes were always hit or miss with me, being so random). As someone who grew up in strict purity culture, I thought the s- shaming and "pron" jokes were obvious satire and hilarious. The uncle jokes gave me the ick though. I watched a few newer Miranda videos on RU-vid and they did seem geared toward a younger audience, which I found odd, but I wasn't that interested. So I forgot about Miranda again until Haters Back Off came out...my bf and I watched it and were very confused about the tone and what category the show even fit in. We landed at a dark comedy with some really depressing aspects, that was intended for adults or older teens. When we watched it from that perspective, it was a weird, morbidly interesting show and we were kinda sad it got cancelled. But now with the accusations against Colleen and her family members, that "dark comedy" just feels dark and disturbing. I feel nauseous thinking about it
I feel the same as you! I thought she was hilarious. I was in high school around the time she started on RU-vid (circa 2008) and thought she was hilarious. I didn’t watch the whole Netflix series, only a few episodes. But they had a kinda Napoleon dynamite feel to them.
i feel the same as a lot of what you said. When i worked in a place with a bookstore, Selp-Helf was in the YA section along with the John Green style books and such.
Granted, I only just learned about her last week, but the impression I've gotten is that Colleen's jokes aren't "just jokes," and may in fact be disturbingly and depressingly autobiographical. I fear that the "running gags" about blood in feces, slut-shaming, animal abuse, genitals (including/especially children's genitals), and the predatory uncle don't come from nowhere.
I'm not an expert so might just be me, but hearing about how she gradually made child sexual abuse more and more a part of her character's back story and humour, then all this stuff comes out about her grooming children reminds me of Shane Dawson a lot. Especially with their audiences getting younger and the way they both engaged with fans.
I haven’t finished the video yet, so perhaps you’ve addressed this, but just in case you haven’t, I thought this was worth mentioning: the purposeful misspellings. In general, I don’t have a problem when words are misspelled with intention-such as a pun. In fact, I think it can be quite funny and even clever. However, after learning that Colleen’s “Miranda” character is partly inspired by those with disabilities, I have to wonder… is the silly wordplay the joke, or is it the mocking of those who are disabled? As someone with pretty severe dyslexia, I find the misspellings in Colleen’s books to be a bit nettling and wonder if I should take offense. When I was child, I can assure you that I likely would have felt ridiculed when reading this. I probably would have thought “if this character is supposed to be stupid and spells just as poorly as I do, then I must be stupid too.” I don’t want any child to feel that way.
@@Jane-oz7pp Johnny said that Colleen said it was her brother Trent, speech pattern based on how Trent speaks as a deaf person. Not sure how much his paralysis plays into it. Something else that she based on Trent is that she said he has tantrums and she would stand over to the side and observe it so that she would have more content for Miranda.
Yeah, I think the purposeful misspellings, especially paired with the very child-like handwriting, is supposed to be implying that Miranda has some sort of developmental disability. If she had spelled every correctly and used more mature-looking handwriting style, I think we’d assume all the awful things she says were because of her self-obsession, but with the way it’s stylized, it feels like the joke is that Miranda has a developmental issue rather than just an unlikeable personality. It’s gross.
I watched a loooot of video essays about this topic but I have to say that I enjoyed your perspective most. You always manage to mention aspects no other channel mentioned before instead of just saying the same all over
When I was a teenager in an unbalanced power relationship with my 30-something land-lady, her friends thought it was awsome. Even years later, nobody batted an eye at how our relationship started. (I had fled a violent situation at home and had been offered a "safe place" to stay. It wasn't.) The early '90s was VERY different from the early 2020s. 😢 (Sorry, I'm an hour in and I need to bail. Great video.)
The whole thing makes me beyond sad. I was pregnant at the same time as her, and found her through shared experiences with our babies. I never really cared for Miranda and didn't know about her before the last couple of years. I just don't understand how these things keep happening, is it money, power, status? It's just disgusting.
Our culture sexualizes children and teens constantly and then acts surprises when ppl behave inappropriately towards children and teens. That's what it is. Ppl like Colleen and Shane Dawson were essentially taught growing up that sexualizing kids and teens was ok and normal. Thwy were sexualized growing up, so why wouldnt it be normal? And then they went on to do the same thing, not really thinking about it that much.
She used her power to exploit her fans and get free labor and therapy? (I say that because of all her trauma dumping to her underage fans) she’s not well. She remind me of an old friend from HS who was very narcissistic, she’d also use her friends and make us go and find out “gossip” about her. She’d be the most precious friend, and then when she was done using you, she’d dump you. That’s how narcissistic people are. Once you’ve met one, you pick up on those traits on others..
Damn, your ending summary really hit me. She's been herself her whole time. And she's admitted in an interview with Steven Colbert that she says mean stuff she wants to say as Marinda, and it's very freeing to her. You're 100% spot on. She was herself the whole time.
Yes, that's what a lot of ppl understand that word to mean....but it comes from an abbreviation of the g-slur, which is a derogatory (and inaccurate) way to refer to the Romani ppl, and reflects how they've often been accused throughout history of being thieves and liars. Unfortunately, discrimination against Romani ppl doesn't tend to get much coverage in America, so the slur and its derivatives haven't been phased out of common vernacular like other slurs have. (For instance, Disney's had to put content warnings on some of their older movies that are racially insensitive, but I don't think they have put any kind of similar warning onto "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", which never refers to the Romani as anything but the g-slur throughout the movie.) More awareness around this issue is sorely needed, and I'm glad to see that Savy is doing her part to help educate more ppl.
Supposedly, the dark face paint was green because she was doing a "Elphaba from Wicked" bit right before. Personally, for as long as she's been in theatre and performance, she should know how to carve out time to completely remove the makeup during the costume change from Elphaba to "Beyonce from Single Ladies".
The narrative structure!! This was a really great video, and it built so well to the conclusion that Miranda become worse as she became more Colleen. I really appreciated the way you broke down her humor and "humor" - I haven't seen too many people speaking about what makes her funny, and as someone who has never seen her content, I'm glad to have a better understanding of what made her popular in the first place. I am, however, ungrateful for the reminder of dead baby jokes... Thanks for the hard work, pet Chewie for us!
I wasn't sure how I felt at first, but you explained it thoroughly in a way that I understood. Thank you for not entreating Colleen with the "virtuous innocent white woman in distress" trope. She majorly screwed up, and the fact that she's acting offended that anyone would accuse her of wrongdoings is very telling of her priviledge.
This is such a good video. You have a new sub. I live that you dont just point out all of the negatives and actually have positive and negative criticism of her books. I like that you relate parts of the book to the current drama as well. This was well though out and well done. I also love the history of what was popular online in the past. Being a 90s kid I loved thinking back to the older silly internet videos.
WOW. I can't believe we've found the female Shane Dawson. Horrifying content, I commend your strength in digging through it all and presenting it so well. Thank you Savy for your service o7
Well they are friends, have you seen the clip going around where Shane talks about Colleen saying how much he loves that she wants to know the dirt etc.
The funny thing is, I almost feel like she’s getting less shit from people than shane. A lot of people are talking about her sure, but Shane it was like a new video was out about him every few hours. But maybe the difference was that a lot of places where in quarantine at the time and tons of people had more time on their hands 🤷♀️
The trouble is I've often felt like people like Colleen and Jerry Seinfeld, (and quite a few 'comedians' for that matter) are just telling on themselves and pretending that it's a joke. I've kinda come to the conclusion that a vast amount of humour is exactly that, tbh (though Miranda type humour never really appealed to my taste anyway). I know it's depressing, but it's made a lot of these outings and 'cancellations' a lot more bearable to witness.
I remember her back then, but this just wasn't my sense of humor. I'm kind of allergic to this type of cringe. I had no idea she was still active. Also, does this remind anyone else of onision?apologies if that comes up later in the video.
I genuinely believe the reason she didn't make the association between "weird aunt" and the creepy uncle character is because she just thinks women can't be predatory. I have no exact proof it's just vibes
Ahhh I’d forgotten about Chewie parodying Rachel et al. 🤣 (I recently had a dream where Rachel, Dave, and Heidi showed up to talk self-help. I’d be more worried about the state of my brain if I weren’t on 3 different meds that can have vivid dreams as a side-effect!)
I'm really glad that you made this partially regarding her books. I've seen a few people talk about them and the jokes in them, but never really give any info about how the jokes should have been or how else the book could have been made, and I think this will help me be an educated consumer about child appropriate media in the future.
Savy, as an elder Gen Z, I really appreciate the cultural context you gave for the late 2000s/early 2010s humor. In the end it doesn't matter as far as the people she's hurt, but it does provide a lot of insight into where all of this got started. In 2008 I was a seven-year-old who wouldn't get (heavily supervised, strongly restricted, and strictly time-limited) internet access for another couple years. I definitely remember the random humor era (including Miranda Sings) having its last hurrah when I started middle school in 2012, but I know I don't have an in-depth understanding of that time in internet culture because my only exposure to it was secondhand from my mostly older, much more online classmates and lasted only a couple years. I was a (probably annoyingly) devoted Monty Python fan as a preteen, so while I definitely understood why random things and dark jokes were funny, the sincerity with which extremely dark topics were incorporated always baffled me and made me feel really distant from the kids making the "jokes." In short, I am definitely of the post-ironic/surreal generation (I was definitely online for ironic humor but I look back on it and cringe lol), and the peak of humor to me is an image of a cat that is captioned "please do not the cat." So thanks again, Savy, for explaining the likely origins of this baffling and vile saga to us babies out there.
Lmao I was today years old when I learned the Shrek joke ( 33:52 ) was also a peepee joke. I've thought even into adulthood it was only a height joke, maybe cuz I'm also short 🤣🤣🤣
I am one of the people who had no idea who she was until everyone started reacting to her "apology" so I admit to having little context. But what it seems to me from now listening to toxic gossip train way too many times, it seems like she wants people to be able to draw a hard line between her personal life and her work and the fictional character she portrays. But the exact problem is her not drawing that line for herself from the start. She wanted her fans to be her personal friends instead of keeping things professional, which means now there's no way to disentangle the personal from the professional
I was soooo obsessed with Colleen and Miranda Sings stuff when I was a kid! I remember I started getting bad vibes from her when she got upset with how she was portrayed on MTV's True Life. I was a teenager but even then I knew how reality TV edits things, if you're being negative in front of the cameras then that's what they're gonna show if that's all you give them to work with lol
Just wanna correct something. I’m hearing a lot of reports that Adam Mcintyre stopped making videos about Colleen until after KoddeeRants made her video exposing Colleen a few weeks back. This is false. Adam had continued to make drama videos about Colleen throughout the last 3 years. He continued to talk about how he had group chat messages he might eventually release in every one of those videos. So yeah, he was waiting for someone to take him seriously but he kept revisiting this subject.
34:34 I also think that in a show or movie the adult is probably watching or at least in the room hearing it too so the joke is funny and it makes sense to appeal to them. While in a book the adult isnt reading over their kid's shoulder, making jokes that appeal to them seems pointless and just confuses the child reading
I really enjoyed how you broke down what works and what doesn’t in the humor in her books. I’m also an adult who enjoys dumb and absurdist humor, but Colleen was clearly aware that adults weren’t her audience. That quote about how satire requires a clarity of purpose and a target will always be relevant.
She said in her video about her being a teen and insensitive but there are so many videos of her more recently where she does the questionable “black face”, and a lot of Asian stereotypes and mocking of the accents so that excuse “I was a sheltered teen” doesn’t match
FINALLY, someone sharing Colleen rhetoric Actually Knows the history of Miranda… like, it’s 2023, (and this is LITERALLY all on RU-vid) yet 100% of other creators seem not to be able to access any of this information… “She’s like a kid’s performer… like, didn’t she start like a kids channel?? And now she’s like, I guess a p********…” omg. I’ve just been dying to dive into the ACTUAL trajectory from very real parody (for adults…mostly), and how children started to become the real bread and butter… how Colleen stayed where the money was, without ACTUALLY ever growing and evolving herself or her humor… as the years went by, her “comedy” got less and less mature, and her audience got younger and younger.
hahaha thank you!!! maybe it's because i'm older than some of the channels covering her. i was 16 when she started her channel, and i remember my annoying musical theater kid friends finding her parodies funny, and i was like "lol yeah i like this" - i didn't watch her a lot, but i was surprised when all of a sudden everyone was like "she always had 9 year olds in her audience"
@@SAVYWRITESBOOKS same w meee - I WAS an annoying theatre kid. I was very into her original stuff - when it was mostly an inside-joke for theatre people - when she started doing shows performing with Broadway and other theatre folks - that’s when I was into what she was doing. Before it got entirely cartoonized -- before the jokes started to both cater to 12 year olds, as well as weirdly humiliate them.
So happy Swoop’s incredible documentary is included here in this video! Her work is amazing and the interviews she conducted with numerous victims of Colleen help shed more light on this situation in my opinion.
I always appreciate your take on things. I've said it before, but you are one smart cookie! (I'm probably older than your mom, live in rural MT, straight cis female, pretty middle-of-the-road politically.) Your fair take on things goes across the board, in my opinion.
i can't can't can't with animal abuse....i'm a big believer in finding even a nugget of dark humour in all situations but I've yet to find anything in animal abuse
Unpaid Internships as job training isn't a thing in Germany. Because our mid-level education system (for everyone who doesn't aim to go to University) is formed as a combination of work experinece at a company (with compensation) and college-style classes at a trade school. Internships here are more of a sneak-peek into a specific field to then let the person decide if this line of work is what they thought it'd be and if they are still interested in going into that speciffic career.
I really appreciate your nuanced insight. I was a young adult fan of Miranda in the earlier years, and as such I saw a lot of her jokes as, "innocent but it sounds guilty," like the origin of the Daddy Saddle, which was an actual product on Amazon for young children to play horsey (and obviously sounds terrible). Thinking that I was in her target demographic, the *orn jokes about purity culture also made me laugh. I stopped watching but was truly surprised upon hearing that her fanbase had evolved into children because I thought she was incredibly inappropriate for that. I am just as appalled as everyone else learning of the way she has treated and talked to children behind the scenes, but I have felt ashamed to comment anything on other videos with all of them saying things like "obviously this is for kids" or "I don't know who would find this funny." It's easy to look at her content through the lens of what we know now and say it's beyond inappropriate for children. I honestly never thought she was for children back when I watched her. So thank you for bringing up the context of those of us who grew up with 90s and 2000s humor as well as the fact that there is (or was) a component of Miranda that appeals to older teens and young adults.
Loved your video’s structure and your take on this controversy. I wonder if both are true regarding the ‘Miranda in blackface’ issue. She may have previously performed the song from Wicked, then intentionally used the makeup to transition into blackface and the Single Ladies dance. Just a thought, sorry
That was my thought too, as a casual observer. It seemed like she (Colleen) was trying to invoke plausible deniability in order to actively offend. I'm sure the cosmetic wipes and removers used backstage, at actual theatres, can actually remove stage make-up.....
@@asecondhandrose glad I wasn’t alone in thinking that. Colleen is a clever person, so she likely knew what she was doing to keep plausible deniability available. Given the costume changes many actors/musicians have to make in their shows, I’d be amazed if they didn’t have something that could remove green face paint
Thank you for the history of her channel. I was aware of her as an early RU-vidr, but I didn't start using RU-vid until around 2012ish, so her moment had passed.
