A New Genre on YouTube: The Apology Video
The ‘vlogpology’: a video released when a YouTuber makes unwanted headlines. A concept that has become synonymous with the platform of YouTube. If you have somehow managed to have escape this insincere trend, count yourself lucky.
The likes of James Charles, Logan Paul, Tati Westbrook — iconic YouTube names — have all produced bogus apology videos attempting to atone for their often highly unacceptable behavior. Having accumulated 123 million views between them, the financial incentive of such an endeavour is clear. With the likes of James Charles institutionalising the ‘vlogpology’, teaching up and coming youtubers how to perfect the perfect apology in his new competition “Instant influencer”, it is obvious why their integrity should be questioned.
How hard is it to produce a heartfelt apology? Apparently pretty hard when this is not your intention at all. At the end of the day, this media platform, is a Youtuber’s business, their career, a very lucrative career at that. It is clear as day, from the awful acting, to the ‘emotive pauses’, that these videos are produced as a business venture and nothing more. So how do these young entrepreneurs know it will gain them buzz? Well that’s where the blame falls on us.
Have you every overheard a conversation that does not involve you, at all, but yet you keep listening intently? There is nothing better than good old gossip, tension, and comedic drama. Natural human curiosity in the case of the ‘click’ is fuelled by our evidently nosey nature. We can’t resist. Like any commercial product that is trending, to miss out would be to damage our reputation as a generation obsessed by all things social. The apology video capitalises on pure unadulterated curiosity.
However, when questioning why these videos are produced there might be a more sinister angle that we are not addressing here. Social media, YouTube specifically, as of recent times has become dominated by ‘cancel culture’. A movement where subscribers have the ability to wipe a creators existence from the social platform with a few taps of the keyboard. Do Youtuber’s have a right to be scared then? To try overly hard to be apologetic?
Some might argue that if they’re more worried about getting cancelled than they are about their actual behavior, they should do us a favour and not even attempt a dispassionate apology.
However, fresh victims of the infamous social trolls, including the likes of Olivia Jade and Charli D’Amelio, show just how brutal ‘cancel culture’ has become. The latter was recently torn to shreds for acting like a ‘spoiled brat’ in a new family YouTube video. This resulted in the rapid loss of 1 million followers along with a stream of excessively violent death threats. The 16-year-old released a sobbing response where she outed subscribers for “blatantly disrespecting the fact that [she is] still a human being”. When online trolling becomes so threatening, a genuine apology therefore, may be hard to conduct. The fear of messing up is dominating content, with ‘disclaimers’ being given before any opinion is aired.
So sure, YouTuber’s insincere videos really rub us the wrong way because they are just that, a video, used as a means of profit and protection, however they are not the only guilty party. The culture of fear and judgment that surrounds YouTube is palpable. Whilst accountability is key and mistakes shouldn’t be defended, nor necessarily forgotten, should they be the do all and end all?
Our curiosity feeds our incentive to give in to clickbait, to witness a YouTuber’s often clinical attempt to prevent their careers from unravelling. So, who’s the bigger villain here? The consumer or the creator? Ultimately the viewers have the capacity to maintain a youtubers affluence or terminate their creative existence, the choice literally lies at our fingertips. It’s an overwhelmingly powerful capability, that undoubtedly keeps every creator awake at night.
Lotti Norman
