By Aidan Rogan, Aviator staff writer
Those who have been on YouTube or similar media sites in the past couple of months have surely noticed at least some amount of drama from YouTubers and other internet celebrities.
And those who haven’t, in a lot of ways, are lucky because in the grand scheme of things, it’s quite stupid.
Basically, a lot (and I mean A LOT) of meltdowns have occurred across the webpages of all sorts of internet personas, from KeemStar to Leafy to Marina Joyce to fouseyTUBE. And it has been blown WAY out of proportion by people who care just a bit too much.
Now, to an extent, I am interested in these sorts of things. But, after a while I just didn’t care.
Did I watch videos exposing KeemStar? Did I know the fouseyTUBE fight with RiceGum was fake the first time I saw it appear on Twitter? Yes, I did. These were all huge for a while.
But, that’s old news. No one cares about that anymore. And looking back on it now, to say that it was a waste of time would definitely be an understatement.
Internet drama just gets more and more convoluted, layered, and petty as time goes on, and I’d assume many people (including myself) get sick of it. And, eventually it just ends. So, for reference, this is a basic timeline of the past three months of YouTube:
1: KeemStar is accused of slander, shady manipulation and a slew of illegal practices by LeafyIsHere, GradeA UnderA, and iDubbbz.
2: Keem “quits” DramaAlert… But returns two weeks later, saying these accusations are false, yet continues to, seemingly, continues to cause controversy in the YouTube community.
3: Onision, another YouTuber, responds harshly to the sudden murder of the singer/YouTuber Christina Grimmie, causing lots of hate and lost subscribers on his YouTube channel.
4: fouseyTUBE fakes a fight with RiceGum, explaining the reason was “to show how easy it is to manipulate drama channels,” then proceeds to create the hashtag #makeyoutubepositiveagain.
5: fouseyTUBE is called out for creating his hashtag and faking his fight for attention, causing lots of people to unsubscribe and give him a lot of hate.
6: The YouTuber Marina Joyce appeared to have been kidnapped by a criminal group (some had speculated ISIS) after many people observed extremely strange behavior in her recent videos, a string on worrying tweets, and a seemingly sudden disappearance from YouTube. Drama reached an all-time high when a video of her surfaced of her being chased by someone, causing huge panic for a few days. However, it was all just a publicity stunt.
7: YouTube starts banning young SmallTubers for having unpopular opinions and for having videos on “controversial” topics. Rumors of huge channels such as Scarce, DramaAlert, LeafyIsHere, Pyrocynical, and RiceGum being shut down spread like wildfire.
8: YouTube then begins to de-monetize (taking away the ability for creators to make money off their videos) many huge YouTube channels, like Philip DeFranco, GradeA UnderA, and Scarce. The hashtag #YouTubeIsOverParty becomes the 4th most popular hashtag on Twitter for a few days.
9: iDubbbz makes a video about LeafyIsHere, causing the hashtag #nochin to go viral, after he shows off pictures of Leafy where it appears his chin is extremely small.
That was a bit ridiculous. I think a timeline for mere internet drama taking THAT LONG to tell is ludicrous. Well, at least to me. So, I decided ask a few people on what they thought about this situation.
Jared Fietz, freshman: “I don’t necessarily remember anything specific, because I don’t really think about it, and, when it comes to internet drama, I think it’s just wasted space. And people shouldn’t act up about it.”
Alec Kloehn, freshman: “I pay attention to internet drama all the time, because I’m always on the internet; it’s kind of a habit.”
Jacob Martin, freshman: “Well, I watched it a little, but it seems a little repetitive with the same stuff over and over again, and it just gets boring after a while.”
Now, there’s always going to be internet drama; whether you like it or not, there will always be more and more of it. New drama will replace old drama, and what was hot two weeks ago becomes old news by then.
So, if you ask me, why bother? If there’s always more and more drama, why would you need to get obsessed over specific parts of it? It’s in your face, but it really doesn’t affect you.
It would just become irrelevant after a short while. In my opinion, there’s no need to be overly involved in it. And if you are, it’s important to know when it’s time to stop.