While YouTube may foster creativity and inventiveness, it can also serve as a platform for drama, as seen by the numerous scandals and controversies that have startled people all over the world.
We have not arranged these controversies in any particular order, so do let us know if you are aware of any that we have overlooked. Let’s count them down.
10) ImAllex & False Rape Allegations Against Slazo
ImAllexx is an British YouTuber who generated a lot of controversy and hatred. He was well-known for his commentary videos on popular subjects, however two significant scandals ultimately ruined his career.
ImAllexx and Slazo, another YouTuber, were close friends and frequently worked together. On June 10, 2019, Slazo’s ex-girlfriend Chey posted on TwitLonger about her toxic relationship with Slazo, claiming that she had been “emotionally and sexually abused”, ImAllexx and other YouTubers, including Kingani, Squizzy, and Weest, came out in favour of Chey in response to these accusations and posted numerous tweets accusing Slazo of being “manipulative” despite Slazo providing substantial proof that Chey’s claims were fabricated.
ImAllexx faced criticism because, rather than approaching Slazo to get his side of the story, he actually had assisted Chey in organising the Twitlonger that initially accused Slazo of being an abusive partner. Well-known and respected YouTuber Kavos called ImAllexx out on it, adding to the beef he already had with the controversial YouTuber, to criticise his handling of the situation and his actions, as well as highlighting the dangers of making false accusations against someone.
Everyone who supported Chey, notably ImAllexx, ultimately received heavy backlash by other YouTubers and the community, and they all faced harsh criticism for trying to ruin Slazo’s career and life.
ImAllexx expressed regret for what he did, but the damage had already been done. However, he would ruin his career and reputation for good on June 15, 2024 when Alice, ImAllexx’s former girlfriend, published a Google Drive folder with details on how Alex assaulted her. She had stated that they would have disagreements on Discord, which would culminate in Alex verbally abusing her. Several videos of his abusive and reckless conduct were in the Google Drive folder, and he received a lot, and I mean a lot, of backlash and many of his former YouTube friends, most notably WillNE and Memeulous, cut ties with him.
9) Squizzy
Speaking of Squizzy, this popular Australian YouTuber who goes by Hyojin Choi in real life, is well-known for her animated and quick-painting videos that have amassed millions of views and a substantial following on YouTube.
She often streams on Twitch in addition to her YouTube account, where she primarily shows off her animation skills or takes requests for custom artwork from her followers.
Squizzy, however, has been involved in a number of scandals, including leaking racist comments on Discord and backing Chey in her fabricated accusations against Slazo. However, similar to Alex, she failed to reach the one million subscriber milestone on YouTube due to two significant controversies that costed her supporters to distance themselves from her.
Numerous individuals looked into and discovered proof that Hyojin had an NSFW account, where she would design obscene content for YouTubers. When a sketch she had done of a 16-year-old Twitter user named Eileen9Tails surfaced online in 2017, she was met with a barrage of accusations that Hyojin, who was 18 at the time, which made people start labelling Hyojin as a paedophile.
In response to criticism, Hyojin tweeted that she intended to try suicide. The admins on her Discord channel said that shortly after she sent the tweet, she was admitted to the hospital. Following her hospitalisation, Hyojin was placed in a psychiatric facility in July 2019. She was discharged shortly after that.
Her career was called into uncertainty again on July 19, 2022, when Punk Duck, Hyojin’s ex-boyfriend, revealed a statement on Twitter that Hyojin had physically and emotionally abused him. The violent relationship between Hyojin and Punk lasted from 2019 to 2021. During that time, Hyojin is said to have turned physically hostile against Punk on many occasions, hitting him in the head with a knife and threatening to kill him. In another Discord DM, which Punk disclosed, Hyojin acknowledged carrying out all of those actions.
My history with my abuser pic.twitter.com/MaiSUy3pMA
— Punk Duck (@PunkDuck_) July 19, 2022
The claims caused Hyojin to face severe backlash. Her acts were denounced by several YouTubers and other people. Her channel started to lose subscribers, and she soon fell below a million subscribers, a goal she had met the month before. After being silent for more than two weeks on social media, Hyojin apologised on Twitter on August 3, 2022. She apologised to Punk Duck, also known as Ed, in that statement, revising their earlier apologies that they had posted on Discord. In addition, she mentioned that she had seen a therapist for a short while, but other than the apology, there has been no confirmation of those assertions. In her apologies, she also said that she would be taking “a very, very long break”. Hyojin has been completely silent on all social media after the apology, including removing her Patreon profile.
8) CoryxKenshin’s Mortuary Assistant Video Age Restriction
A 2022 horror game called ‘The Mortuary Assistant’ was created by DarkStone Digital and released by DreadXP. It was a huge hit on Steam and even went on to become a bestseller. The game did, however, spark some controversy for how YouTube handled the age restrictions claims on the platform, particularly when it appeared to favour some creators over one of the most well-known and famous YouTuber CoryxKenshin’s video.
Due to the success of the game, many creators created content using graphic gameplay clips, including Cory DeVante Williams, also known as CoryxKenshin. He received a claim from YouTube advising they are age restricting the video. However, other videos with the same content were not age restricted at all. Confused, Cory filed an appeal but it was rejected, so he emailed his YouTube representative a video of Markiplier, an even more well-known YouTuber, playing the same game with the same exact content as Cory’s video but with no restriction. He was expecting them to censor Markiplier’s video, yet instead YouTube removed all restrictions on Cory’s video.
However, Cory contacted his YouTube representative again as he felt personally targeted when they chose to keep Markiplier’s video unrestricted and use it to ensure that he had not violated the content policy.
YouTube then changed their minds again and age restricted all videos with The Mortuary Assistant gameplay within the video. This prompted Cory to believe that the company’s preference for bigger authors, or perhaps prejudice, influenced reviewers’ selections. He wasn’t sure whether his video had been claimed by a computer or human reviewer.
On August 24, 2022, Cory released a video making accusations that “racism and favouritism” has an impact on YouTube’s review system.
Numerous other YouTubers, including Jacksepticeye, Ludwig, GothamChess, Phillip DeFranco, berleezy, Deestroying, and Cr1TiKaL, expressed their support online, causing a lot of outrage at YouTube. The video eventually climbed to number one on the trending page.
7) Brooke Houts
Brooke Houts was a former prominent YouTuber known for her vlogs, lifestyle, story-time, and fitness content. Her ascent to stardom began in October 2016, when she gained a few thousand subscribers in a single day, this continued for many months, resulting in huge success.
Brooke’s reputation was severely harmed on August 6, 2019, after she mistakenly uploaded unedited footage of her doberman pet being choked, spitting, beating, kicking, and shoving by her. The video was eventually removed from Brooke’s channel, although it was accessible via social media prior to its removal. Brooke did upload it again, but it was modified to look like a regular video on her channel.
June Nicole Lapine, also known as the prominent YouTube commentator Shoe0nHead, was the first big influencer to raise awareness of the clip by creating a video about it and calling her out, which resulted in backlash and condemnation for Brooke Houts’ conduct.
Brooke posted a statement on Twitter but received outrage as she denied any responsibility, escalating the situation and finally making headlines in the press. Over 100,000 Twitter users commented to her tweet, saying she shouldn’t keep a 70-pound Doberman if she doesn’t know how to take care of it. Other tweeters demanded the removal of her Doberman, and the termination of her channel from YouTube.
She received so much backlash from the internet that she finally removed all of her videos and disappeared from YouTube, where she also deactivated her channel.
6) The Death of Pedro Ruiz
This incident on YouTube raised an important question: How far would you go for views on a YouTube video?
On June 26, 2017, a couple attempted to create a viral video by doing a life-threatening act. Pedro, the boyfriend, held a hardback book in front of his chest and his lover, Monalisa, would fire at the book with a 50-caliber Desert Eagle handgun. The plan for the stunt was for the bullet to be stopped by the book, preventing Pedro from being hit. Monalisa was just a foot away from Pedro as they attempted, and as the pistol fires, the bullet passes through the book and straight into Pedro’s chest.
Monalisa quickly contacted 911 but Pedro died on his way to the hospital. What’s even more concerning is that their 3-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, witnessed the incident, and Monalisa was pregnant with her second child.
Monalisa was quickly detained as a result awaiting trial six months later. On December 19, 2017, she pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to six months in jail, ten years of probation and is barred from possessing guns for the rest of her life.
The incident made headlines worldwide and sparked a debate on the internet about how far individuals would go to go viral on YouTube, and people stated that this incident should serve as a lesson.
5) CallMeCarson
The Minecraft community took a serious hit to the gut as a result of the controversy from one of the big names in the community. Well-known American Minecraft YouTuber, CallMeCarson was a very popular streamer who frequently recorded himself on Discord while playing video games with his pals. In addition, he founded the former YouTube group ‘Lunch Club’.
A Twitter user @miniborb, also known as Sam, came forward on January 5 and revealed that Carson had been grooming her. At the time, Carson was 19 and she was 17. To stoke the flames, YouTuber JOKO published chats between Carson and other friends, which verified that Carson and Miniborb had exchanged nude pictures back in the beginning of 2019.
In an interview with Keemstar on January 4, 2021, Hugbox and Traves, two former Lunch Club members revealed that Carson had sex with Sam in the first part of 2019. Carson confessed his story to every Lunch Club member and caused the group’s disbandment.
As if it wasn’t already awful, On January 9, Keemstar posted a second video about the incident, addressing another accuser of Carson. She claimed that Carson was 20 years old and she was 17 at the time of their photo exchange in the middle of 2019.
Carson closed down his subreddit and erased his Discord server in response to the accusations. Regarding Carson sexting younger females, a lot of YouTubers, fans, and former fans have differing opinions. While some have said Carson was an innocent man, others have called him a groomer and paedophile and pointed out that Carson was exploiting his position to speak with fans.
After the controversy, Carson bounced back and resumed his social media and streaming activities. However, the backlash did affect his popularity and has partially damaged his career.
4) LtCorbis
Sophia Totterman, formerly known as LtCorbis or Soph, was a very contentious YouTube commenter who caused such a stir that she was permanently removed from the platform.
A Russian YouTuber named NFKRZ shared screenshots from Soph’s Discord in April 2019 on Twitter, showing her making anti-Muslim statements and advocating for a “mass genocide of Muslims.” which she declared during a three-hour streaming debate with NFKRZ. She said that while she did not support genocidal acts, she despised Islam in general which as you would expect, received huge amounts of backlash from the internet. But this did not faze her at all and she then posted a controversial video titled “Be Not Afraid” on YouTube, which infuriated a lot of people and was branded a racist hate video.
The last straw that would end her channel on YouTube was when Sophia released another controversial and offensive video titled “Pride and Prejudice” on July 31, 2019, which discussed the sexualisation of children at pride parades, including Desmond is Amazing, the Sex Education curriculum in Californian elementary schools, and parents who are having their children taken away because they refuse to give them their hormone-blocking medicine. Beginning the video with a mocking message to her fans, Sophia said, “Make sure to blame me in your manifestos” which is a very dark reference to the manifestos of mass shooters such as the one in Christchurch, New Zealand, which claimed 51 lives in March of that year.
Not surprisingly, Her YouTube channel was terminated on August 1, 2019, due to a violation of the platform’s rules of service.
3) Dr. Disrespect
Herschel “Guy” Beahm IV, also known as Dr Disrespect or The Doc, was one of the most popular streamers on YouTube and Twitch until his ban. In March 2020, Beahm agreed to a multi-year contract with Twitch but by June 26 2020 his account was permanently banned from Twitch due to a violation of their community guidelines.
Even Discord kicked Dr. Disrespect out of their partnership program that same day for breaking their code of conduct. People began to speculate why Dr. Disrespect was banned as no one was aware of the reason – and the reason remained a mystery for four years.
On June 21, 2024, however, former Twitch employee Cody Conners would openly disclose the cause of Beahm’s suspension from Twitch on X. Conners said that he intended to meet a minor at the next TwitchCon and that he had sent sexually suggestive emails to a minor using the non-existing Twitch Whispers feature, which enabled broadcasters to have secret conversations with their followers.
In the beginning, Dr. Disrespect refuted the accusations, saying that he had done “nothing illegal, no wrongdoing was found, and I was paid”. However, as the claims gained more exposure, so did the ire of those who were waiting for his response and of his supporters, who felt that he was being silent about this alarming accusation.
He then accepted responsibility for remarks he made in reaction to the accusations that “sometimes he leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.” The statement was removed in August, and he tweeted, “we have lots to talk about,” right after. Ex-Twitch employees responded that it was inaccurate, calling the messages “sexually graphic” and claiming that he kept sending messages even after learning that the person was a minor.
The controversy sparked a massive and nasty response, with well-known figures like KSI, Nickmercs, TimTheTatman, Pokimane, and Valkyrae referring to him as “Dr. Disgusting.”
dr disgusting
— RAE (@Valkyrae) June 25, 2024
If that wasn’t bad enough, YouTube demonetised Beahm’s channel and suspended him from the platform’s partner program. His collaborations with Turtle Beach, Midnight Society, FanDuel, and other sponsors were also terminated.
2) Nicole Arbour’s Dear Fat People Video
Nicole Arbour, a controversial former YouTuber, posted a video titled “Dear Fat People” on her channel on September 4, 2015. The film got a lot of bad attention and Arbour was the focus of criticism and a lot of backlash with some claiming that was fat shaming. Due to allegations that it broke YouTube’s terms of service, the video was briefly taken down from the platform but was eventually put back up.
Upon appearing on The View on September 16, 2015, Arbour defended the “Dear Fat People” video, saying that “that video wasn’t made to offend people…it’s just satire,” that she wasn’t targeting people with medical conditions, and that the video wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. She also became one of the most despised YouTubers on the platform.
Here are some dishonourable mentions:
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iiluminaughtii’s Downfall
Blair Zon, also known online as iilluminaughtii, was a well-known YouTuber who narrated videos on multi-level marketing schemes, businesses, and charitable organisations that were written, produced, and edited by her editors and staff. She was part of both joint channels Sad Milk and SFTP with Tommy C.
She is frequently referred to as the “DARVO Queen of YouTube” and “CreepShow Art 2.0” because of her long history of lying, authoritarian control, neglect, debt-trap diplomacy, victim blaming, backstabbing, bullying, silencing victims, doxxing, frivolous litigation, emotional and psychological abuse, defamation, manipulation, stalking, harassment, intimidation, smear campaigns, and blackmail.
Blair is also notorious for using questionable methods to file fraudulent copyright claims in an attempt to remove videos that criticise her. She has been involved in several scandals and issues related to her job on YouTube, but the worst thing she did was to Wonderstruck Guy, a former Sad Milk editor and Blair’s former coworker and colleague. Wonder created a thread retweeting the YouTuber The Click’s thread, in which he also gave his side of the story and detailed how Blair had treated him badly. The facts that Blair disclosed about Wonder in her “iilluminaughtii exposed” thread in response to his thread included very personal information such as Wonder’s suicide letter, which sparked a lot of negative online feedback on her.
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Tobuscus
Tobias Joseph “Toby” Turner, better known online as Tobuscus, was one of the most well-liked and well-known YouTubers to have ever existed on the site. He was also one of the most well-known gaming YouTubers in the early 2010s.
Toby Turner, however, was the subject of many allegations of abuse and rape in an April 2016 Tumblr post by his ex-girlfriend and YouTuber April Fletcher. She had also mentioned that he started using narcotics in the middle of 2013. She had stated that she would eventually move in with Toby, but that she had met him about 2011 while working at E3. April related an instance in which Toby, not using drugs, broke things in the kitchen. As she was about to leave after experiencing a panic attack, Toby begged her to come back inside the place where he had allegedly raped her.
Even though the allegations made Toby’s actions look extremely unsettling, many fans were still shocked by the Tumblr post. However, matters worsened on April 9, 2016, when Amelia Talon responded to April with a video that supported her. She added that since she has seen firsthand what Toby does to other women, there is no reason to disagree with her assertion. She claims she witnessed him engaging in excessively aggressive sexual behaviour, including groping and taking off women’s trousers in front of her, and even making an effort to do the same to her.
Toby posted a video on April 11, 2016, disputing the accusation. He said that he never took action without her approval. Due to insufficient proof, many of the fan reactions to the charges have been conflicting; some have defended Toby while others have called him out. Needless to say, the blow he took to his career never fully healed.
1) Logan Paul’s Suicide Forest Video In Japan
Logan Alexander Paul is one of the worlds most renowned American YouTubers, professional wrestler, and social media personality. He is one of the co-founders of Prime, a prosperous beverage firm. Since November 2018, Paul has also served as the host of the well-liked podcast, Impaulsive, which has amassed over four million YouTube followers.
Logan Paul first became well-known and amassed large fan base in 2013 after sharing sketches on Vine. After the closing of Vine, he switched to YouTube and gained further popularity. However, in 2017 Logan Paul shocked the world and startled viewers of the site; the controversy has been known as one of the largest scandals to happen in YouTube history.
On December 31, 2017, Paul posted a infamously now-deleted video on his YouTube channel displaying the recently deceased corpse of a man who died by hanging himself in Aokigahara, Japan, often known as the “suicide forest” due to its reputation as a suicide spot. Paul and friends visited the area and came across a man hanging from a tree, which was both shocking and distressing. When he spotted the corpse, Paul continuously zoomed in and made observations, jokes, and body language, including commenting how the suicide victim’s hands were practically purple and predicting that the victim committed suicide on the same day they entered the forest.
Logan Paul faced widespread backlash, with a slew of well-known YouTubers and celebrities, several online publications, television, radio news, talk show sources, and even his personal friends criticising him for presenting the explicit content to his young audience.
Logan deleted the video after it had received over 6.5 million views, 600,000 likes, and was trending at #6 in just one day, which drew a lot of criticism on YouTube. Logan immediately apologised twice on Twitter and YouTube, but this just fuelled the anger, with his YouTube apologetic video becoming a meme.
Logan was then dropped by almost every one of his sponsors, including Pepsi, and his merchandise sales plummeted. Surprisingly, he weathered the backlash, but it remains the worst YouTube controversy in history.
