On Influencer Apologies

Ian “iDubbbz” released the above apology in 2023.

In this blog I’ll be discussing a variety of examples of apology videos (and even a particularly bad tweet) in terms of their effectiveness at rebuilding audience trust, and goodwill, as well as considering their long-term impact on the audience and the uploader themselves. These videos have a variety of common traits, not all of which must be shared to qualify as an apology. Ultimately, the only thing that really matters is that the media artifact is presented as an apology. It doesn’t even need to actually apologize, something we’ll get into later.

What are Influencer Apologies?

It’s pretty self-explanatory, but we’re talking about the uploaded apology statements posted by Influencers, especially on YouTube or Twitter. Instinctually, we may expect these to come quickly after some kind of public disgrace or callout, but not always.

Tom “Tomska” released the above apology in 2020.

Logan Paul released the above apology in 2018.

James Somerton originally uploaded this apology December 20th, 2023, but quickly deleted it. The embedded video is a reupload by a third party.

Do Influencer Apologies Ever Work?

I think so! It’s clear at least in some very limited and specific cases that an apology video can land as intended and have the desired effect. Case in point, both iDubbbz (Ian) and Tomska (Tom) have released apology videos for past deeds which were widely well-received. Ian’s was more controversial than Tom’s was for several reasons, which I’ll be getting into as I briefly go through some ideas about why I think these videos worked. Additionally, I’ll be citing some people reacting to these apologies, and attempting to use them as a means to talk about different ways of receiving the apology, and whether we should care about these reactions to the apologies. But before we get so directly into examples, let’s talk about what elements of an Apology Video are important.

Acknowledge Your Victims and Put Them First

This seems to be a major stumbling block in a lot of apologies, but we see in both Tom and Ian’s apologies that this is very critical to the way their apologies function. In both cases, the YouTuber centers the conversation around the people harmed by their behavior, and in both cases, the apology is specifically directed to them, rather than their audience. This feeds into my later point about “protecting your business” but it’s important to highlight here because this, ultimately seems to be the most important single piece of any apology. The second it seems like you are putting your victims aside to promote your business, or redeem yourself, or similar, you are probably going to invalidate your apology.

For an example, in Ian’s apology, and the following social media reaction to it, another white YouTuber, unaffected personally by Ian’s historical bad behavior, spoke up and said Ian didn’t need to apologize. In response, Ian released a blanket statement clarifying that he didn’t care about anyone’s opinion of his apology except for the opinions of those who he was apologizing to. In this case, he was apologizing to the marginalized folk in his community and beyond who had been affected by his explicitly racist and ableist behaviors. This sort of statement underlines that Ian was more concerned with doing right by his victims than in restoring his reputation, and this increased sincerity made his apology more believable and is often referenced by creators like Kat Blaque in their reactions to his apology, as a major positive.

This is a shockingly uncommon action to take, and very many famous YouTuber apologies totally fail to hit this mark. Logan Paul’s apologies for “The Forest Incident” repeatedly failed to acknowledge the man he filmed or his family, and ultimately this oversight made the apology seem insincere, and created another cyclone of bad press around him and his brand.

Colleen Ballinger released this apology June 28, 2023.

This reaction compilation was released July 1, 2023.

Kat Blaque released this reaction on May 24, 2023.

D’Angelo Wallace released this response to both Ian and Charlie on May 27, 2023.

This video was uploaded August 18, 2020. It has over 600K views, and less than 4K likes. Not a good ratio!

Ellen DeGeneres released this apology September, 21, 2020.

Commentary YouTuber, Jarvis Johnson released this reaction September 24, 2020.

Take Responsibility

This is another critical feature of an apology. Taking responsibility for your bad behavior is often difficult and presents a real threat to your ego. However, successfully doing this also reveals a maturity and an interest in correcting past wrongs and improving from them. Doing this successfully also indicates to your audience that you know what you did was wrong, and reinforces your critical role in how that bad behavior happened.

In Tom’s apology, he very clearly takes responsibility for his previous bad behavior, going as far to deliberately expose himself for things people would, largely, be unaware of. This sort of responsibility-taking presents a real risk to his business, but it also indicates his seriousness about cleaning up his behavior, and it makes it clear that he understands both what he’s doing, and why.

Conversely, in James Somerton’s many apologies, he constantly deflects to his mental health, makes excuses, and tries to distract from his own participation in his bad behavior as a means to protect his reputation by casting responsibility onto things other than himself. This undermined his sincerity and cast him as a manipulator