What constitutes a forgivable apology in the online world of today’s media.
In recent weeks, the world of online slander and heat resurfaced in the media, including an alleged joke of an acting job, performed by none other than now infamous beauty YouTuber Laura Lee. Many immediate responses expressed shock that no apology had been announced— in its place, a “full face of fashion Nova Makeup” video— the comments vividly reflecting fans’ disappointments. But an art in makeup has proven itself not to constitute any sort of acting abilities, leaving millions of fans unconvinced when a less than sincere “apology” video was posted only two days later. Many comments asking if she was being serious, and many sarcastic jabs including “me trying to turn in all of my assignments at the end of the semester“ and “ sis should just delete the whole channel”. With her birthday recently passing on September 1, wishful comments seemed to be scarce in the Twitter world and a post from the blast news on August 22, informed us that,
“ Laura Lee has been dropped or suspended from everyone of her sponsorships amid backlash over a racist tweet.”
And Lee isn’t the only one among her close knit friend group to have had racist and offensive tweets resurface, also followed by less than convincing apology videos as well, close friends including, Manny Mua, Nikita Dragon, Gabriel Zamora, and a surprisingly long list of others. Occurrences like these have become a corrupt commonality across today’s celebrities’ social media accounts.
We should be silencing the people that speak or have spoken out against the active movement for an equal and excepting society we’ve been working so hard to have today. We should not be giving them a bedazzled microphone and ask their opinion only to be entertained by the joke of a performance and still left with the absence of an apology. It’s truly sad to see someone with such a huge voice, ability to reach, communicate with, and influence millions at their fingertips to be wasted on hurtful, sexist, homophobic, and racist opinions, hurting the hearts of thousands of offended subscribers. But a second chance is not an idea we should become unfamiliar to. The media has proven, through the likes of Jeffree Star, forgiveness is a possibility for some. But when a celebrity of Laura Lee’s status publishes a five minute video of horrendous acting, a jump cut to add a single Arrowhead water drop to her cheek, and a series of squeaks and noises in the place of crying is not my idea of an apology that would leave me and millions of her fans feeling very forgiving.
Hateful jokes and comments have been apart of our community for too long, and as a generation it has been a present goal we’ve come so close to achieving- obtaining a more loving, peaceful society. So to see these things people we glorify and hold so highly have posted to the internet for the world to see, no matter the length of time ago, hits a sore spot for a lot of people in media now. Despite their intention to harm, being reminded of the way you felt everyday through ‘jokes’ and tweets in a similar fashion flooded on your news feed doesn’t instill a good feeling for most. We shouldn’t expect them not to be apart of the masses to unfollow and retaliate the only way we as a society know how- with more hate. Cases like these spread like wildfires, and they’re better put out before they’ve spread too far and have caused too much damage. Is it in the better for everyone involved, for accounts of these celebrities to be deleted- if not at the least suspended? Most likely. But they won’t be, because what’s a couple hundred thousand lost as compared to all of them and everything as a whole. A clean slate feels good in most cases, maybe that should be a big piece of this ‘new self’ they’re all apparently trying so hard to find.
