Leslie: Y'know... I actually did enjoy watching that one Brickleberry retrospective that Ultimatewurmplelover put out a while back...
(Toontalker2005 and his wife express utter appall)
Brianne: Leslie!! Don't you know that Ultimatewurmplelover is the guy who manipulated Squimbledonk into making a video exposing that Pringlefuck cheated on their wife Scarlet Banana, because Pringlefuck collaborated with Glorpshit on a video taking down Finkledinkle, and Finkledinkle doxxed Snickerpoodle, because Snickerpoodle revealed problematic DMs from Hitlerdad in Toontalker2005's Discord server?
(Leslie appears both abashed and confused)
(Toontalker2005 and his wife express utter appall)
Brianne: Leslie!! Don't you know that Ultimatewurmplelover is the guy who manipulated Squimbledonk into making a video exposing that Pringlefuck cheated on their wife Scarlet Banana, because Pringlefuck collaborated with Glorpshit on a video taking down Finkledinkle, and Finkledinkle doxxed Snickerpoodle, because Snickerpoodle revealed problematic DMs from Hitlerdad in Toontalker2005's Discord server?
(Leslie appears both abashed and confused)
—Leslie and Brianne summing up modern internet discourse near the end of this arc
It's very easy to make your voice heard on The Internet, and just as easy to wind up Overshadowed by Controversy, so please choose your words (and actions) wisely.
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Individual Creators
- AnimatedJames was once a decently popular YouTube animator most well known for his series pitting characters from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic against characters from Sonic the Hedgehog. However, it was eventually discovered that he had been creating Squicky fart fetish comics with characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, including characters who are canonically young children. Him going on a drunken rant attacking his fans shortly after did not help. He eventually retired from the internetnote and is mostly well known for, and is a constant butt of jokes over, the fetish comics.
- "AZERTY'S Lost VHS Recordings" was the name of an aspiring YouTuber who primarily focused on creating analog horror videos about Nickelodeon, commonly referred to as "videopastas," with his videos typically using real-world events to tie into channel hijacks. However, his reputation quickly took a nosedive after he uploaded "6/06/2006 Nickelodeon Hijacking Incident", a video that twists Stephen Hillenburg into someone who murdered his wife and ends with text saying that she'll see him in hell. Considering that Hillenburg is considered by many to be a Sacred Cow for creating one of the most popular and beloved cartoons of all time, both the analog horror and animation communities saw the video as an incredibly cruel and disrespectful way to use Hillenburg's name in a fictional work (especially since the video was uploaded years after Hillenburg had passed away) and near-universally tore it to shreds. The amount of backlash would result in AZERTY deciding to distance himself from the videopasta community along with deleting his YouTube channel before later rebranding, and the video is generally seen as an example of how not to treat a real-life figure in analog horror.
- Video game Caustic Critic and Vancouver film student Alexander Badr, better known as Game Dude, was more well known for his tendency to post spam advertising for his webshow in the comments sections of other videos, poor responses to criticism (including uploading video responses to critics and constantly taking down his videos and re-uploading them with modifications whenever their ratings fell too low), and the time he didn't deliver a DVD of his show to a man who paid for it (he had stopped selling it, but an impersonator channel re-uploaded the video advertising it, complete with link to Alexander's PayPal, although Alexander eventually refunded the money several weeks later after realizing what happened). However, following an indictment over stalking his ex-girlfriend, he left Canada and resurfaced in a few other countries (resulting in the Internet at large coming under the impression that he was fleeing the charges), and his whereabouts have remained unknown since 2015. This documentary covers the controversies in more detail.
- Colleen Ballinger, the creator of Miranda Sings, was accused of grooming her underage fans in July 2023, which she vaguely denied in an infamous video that featured her playing the ukulele, with Ballinger rationalizing that her lawyers said she couldn't talk about the allegations but not that she couldn't sing about them. Not only was the reaction to this video extremely negative but the wide coverage it received brought attention of the allegations to a wider audience. Not long after, an ex-employee of Ballinger posted screenshots of her sharing nude photos of Trisha Paytas with minors, resulting in Paytas ending Oversharing, a podcast hosted by her and Ballinger. Ballinger's accusations and response video have overshadowed Miranda Sings and her other work.
- Kevin Kennedy, better known as "Dead Kennedy in Space" or "DKiS" was once renowned in the spaceflight community for his coverage of spaceflight history from Apollo Program to the Space Shuttle and his debunking of flat earth and other space conspiracies. However, in 2024, his infatuation with Gawr Gura led to increased scrutiny towards Kevin. This ultimately exploded in December of that year when a book detailing a rewrite of Lolita featuring an alleged self-insert sexually exploiting a 16-year-old girl was uncovered. Instead of mounting a proper response to the allegations, Kevin lashed out and refused to provide a PDF of the book that would've potentially cleared his name, and what further incriminated himself was his interactions with prominent lolicons and lolicon-adjacent VTubers. Following the controversy, Kevin would drop the DKiS name entirely, rename his YouTube channel to "Classic Aerospace History", and fully embrace himself in the lolicon community. Nowadays, any and all discussion on DKiS is more about his infatuation with lolicon than his content.
- Canadian animatior James Bear was originally a decently sized YouTuber until 2022 through 2024 where it was revealed that he molested his sister when he was 15 and she was 9, as well as harassing his ex-girlfriend. His responses didn't help either, as he repeatedly lied, played the victim, and refused to take responsibility for his actions. After this went down, he has taken an indefinite hiatus.
- Bryon "Psyguy" Beaubein was the creator of the website Fireball 20XL, a site that hosted webcomics, Sprite Comics, music, podcasts, and video series centering around video games, especially Sonic the Hedgehog. In 2014, he became subject to a large number of accusations that he was a serial abuser, sexual harasser, and child predator who had engaged in emotionally and sexually abusive behaviors toward his staff members and fans, including minors. This eventually resulted in him taking down Fireball 20XL and vanishing from the Internet. While the other staff members of the site would escape the controversy by working on their own projects, Beaubein does Let's Plays under the handle Brinnstar (formerly BitPolar) and his channel's low subscriber count and view counts indicate that he will never escape the controversy around him.
- Lorenzo Becker, a fairly popular French weightlifting YouTuber, was known for gaining an impressive muscular body after he started out looking rather feeble, and he was seen as inspirational for many aspiring weightlifters. However, his reputation crashed and burned when he had a falling-out with his coach, "Maître Yoda". While he called him a manipulative grifter, Maître Yoda himself did a long vlog in response where he described in detail everything wrong that Lorenzo did: he exposed him as an irresponsible drug-addicted psychopath, a gigolo who traded sexual favors with a gay TV producer, and a child abuser. Since then, Lorenzo has lied very low, having become the subject of massive Memetic Mutation at his expense on the French Internet.
- Brad Taste in Music is nowadays less known for his music reviews and more for admitting to being arrested for domestic violence after yelling at his ex-fianceé, which was later proven when a recording of him verbally abusing her was posted onto his channel.
- Randomware was an Argentinian YouTuber originally known for being one of the best and most recognized YouTube poopers in the Hispanic Internet. Everything changed when in 2021 he made a 6-hour-long video exposing fellow YouTuber (and his ex-partner) Mordo of multiple "serious crimes" such as grooming or animal abuse on his Discord server called Forochangos. These actions made a large part of the Hispanic community see him as some sort of internet "hero"; however, as time passed, Randomware would begin to get exposed thanks to different YouTubers who were falsely accused by him of being "accomplices" of Mordo. It would later be known that the accusations Randomware made were actually false and it was all caused because Randomware had a lot of resentment towards Mordo for having broken up with him. Finally, Randomware would end up being exposed for being a liar and a hypocrite since he, on the other hand, defended a true pedophile just for having been his friend and having helped him dox Mordo, causing his disappearance from the Internet since 2022. Today, Randomware is only remembered for his entire scandal with Mordo and not for his YouTube poops.
- Doomentio was first known on the Hispanic Internet as one of the most promising animation reviewers and critics, collaborating with people such as La Zona Cero (the most famous animation reviewer on the Hispanic Internet at the time) and having his own reviewer group known as the "PHY Group". However, his image would begin to change when he began to demonstrate his more radical thoughts, such as his support for Nazi Germany and the alt-right. Since then, Doomentio's reputation would begin to plummet over time; after he began to have drama with different users (including some former friends of his) who challenged his ideologies, as well as having personal problems with a former member of the PHY group known as Ocio, with whom he went to live in real life in an attempt to "bring the members together in one place." To summarize the story, today Doomentio is better known on the Hispanic Internet as a huge laughingstock, with numerous communities dedicated solely to making fun of him and his friends.
- Meanwhile, Doomentio's biggest critic and "enemy" known as Mi Vida Bajo El Puente or Jerry Reviewer has not been so lucky either. Originally known for being another animation reviewer and critic, over time he would start to obsess over Doomentio, uploading numerous videos and streams where he would talk about him, his friends, or the drama that surrounded him, always presenting himself as being Doomentio's "antithesis" or his "greatest rival". However, various questionable things would soon be revealed about Jerry such as his support for Fidel Castro and the Cuban dictatorship, that he lied about supposedly having his own clinic (since Jerry works as a doctor) when in reality it is only the area where he works in a nursing home, that he was involved in doxxing attempts towards a female user who was falsely accused of being related to Doomentio, that he monetized a video talking about the suicide of his "best friend" Bachatota, and that he collaborated with a pedophile known as DFG-Versalles. Nowadays, today it's difficult to talk about Jerry without mentioning all the controversies that would lead to his downfall and exile from the internet.
- Brendan Blaber (better known online as JelloApocalypse), the creator of So This Is Basically... and Epithet Erased has had a mortar of minor controversies over the years, but his most infamous controversy was from working for Discotek Media as an unpaid translator on an English dub for Lovely★Complex. Around the dub's release in early 2024 (the anime and manga having finished their runs in Japan over a decade prior), Blaber ranted on his Patreon page about how much he hated the source material and insulted a voice actor for the anime and the manga's author, going as far as to call the latter a psychopath for how they presented the main character's actions. Blaber went on to brag about how much he tried to heavy-edit the scripts to make it "better" product by fixing the "flaws" of the show's narrative. While the most infamous change he purported to make (that the manga author's Creator Cameo in the final episode be removed) did not make it into the release, the rant invited a massive amount of criticism and a (now deleted) statement from Discotek that they would be distancing themselves from him in future. As such, whenever Blaber is brought up in internet discussions, he's usually the target of disdain and ridicule, with many viewing him as a narcissistic and bad-faith curmudgeon.
- Jeremy "Arcadum" Black, originally known as the creator and dungeon master of popular Actual Play series The Living World of Verum, is nowadays almost entirely discussed with regards to the many behind-the-scenes horror stories that popped up around August 2021, documenting a chronic history of being abusive and highly manipulative towards his players and fellow creators, including sexually harassing around 20 female participants. With just about everyone who formerly collaborated with him — players, artists, composers, business partners, etc. — verifying his history and disowning him, making it next-to-impossible for Arcadum's shows to continue, it's just as unlikely that he will ever shed the bad press.
- Chris Bores, the creator of The Irate Gamer, has had all discussions of his and show clouded by countless accusations of plagiarism throughout his career due to the similarities between his show and The Angry Video Game Nerd, with several lines taken nearly word to word from James' reviews. Not helped by his questionable responses to the accusations, most infamously a comment reply had him once claim James Rolfe copied him and then telling the one who gave him that comment to "go shove a cactus up your ass!"
- Shad M. Brooks of Shadiversity initially garnered popularity for his videos analysing historical swords and weaponry. However, he has had his reputation overshadowed by his public support for AI-generated art and his conservative views on media. These controversies have largely overshadowed his previous works to the point where Shad is nowadays known as a conservative pundit, which has caused creators like Matt Easton, Overly Sarcastic Productions, and his brother Jazza, all of whom previously collaborated with Shad, to distance themselves from him.
- Tom Cassell, aka ProSyndicate, is now known less for his gaming commentary videos and more for his repeated advertising violations, in particular, his promoting a gambling website called CSGOLotto.com without disclosing that he was one of the site's owners.
- Jared Catteneo, better known online as Reploid Revo, was a popular Mega Man themed YouTuber, amassing a strong following within that series' fanbase. This all changed in February 2024, when it was leaked that Revo had commissioned several pieces of Loli art from artists who were allegedly underage. These accusations were then followed up by allegations of transphobic and abusive behavior towards those he worked with in the past, most notably his ex-wife and former lead artist Lucy, aka Bonus Level. These allegations resulted in all of Revo's associates cutting ties with him, with Revo deleting his YouTube account and going dark on most social media platforms by April. In July of that year, Revo would release a Google Doc on Twitter responding to the allegations. Throughout the document Revo denied the claims made about him, insisting that that the allegations lobbed against him were a smear campaign headed by his ex-wife. Revo would also state within his response document that he plans to return to YouTube one day, but those plans have yet to materialize.
- Beauty YouTuber James Charles became a polarizing figure after a video produced by longtime collaborator Tati Westbrook titled "BYE SISTER ..." accused him of betrayal, dishonesty, manipulative behavior, and sexual predation. While Charles was able to defend himself against the allegations quite well with a video entitled "No More Lies" that presented evidence that seemed to refute many of Westbrook's accusations, he remained a contentious individual. However, multiple young men came forward with allegations of sexual grooming and predation by Charles when they were underage boys, something Charles allegedly knew about and had no problem with. Backlash was swift and brutal as Charles' YouTube channel was demonetized, he lost a lucrative makeup brand sponsor and he was removed as the host of a reality TV program on YouTube. Charles made an attempt to clear the air with an apology video that was received extremely poorly, as it was mostly an attempt to elicit sympathy without actually addressing or debunking the allegations. In particular the excuse that he was "desperate" was seen as pathetic and a way to avoid taking responsibility. Charles lost a million subscribers during the ordeal, and though he continues to upload videos people are likely more familiar with the allegations than any of his content.
- Hyojin Choi, better known as Squizzy or Squizxy, is an Australian animator and artist who was originally known for their animations on popular memes. Her reputation took a nosedive in 2019, where, during the controversy involving the YouTuber Slazo being falsely accused of rape by an ex-girlfriend, not only did Choi refuse to change her viewpoint despite it being thoroughly debunked, but anecdotes came out alleging they spread the rumor for the sake of ruining Slazo's reputation. Following further digging in light of this, she came under continued fire for allegations of animal abuse, toxic behavior and bullying, use of racist slurs, and an NSFW alt account that contained pornographic drawings of other YouTubers, some of whom were minors at the time.
- Slazo, a popular commentary YouTuber, garnered controversy when his ex-girlfriend accused him of rape and abuse. While he initially remained silent for a while, he later posted a video refuting the rape and abuse allegations. Since then, his main channel has remained inactive, and he's more known for the false rape accusations than for his content.
- You might have known Minecraft Hardcore Factions player Graham Ivan Clark under his username Open from around 2016 for notoriously scamming his audience and DDOSing anyone who slayed his avatar in Factions, among other things. No, he's well known for escalating his actions to SIM Swapping accounts to the point where he managed to hack the entire Twitter website, which resulted in multiple accounts being hacked and his arrest not long after. Nowadays, his Minecraft days are usually considered to be the beginning of his hacking career.
- It's hard to talk about the Magic: The Gathering channel The Commander's Quarters without getting into the Captain fiasco: The Crossover Secret Lair with The Walking Dead had a highly negative reception from established players because it consisted of time-limited, mechanically unique cards.note When it was announced that the Commander Rules Committee would not be banning these cards, Mitch responded to the outrage by creating Captain, a format identical to Commander except for its democratic structure. The project's Discord server was unfortunately overrun with hate speech and griefers, and while Mitch was quick to deactivate it and distance himself from Captain, the incident badly tarnished his reputation. It also killed Captain right out of the gate, with community attempts to revive the format being unsuccessful.
- Cosmodore (also known as Cosmo) was once an animation critic from Germany who had a reputation for likability and was a friend of and frequent collaborator with other popular critics like Saberspark and PieGuyRulz. However, beginning in 2020, he became better known for publicly admitting to have dated an underage note artist outside of his home country, which was followed by several other incidents involving child grooming. He has tried justifying his relationship by pointing out that Germany's age of consent laws are different from those in America, but it has (understandably) fallen on deaf ears. Afterward, he flat-out embraced his new reputation as a predator when he changed his Twitter bio to say "proud groomer" and "actively grooming: 1".
- Most who have heard of Count Dankula will know him from the infamous "M8 Yer Dugs A Nazi" video he released in 2016, where he teaches his girlfriend's pug to lift its paw in response to the phrase "Seig Heil!" and also react to him saying "Gas the Jews!". In response to this, Dankula was arrested for causing "gross offence" under the UK's Communications Act and ultimately fined ÂŁ800. The incident ignited a fierce debate about freedom of speech, during which Dankula drifted further towards rightwing politics, embracing support from far-right figures and eventually standing as a candidate for UKIP in the 2019 European Elections, while at the same time the party was accused of drifting towards rightwing extremism.note As such, he's become better known as a political figure than as a YouTuber.
- JC-the-Hyena (real name Jack Cranely), the author of infamous Creepypasta Sonic.exe, had been a controversial figure within the Creepypasta community due to his massive ego, his inability to take criticism, and his infamous 2014 temper tantrum on Fur Affinity when the original story was moved to the Trollpasta Wiki due to it falling out of favor with the community at large, where it remained until it shut down in 2018. However, in the summer of 2021, several current and former Sonic.exe fans came forward and alleged that JC-the-Hyena had been taking part in sexual roleplays with them while they were still underage. This, combined with the revelation that JC had been emotionally abusing his at-the-time girlfriend and making her believe such actions were normal, his attempted comeback under another username, and later actions including hacking another person's Discord account, only served to sour both his and the story's reputation to the general public. A more in-depth analysis can be found here.
- Creepshow Art was a commentary channel with over 500,000 subscribers known for her art commentary videos, discussing serious topics, and her speedpaint videos, the latter of which have become popular with commentary videos. However, in June 2021, she was exposed for her posts on lolcow — an anonymous imageboard site targeted towards content creators — that trash-talked several YouTube content creators, often using various bigoted slurs, and anonymously promoting her channel. Soon after, the channel Emily Artful revealed that Creepshow and her husband had stalked her for years, an allegation that Creepshow attempted to refute by dredging up long-deleted personal information about Emily, which only affirmed Emily's case in the eyes of many. Creepshow left YouTube after, and her content has been overshadowed by the stalking allegations.
- Family prank channel DaddyOFive is better known for allegations that their videos went beyond comedy into outright child abuse, with massive amounts of evidence supporting the claim posted on YouTube, and the controversy over their "Invisible Ink Prank" video. The backlash eventually grew so big that two of the five children shown in the videos were removed from their parents' custody, and every single one of their channel's videos was taken down. They attempted several comebacks with their new channels being under the radar for months at a time but they were all taken down after YouTube was alerted. They've since returned to uploading on a new channel after rebranding as the Martin Family, with the loophole being that the channel is controlled by the kids themselves rather than the parents, even though the parents feature prominently in the videos. Even so, the comments and dislike bars make it clear that the Internet hasn't forgiven them. YouTube deleted the channel soon after in 2025, for violation of Terms of Service.
- While Shane Dawson has had several controversies over the years, his most infamous one came in June of 2020 when a previously deleted video of Dawson's resurfaced online, in which he pretended to masturbate to a poster of a then 11-year-old Willow Smith. This video garnered swift backlash from Smith's family and the general public. While Dawson attempted to apologize for his past actions, most were unmoved, seeing it as him using his anxiety disorder as an excuse, rather than accepting accountability for his actions. As a consequence, Dawson's two published books, I Hate Myselfie and It Gets Worse: A Collection of Essays, were pulled from Target's shelves, and YouTube would suspend monetization on all of Dawson's channels, with them remaining demonetized to this day.
- Diaz Station, (formerly known as MisAnthroPony and Zaid Magenta, real name Christian Diaz) is an animation and film critic who has become infamous for his Hair-Trigger Temper, going as far as to send violent death threats (including to minors) and antagonizing anyone who doesn't agree with his opinions on media (particularly The Last Jedi, The Last of Us Part II, live-action Disney remakes, and Cuties). This includes creating various burner accounts to chase fellow critic Cartoonshi (who was a minor at the time) across various social media platforms after Cartoonshi had blocked him for his extreme reactions. When he was finally exposed in 2023, he initially apologized (including footage of him swearing on his late father's ashes, which many criticized as emotionally manipulative) and deleted his channel, only to return to YouTube the next year, first on Just A Robot's channel (who is no stranger to controversy himself), before creating a new channel, in which he preceded to double down on the violent threats and refusal to take criticism. It's gotten to the point that he's only known for his over-the-top anger than anything else.
- Dream was a YouTuber who gained wide acclaim for his Minecraft Manhunt video series in 2019 as well as his eponymous Minecraft server, Dream SMP. However, he's now most well-known for his controversial 2020 Minecraft speedrun in the "1.16+ random seed glitchless" category, where viewers reported seeing elevated item drop rates. This prompted accusations of cheating as well as back-and-forth investigations to determine if the drops were plausible or impossibly lucky. In 2021, he confessed that he did use a mod that altered item drop rates, albeit by mistake as he was using a client mod that had been altered by its developers and he was unaware of the changes. Because of this scandal, all of his speedruns were removed from speedrun.com, and at his own request he was banned from submitting any more runs. In addition, "Dream Luck" has has entered the gaming lexicon as a term referring to implausibly lucky (or even outright impossible) scenarios occurring during gameplay.
- EDP445 dug a big grave for himself in the summer and fall of 2020 after he was stricken with allegations of inappropriate conversations with underage girls. While he denied these allegations, they would be proven true in April 2021, after he was caught texting and attempting to meet up with a 13-year-old girl, unaware that it was all a set-up by the Predator Poachers. When confronted, he ended up admitting to his pedophilic behavior, resulting in his account being terminated. He still creates content on the few platforms that haven't banned him, but his fanbase disappeared practically overnight and his various attempts at apologies or explanations have fallen flat, not helped by being caught in another sting operation in 2023.
- Jason Ethier, best known as ImJayStation, was originally infamous for his "3 AM CHALLENGE" videos and accusations of arrogant behavior. However, he started gaining infamy for creating monetized videos that centered on dead creators, such as Mac Miller, XXXTentacion, and Etika, often being uploaded mere days after their deaths. This backfired on him when he claimed his girlfriend Alexia Marano had supposedly died as part of a prank to promote his secondary channel. Marano ended their relationship publicly soon after citing that Ethier had assaulted her, which he was later arrested for, and the backlash resulted in Ethier's channel being demonetized and eventually kicked off YouTube.
- Riolu, real name Burim Fejza, was a speedrunner, streamer and YouTuber famous in the TrackMania community for his utter dominance of the leaderboard in certain games, having so many world records, Ubisoft Nadeo actually invited him to set par times for some of their tracks in one of their game. In 2021, it was revealed that many of the biggest speedrunners in TrackMania had cheated their records, playing the game in slow mo using CheatEngine to get their records who would then play at regular speed when the replay was viewed at normal speed. Riolu was one of the many, many record holders caught (and it was confirmed the times he set for Ubisoft Nadeo had themselves been cheated). Ubisoft Nadeo eventually wiped the cheated records from the leaderboard, and banned some accounts. Now, many of the record holders caught in the scandal apologized and were forgiven, and the community moved on, as measures were put in place to catch and prevent this sort of cheating. But Riolu went down accusing the people who revealed his cheating of a witch hunt and seemingly left the community. In the intervening 4 years until 2025, new figures appeared who set incredible records across various games. Going from unknowns to world-record contenders in a manner of months (an insane rate of progress). Speedrunner and YouTuber Wirtual, with the help of other members of the community, eventually revealled these figures were, in fact, Riolu. And that one of the accounts was in fact named after the real life name of a childhood friend of Riolu's, whom they contacted (and who had not seen Riolu in decades). Not only that, but Riolu had dozens of sockpuppets he used to farm in game currency to do his records on. And that he used identically named or similarly named accounts on Discord and YouTube to engage in AstroTurfing his past accounts or his new one and decry his doubters and detractors. Riolu also used at least one account to engage in some doxxing by changing the display name to the real life name of another player. Ubisoft Nadeo had to issue a statement confirming that indeed several of the world record holding accounts were in fact Riolu's, and issue ban to all his accounts for the sockpuppeting and harrassment they involved themselves in.
- The Fine Brothers were fairly well-known as directors/producers of popular YouTube web series, most notably the React series which consisted of people of various ages (kids, teens, and adults) reacting to different forms of media like cartoons, music, movies, etc. However, in early 2016, the brothers announced a program known as React World, in which they attempted to copyright the term "React". This caused massive backlash, since many saw it as the brothers attempting to create a monopoly in a genre they didn't even invent, as well as trying to make money off of other channels they had no involvement with. It didn't help that many other YouTubers had their reaction videos get copyright strikes shortly after the announcement. The brothers later tried to address the controversy, but only created more problems when they referred to the genre as their "brand". It also didn't help that in their response video they were visibly angry and frustrated, causing viewers to feel like this was just the brothers lashing out rather than actually offering an apology. The brothers later shot back up into controversy in June 2020 when they were exposed for allegations of casual racism, which was made worse when it was discovered that one of the brothers, Benny Fine, made an appearance in the above-mentioned Shane Dawson blackface video. Shortly afterwards, the brothers officially resigned from React Media and have not been heard ever since.
- Mommyblogger Ruby Franke had her YouTube channel 8 Passengers subject to mass ridicule and deleted after one of her children was found by the neighbors starved and with open wounds. The channel had been declining in popularity for months due to allegations of abuse, but this time, the police were called. Franke lost all her social media accounts and was given a sentence of 30 years imprisonment and four consecutive sentences of 1 to 15 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse.
- Freelance illustrator Erin Frost is less known for her art and more for her controversial claims against Vivienne Medrano and SpindleHorse Toons. Only furthering Frost's infamy is her widely rude and unpleasant attitude towards those who question her claims, like Morgana Ignis, voice of Sallie May from Helluva Boss.
- GeePM (a.k.a. GPM or Gay Purple Man) was a huge fan of Vinesauce who was connected to the Games Repainted group, and helped create the now-infamous Super Mario Galaxy Repainted hack before joining Vinesauce as one of its streamers. However, it's difficult to talk about him without bringing up the fact that he solicited donations for personal indulgences under the guise of resolving personal financial issues, Games Repainted attributes a good portion of their eventual shuttering to his egotistical behavior, or his heavy involvement in the smear campaign against Vinny despite having participated in a cover-up of severe misconduct within his own community. Following the latter incident, he quit streaming altogether and completely disappeared from the internet.
- Olivia Jade Giannulli was a fairly popular YouTuber who made beauty and fashion videos. However, her reputation took a hit in March 2019 with the 2019 college admissions bribery scandal, in which her parents were charged with paying $500,000 in bribes to a coach at the University of Southern California for their daughters to gain admission as athletic prospects when they might otherwise have not been able to. The backlash was so great that she eventually disabled comments on her Instagram account.
- Ryan "Gootecks" Gutierrez, co-host of the now-defunct fighting game-based web show Cross Counter TV, contributed to the show's downfall with his own controversy. Gootecks was widely known for being the face of the memetic PogChamp emote on Twitch in addition to his career in eSports content creation. He ran into trouble and started alienating fans by getting into crypto scams and right-wing conspiracy theories. The last straw came when he tweeted in support of the U.S. Capitol Hill attack on January 6th, 2021. His Fighting Game Community sponsors and partners immediately severed ties with him and Twitch removed his memetic PogChamp emote. He still streams under the Cross Counter TV brand but he's far known for his behavior than his content.
- Pirate Software aka Jason Thor Hall is a game developer, YouTuber, and Twitch streamer touting over 20 years of experience in game development, including working at Blizzard Entertainment and accruing expertise in hacking and online security. He has developed two indie games, Champions of Breakfast and Heartbound. Hall would flaunt his experience as a developer and security expert and subsequently accrued a 2.63-million-strong following on YouTube thanks to his YouTube Shorts which were largely deemed as insightful. In late 2024, Jason decided to speak out against the Stop Killing Games initiative, harshly insulting it in a livestream. His decision to do so did not go down well, as many found his arguments ill-informed if not outright disingenuous, which resulted in Jason releasing two videos clarifying his thoughts further. By mid-2025, following a separate World of Warcraft controversy earlier in the year and Ross Scott of SKG making a video on the then-impending failure of the EU initiative (pointing out Jason's direct effect in halting the progress of the movement) in July, all the negative attention Jason had garnered in the past year resulted in the SKG movement, which was originally unlikely to reach the required number of signatures for the EU to consider it, easily surpassing that number entirely off the back of Hall's controversial actions. The publicity then brought up a lot of further examination of Hall's own history, claims and abilities, resulting in multiple videos made on him. By mid-2026, while he manages to hold a diminishing loyal fanbase of his own, his subscriber count on YouTube has plummeted down to 1.84 million (a loss of nearly 800,000 subscribers in a year) and has not had growth of any kind since early 2025. People are now likely to be aware of him only due to his controversies instead of his YouTube Shorts or work on Heartbound.
- Twitch streamer ZilianOP (real name Angel Hamilton) is known solely for pretending to be paraplegic so he could bilk more money out of people by falsely claiming he needed to buy a new wheelchair and pay for medical treatment. His ruse was discovered after he stood up from his wheelchair on camera without realizing he was still recording. In the ensuing backlash, he falsely claimed he fell down, but nobody believed it, and Twitch permanently banned him and refunded the money he had conned out of his subscribers.
- It's difficult to talk about AnimeBroMii (real names Angel and Issac Hernandez) without bringing up the litany of allegations against them, including several instances of grooming, emotional manipulation, ripping off other plush YouTubers such as SuperMarioLogan and SonicSong182, and weaponizing their large fanbase to attack smaller creators, which they have all denied.
- "Beautuber" Jaclyn Hill's disastrous "moldy" lipsticks launch. To elaborate, she was immediately blasted on the internet after the launch of her own makeup brand, Jaclyn Cosmetics, with a line of lipsticks that were found to be in awful condition. Consumers reported to have found spots and fibers, which they suspected to be mold or bacteria. Other Beauty YouTubers such as RawBeautyKristi even went as far as to examine them under a microscope, showing them in all their horrific glory◊. She only added fuel to the fire after uploading a video claiming that her products were safe instead of recalling them after numerous complaints.
- Inquisitor was a cosplayer for Call of Duty on TikTok who had asked for some assistance from a cosplayer designer and at the time wasn't aware of her age and sent flirtatious texts, but soon the partnership fizzled out. Afterward, the costume designer, along with her boyfriend, who was the same age as Inquisitor but had been dating the designer when she was underage, messaged Inquisitor, trying to trap him as a predator from the texts, but he made it clear he wasn't into that since he knew her age and had put on his profile no minors to message him. The designer doctored messages and sent them to another cosplayer in that community named KegansMask who, with the help of the boyfriend and another party, made a smear campaign against Inquisitor which culminated in him starting a livestream where he ended his life. It was fully revealed that the designer lied, but Keagan and the other person did not give up, as even on Inquisitor's stream Keagan was there taunting him and even went so far as to say he faked his death to avoid controversy! The other party went on to even call Inquisitor's grieving father and harass him.note To say this went bad for the party is an understatement. The designer unsuccessfully attempted suicide before issuing an apology and leaving TikTok, her boyfriend did the same before leaving, but Keagan flat out refused to admit she was in the wrong which led to an onslaught of hate her way before she eventually left as well.
- Gregory Daniel Jackson, better known as Onision, started off as a relatively popular skit YouTuber, but is now mostly known for allegations that he's abused and groomed young girls. This also extends to his husband Kai (formerly known as Laineybot), who started a relationship with Greg while underage and also is accused of sexual behavior towards young girls. These allegations became so prolific that Chris Hansen created a Netflix documentary about it.
- British-born aspiring singer/songwriter "Jeyaia" made a small but decent growing YouTube and Instagram career with her cover songs in Australia and Indonesia. But since November 2020, she has become more known for her promotion of controversial pseudoscience on YouTube and (following Donald Trump's Twitter suspension the next year) numerous Big Tech "whistleblower" conspiracy theories on Instagram than her singing. Not helping matters was her hostile attitude towards followers who disagreed with her views, which made her reputation irreversibly divisive.
- Gus Johnson had his image take a hit after being accused of being neglectful and abusive towards his ex-girlfriend during and while she was recovering from an ectopic pregnancy. While he has maintained an online presence and uploads regularly, his channel growth has largely stagnated and none of his recent videos have received nearly the number of views as they did during the height of his popularity, with several of his former friends and collaborators distancing themselves from him.
- Austin Jones started off as a relatively popular YouTube star from the early 2010s, who gained fame thanks to his musical talent, songwriting, and A cappella song covers. However, in mid-2015, Jones was accused of sexual misconduct towards several underage fans shortly before he was scheduled to appear at the Vans Warped Tour, to which Jones later admitted. While this scandal already put a bit of a stink on his reputation, it later came to a head in 2017 when Jones was arrested and, as of 2019, convicted for the production and possession of child pornography.
- Jordie Jordan, better known by his handle WingsOfRedemption, was one of the pioneers of gaming commentary videos. But despite his early success, his reputation has been clouded by toxic behavior towards his fans and former friends, poor sportsmanship, multiple incidents of dishonest behavior (most notoriously attempting to fix a Call of Duty rematch in an attempt to save his own ego after a previous loss), and making comments widely viewed as transphobic.
- Twitch and YouTuber livestreamer Katerino is now known for cheating on fellow YouTuber CallMeCarson with his friend GoodGuyFitz and having another boyfriend (her manager) while leading Carson on. Her apology video where she didn't take accountability for her actions, her blaming her cheating on her mental illness, and multiple other boyfriends coming out did not go well with many fans.
- Dave "Shmorky" Kelly was once a popular web animator who became famous for The Flash Tub, Gaming Garbage and producing the "This is fine" station ident for [adult swim]. Unfortunately, he's nowadays known for his overly eccentric behavior, disgusting NSFW fetishes, and abusing his ex-girlfriend by hiding her schizophrenia medication and recording her meltdown. He has since disappeared from the internet.
- Kero The Wolf, a fairly popular Furry YouTuber, was outed as being a part of a zoosadistnote Telegram group in September of 2018, leading to him swiftly being condemned and cast out by the fandom and leading to him being investigated by the police. While he was ultimately let off by the police due to his actions either falling outside the statute of limitations or other legal technicalities, and subsequently returned to making videos, his return was met with massive backlash and widespread disownment by the rest of the Furry Fandom.
- CallMeCarson (real name Carson King) was once an extremely popular Minecraft player and comedian, as well as a founding member of the comedy podcast Lunch Club. In January 2021, Carson's reputation soured when a Twitter user accused King of sexting her when she was underage (King was 19 at the time whereas the user was 17), allegations that were confirmed by two members of Lunch Club. Carson's reputation soured overnight, with several creators unlisting videos featuring him, and he deleted his Discord and Subreddit in response. He has managed to bounce back from it by the end of the year (with emphasis put on his personal growth through means such as ongoing charity donations), but his reputation has diminished significantly by this point.
- Jirard Kahlil, better known online as The Completionist, suffered a tremendous blow to his reputation in late 2023, when YouTubers Karl Jobst and Mutahar "SomeOrdinaryGamers" Anas released videos revealing that his family's charity, the Open Hand Foundation, had never made a single donation to any organization and was keeping all of the money, despite Jirard's repeated assurances during streams of the opposite. The videos also exposed numerous other lies, such as claims to be working closely with certain groups or individuals, some of whom had in fact left before the foundation was even created, as well as various financial irregularities, such as the totals in tax filing forms they found not matching up the amounts of donations Jirard claims to have collected, and the golf tournament his father ran for the foundation seeming to be absent from said forms. Because the money had sat unused in a bank account essentially for up to a decade, it had lost much of its value due to inflation. Jirard took weeks to respond to the allegations, finally doing so after publicly donating $600,000 to a research organization (which was still less than the $655,000 the foundation had in reserve according to their tax filings). Jirard's video response failed to answer most of the questions raised, and some of his statements were contradicted when Mutahar and Karl released a recording of a Discord call they had with Jirard prior to the first video where they tried to have his side of the story. He also ended his video response by angrily threatening legal action against Karl and Mutahar, which drew strong criticism and was seen as contradicting his perceived intent to apologize. In the aftermath, most of his friends cut ties with him, his viewer rate sharply declined, and he was eventually forced to fire most of his employees and move the studio back to his house due to a loss in revenue. Following this, Jirard had gone silent on social media and uploads slowed to a crawl, and comments that aren't hidden make it very clear that most people are more interested in the charity controversy than the videos themselves. Jirard would finally re-emerge in September 2025, nearly two years after the incident, to fully apologize and give a full explanation of what happened (very short version: big-dollar charity donations have more red tape than you might think, and Open Hand and Jirard were well-intentioned but made some severe mistakes in the process) and why it took so long to give a proper response.note This apology would get a mixed reception amongst viewers but overall get a much nicer reception that Jirard's initial response to the allegations. Jirard would then resume production on The Completionist, though his view counts and upload frequency have significantly tapered off and comments under most videos frequently reference the charity saga.
- ProJared (real name Jared Knabenbauer) was a popular video game reviewer, a former member of ScrewAttack and Normal Boots, and a collaborator with Game Grumps. Today, however, he's better known for a 2019 scandal where his ex-wife accused him of cheating on her with Game Grumps associate Holly Conrad and multiple fans claimed that he solicited nudes from them while they were underage. Jared would release a rebuttal video later that year explaining that the affair was mutually consensual between his and Conrad's spouses and that his accusers lied about their age and were cut off before anything sexual occurred. While this earned Jared a fair amount of goodwill back amongst viewers, the damage was already done, as Jared has yet to reclaim the viewer or subscriber counts he'd maintained prior to the allegations going public.
- Ryan Kruleski, formerly known as Star Giant Productions and Rebeccah Kruleski, was an animation reviewer and artist in the mid to late 2010s who served as an editor for The Mysterious Mr. Enter. He's best known for his drama with Enter after he [Enter] fired him for poor work ethic, culminating in Enter revealing Kruleski to be an abusive boss to his employees who was emotionally and sexually inappropriate towards friends and minors. These allegations pushed Kruleski off the internet, and his attempt to return to the public eye necessitated an alias, which Enter and his team likewise snuffed out and revealed.
- KnightWing01 (nicknamed "Kwing") was a widely respected Let's Player, known for his playthroughs of the Batman: Arkham Series and his encyclopedic knowledge of the Batman mythos as a whole. After getting married, he and his wife ("Kwife") would co-host another channel, KwingsLetsPlays, where they would do family-friendly playthroughs with little to no profanity. However, controversy would surround the two after Kwing's outspoken political beliefs came to light, which included opposition to diversity in comics and video games, as well as several transphobic statements. Many former fans were incensed by his beliefs, while those who didn't necessarily disagree felt they were out of place on a supposed "family friendly" channel. Although Kwing has stated that he is apolitical and isn't affiliated with any "movement", it didn't stop people from launching a massive hate campaign, which included doxxing and DDoSing. The last straw came when a group of these attackers raided Kwing's Discord server and flooded it with child pornography and (alledgedly) nude photos of his wife. The stress of the incident caused Kwife, who was pregnant at the time, to suffer a miscarriage.
- Brazilian YouTuber Lara, better known by the handle "Mirth" (and earlier on by Kodomodachi or Kodo), was previously well-known in the Friday Night Funkin' community for her game mods, and has currently moved on to animations of popular media. Despite her popularity, she's become particularly controversial for having dated and groomed a 13-year-old while she herself was 18; her reactions to allegations, which alternate between insincere apologies for her actions, to claiming it's not a big deal and blaming cancel culture; trying to silence any commenters who bring up her actions; emotional manipulation of her fanbase; and generally coming off as more concerned with avoiding being labeled as a predator than actually taking responsibility or making amends. In wake of the initial controversy, she's also come under fire for doing the same thing (dating minors) in the Ace Attorney fandom, and dating someone (known as Enzo or Z03Y/Zoey) who has also groomed, solicited sexual photos from, and emotionally abused and manipulated minors, and hiding behind them when having to face the backlash of her own allegations; the two of them have also been accused of trying to slander and harass one of Zoey's victims to get the heat off themselves.
- SrlOctober23, also known as TheMessiahOfTheDead and by the pseudonym "Shannon Love", was known in the community for being the co-creator of Sonic.exe as well has her vocal dislike of the Sonic.exe Nightmare Universe and other such adaptations for their portrayal of Sonic.exe himself, claiming it to be disrespectful to his character. However, in the summer of 2021, she was one of the many people who had accused JC-the-Hyena, Shannon's at-the-time boyfriend and the author of the original story, of doing sexual roleplays with underage people on websites like DeviantArt and FurAffinity. While JC received most of the backlash, many people have since come forward and alleged that Shannon herself was also part of the sexual roleplaying due to JC normalizing it on her. Unlike JC, who still continues to have an online presence, Shannon has willingly relinquished ownership of Sonic.exe, and disappeared from the internet to seek therapy as of 2021.
- Josh Macedo was formerly a very popular and very well-liked blogger on both YouTube and Tumblr, known for his dorky nerd persona, his "I'm late for school" meme, and being an outspoken male feminist, all of which helped garner him legions of fangirls. That is, until various women, a majority of them being underage, came out stating that Josh had sent them sexually explicit messages pressuring them for sex, along with images of himself either naked or masturbating. This ultimately destroyed Josh's reputation, and Josh himself has long since disappeared from Internet life, with his current whereabouts being unknown.
- Jikishi, real name Demetrius Madsen, was once a well-respected content creator of the Minecraft community and seen as a rising star, and his career received a huge boost after his Twitch stream was raided by Dream. Dream subsequently invited Jikishi to join the mega-popular Dream SMP server, potentially setting him up for an incredibly successful content creation career. These aspirations promptly ended when his newfound fame led to an alarming wave of allegations of grooming and inappropriate behavior towards minors. Over forty women and girls came forward with stories about Jikishi's predatory behavior, many with screenshots and other proof, leading Dream to immediately ban Jikishi from the DreamSMP and causing Twitch to permanently ban his channel. Jikishi never responded to the allegations, simply deleting most of his social media and disappearing from the Internet, with his whereabouts being unknown.
- MagicScrumpy was a YouTuber who specialized in making mods for Super Smash Bros. Melee. However, he is mostly remembered for the combo video "600 Hours", a tool-assisted video he tried to pass off as real and submitted to a competition with a cash prize (he did not win). When it was discovered to be a TAS, he didn't publicly address the issue for months, and on his public Discord, he harshly attacked the community, dismissed the accusations as "drama" and admitted to putting unskippable advertisements on "600 Hours" to make money on those who wanted to scrutinize the video. Shortly afterwards, it was discovered that most of his "Rebalancing Melee" series was plagiarized from Melee SD Remix, a mod he had previously criticized for making characters too powerful. Together, these scandals destroyed his reputation in the Melee community.
- Tyrone Magnus was one of the most popular React YouTubers during the early 2010s for his entertaining Large Ham tendencies and coverage of a wide array of media, whether it be movies, anime, comics, or video games. But starting from the late 2010s onwards, particularly after the 2016 Presidential Election, Tyrone would start gaining infamy for his shift towards the conservative side of the US "culture war", being a vocal critic against any media considered "woke", particularly anything made by Disney, while harshly clamping down on any criticism by deleting comments on YouTube and blocking people on Twitter/X. The most infamous instance was when he refused to take his girlfriend to Disney World, despite it being one of her childhood dream places to go to, due to his vocal criticisms of the company's promotion of identity politics.
- FuturisticHub, originally known online as LifeInATent (real name Brian Martin), is better remembered for three things:
- His video making light of the 2011 Japanese earthquake (most infamously, telling his viewers to "thumbs up this video for epic earthquake") and his subsequent apology video that many people have interpreted as illegitimate.
- "Needed in Minecraft", an NSFW Minecraft animation featuring two characters performing graphic sex acts, which was uploaded to YouTube with no age restriction and even allegedly appeared on YouTube Kids. The video was quickly taken down for violating YouTube’s guidelines.
- His extreme reactions to criticism and attempts to silence people by copyright claiming their videos criticising his content and/or condemning his actions.
- Trevor Martin, aka Tmartn, is known less for his gaming commentary and Let's Plays and more for his promotion of a gambling website called CSGOLotto.com without disclosing that he was one of the site's owners alongside ProSyndicate (also mentioned on this page). Tmartn came off far worse — while Syndicate was smart enough to largely stay passive until the controversy died down, Tmartn tried to get ahead of the story as it was taking off by posting a bizarre, erratic response video in which he vehemently and angrily denied all allegations, attempting to discredit his critics and ranting at how everyone was just out to get him. Naturally, this brought far more attention to the controversy and drew strong criticism of Tmartn in particular, unwittingly making him the center of the scandal while drawing attention away from Syndicate. Tmartn made things even worse by attempting to change tactics and posting a second, much more contrite response video that offered no apology despite being billed as an apology video. After this led to another round of backlash, Tmartn deleted both the videos and all of his tweets on the matter and continues uploading to this day, but the controversy and his response to remains inexorably tied to his name.
- Atheist YouTube vlogger and chemist Phil Mason (better known as Thunderf00t) is well known for his exposing of creationism and other forms of pseudoscience, as well as his work on the reactions of alkali metals with water. However, he's even more well known for his extremely caustic attitude and his willingness to go after the social justice movement - in particular, being banned from Free Thought Blogs after one week, then publishing the members' mailing list in retaliation, mostly for refusing to go along with their feminist-positive ideology. His videos about Anita Sarkeesian in particular have brought about the most heat of all of his videos, leading many viewers to label him an unrepentant misogynist because of them.
- The controversy with Thunderf00t also spilled over to tech-oriented YouTuber Mayiandjay (later known as MJTech), when Mason accused Mayiandjay of promoting a deceptive product, i.e. a portable air conditioner allegedly of dubious effectiveness. Mason's fans took to Mayiandjay's channel and threw ad hominem attacks and harassment towards Jay and his family. This led to Mayiandjay disabling comments on his channel for a period until the harassment died down.
- ReviewTechUSA, real name Richard Masucci, is a YouTuber who gained prominence in the early 2010s as a commentary channel with a focus on tech and gaming news as well as occasional storytelling. Unfortunately most people familiar with him now know him by his very long list of controversies, including allegations of "e-begging" from his fans, his habit of using provocative and clickbait titles, high-profile feuds with other creators, bizarre behavior on livestreams including using marijuana, multiple public meltdowns, and a nasty falling out with his longtime video editor. Not helped at all is that his attempts at longer-form content have been received negatively. Citing burnout and personal issues that were affecting his mental health, ReviewTechUSA retired from his main channel entirely, later deleting it, in favor of prioritizing his streaming channel. It's saying that a documentary going over most of ReviewTechUSA's history of controversies is a whopping 90 minutes long.
- Mike Matei used to be generally well-respected for the most part by fans of The Angry Video Game Nerd for his role as a contributor who would help James out. However, nowadays Mike is more known for the time when he boasted about his penis size on social media, complete with him showing a picture on the official Cinemassacre subreddit (which turned out to have been sourced from pornography), and deleted comments mentioning the incident, as well as his infamous Minecraft with Gadget video and his tendency to take down any criticism of it, which only made it more infamous due to the Streisand Effect.
- YouTuber Votesaxon07, real name Stephen McCullagh, once had a following for his toy reviews, videos on Doctor Who and Robot Warsnote and role as host/commentator on the antweight robot combat series Antweight Anarchy, with him having over thirty thousand subscribers. However, everything changed in February 2023 when he was arrested on suspicion of murdering his pregnant girlfriend one week before Christmas. While at first seemingly proven innocent due to making a six-hour livestream that night, which was still live at the time of the murder, it was proven that the livestream was pre-recorded to give himself an alibi; with him claiming technical issues as the reason he wouldn’t read the live chat. The video also had many references to the murder, such as him singing "I need to kill this bitch" and saying his girlfriend’s name while killing a woman in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and a poster for No Time to Die going up at the same time the murder was said to have taken place. After numerous delays, McCullagh’s trial began in February 2026, and he was found guilty a month later — receiving a 31-year minimum life sentence with no parole — which also resulted in his YouTube channel being terminated. Nowadays, McCullagh is more known for being a murderer than for anything prior, and his involvement in his former communities has been retroactively erased.
- Finn McKenty of the Punk Rock MBA was a unique Analysis Channel, looking at music and fashion through a business perspective and made by someone who had been in the alternative scene for decades. Finn's channel blew up in popularity during the 2020's and became one of the bigger channels that was covering metal/hardcore music. With his rising popularity, Finn's reputation would also take hits. Mostly stemming from him claiming to "hate negativity" but would always make videos trashing popular or rising artists to get views, dismissing artists for nostalgia pandering or just ripping off Architects' "Doomsday" (including Crystal Lake and Erra, who were playing that style before Architects went that route), and his right-wing views creeping into his content. He also wasn't happy with his channel's direction, as the things he wanted to talk about like business wouldn't get the views like a band history video would. He stopped uploading in 2024 because of burnout. While most people just left well enough alone and Finn could have kept his doors opened in content creation or music should he want to get back in that field. Then he went onto Jesea Lee's podcast in December 2024 where he openly trashed musicians, music fans, and claiming to have no interest in music period. Finn even went as far as to say he had never listened to System of a Down despite covering them multiple times on his main channel. He made it clear he was only uploading for the sake of money and expressed open contempt for the music community. Whatever reputation or bridges McKenty had were utterly destroyed after Lee's podcast. Former collaborators Anthony Fantano and Nik Nocturnal have made videos taken Finn to task over his comments. Since then, Finn McKenty's name is largely associated with being a grifter in the music and YouTube community more so than any of the videos/merch/music he's produced.
- Gaming YouTuber Filip Miucin once had a decent following for his videos about Nintendo Switch features, with him getting over fifty thousand subscribers and even getting a job on IGN. However, his career was torpedoed when fellow gaming YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming alleged he ripped off their review of Dead Cells for one of his IGN videos, posting a video playing their reviews side by side to prove it. This led IGN to fire Miucin after they reached the same conclusion. After gaming news site Kotaku found evidence that Miucin had plagiarised his review of FIFA 18 from a NintendoLife article, Miucin released an infamous now-deleted video that not only denied any responsibility for his actions, but essentially dared Kotaku and the Internet to try and find more plagiarised reviews. So they did, and several more examples of plagiarism on his part were found. Now no mention of Miucin can go without discussing his plagiarism, his complete avoidance of responsibility, and how long he got away with it.
- Twitch streamer Alinity (real name Natalia Mogollon) is primarily known nowadays for accusations of animal abuse after footage of her throwing her pet cat over her head on-stream surfaced in July of 2019, which resulted in an investigation by the Saskatoon Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
- Husker the Wolf, also known under the aliases Mr. Cool Blue and joeyinsully (real name Joseph Morley), had been a rather infamous creator in the Thomas & Friends fandom for his DeviantArt gallery, which contained fetish content featuring the characters from that series. However, he was a relative nobody outside of the fandom until he uploaded Thomas and the Preggy Club in 2018. Almost overnight, the Squicky premise involving canonically underage Sonic the Hedgehog characters among the titular "Preggy Club" was taken at face value, and the video made him a target of criticism and mockery from Internet trolls. This, combined with his subsequent meltdowns towards his trolls (up to and including sending death threats and doxxing), are what Husker is mainly known for on the internet.
- Andrés Navy, a Mexican influencer and YouTuber who uploads superhero-related content, mostly revolving around Marvel, is known less for his videos and more for his abrasive behavior towards critics, faking being invited to the premiere of Avengers: Infinity War and later trespassing to the afterparty before being escorted out, and his unhealthy obssession towards Spider-Man to the point in where he literally stalked Tom Holland in the hotel the latter was staying in just to take a photo with him. The last event caused the (fake) rumor that Holland placed a restriction notice on Navy and most people to wonder why he hasn't been arrested for this criminal offense despite bragging about it on social media.
- Chris Niosi, most known for being the showrunner of TOME and a voice actor, saw his reputation take quite a hit after first breaking an NDA regarding an upcoming voice performance, bragging about having netted the role of the male lead in Fire Emblem: Three Houses (he was since replaced). Soon after that, several of his former partners came forward about his emotional and sexual abuse of them, and several of his fellow staff and co-stars on TOME chimed in that he had been controlling and abusive during production as well. In response, Niosi posted on Twitter, admitting that all of the allegations were true and that he would be stepping back from the industry to "work on himself." Now, these two combined incidents tend to be the first thing people associate with Niosi.
- Video essayist and fanfic writer Lily Orchard (known on social media as CD-Call starting in 2025), has had all discussions surrounding her eclipsed by two major controversies. The first controversy came throughout the late 2010s when Lily made multiple posts on social media accusing Steven Universe's creator, Rebecca Sugar, of being a Nazi sympathizer over the show choosing to redeem its main antagonists rather than kill them. She made these accusations despite Sugar being non-binary and half-Jewish. The second controversy came in 2023 when Lily's younger sibling, Courtney, released multiple statements alleging that Lily sexually abused her throughout their childhood. These two incidents have defined Lily's name online far more than anything she's produced.
- Monalisa Perez, aka La Monalisa, is only known for when she made mainstream news when she participated in a dangerous stunt on her husband's YouTube channel: shooting a bullet at an encyclopedia shielding her husband's chest, to see if the encyclopedia would block the bullet. It did not work and her husband ended up dying, leading to her conviction of involuntary manslaughter. Because the controversy was used to highlight the unfortunate phenomenon of how stupid YouTubers will be just to rack up views, it has stuck to her, and to this day, her videos tended to have more dislikes than likes until it was terminated.
- While her videos were frequent targets of mockery, comedienne Lele Pons has become better known for several accounts of arrogant behavior from some of her former co-stars, including allegations that she attempted to sabotage her friend Amanda Cerny's career, as well as a time that she was caught lying about donating her hair to charity.
- Brian "Kephrii" Pierre is a gaming streamer who initially became well known for playing high-ranked and semi-professional Overwatch — being a renowned Widowmaker main and talented sniper — but his name has since become synonymous with toxicity due to his well-documented behavior of bullying in-game teammates, as well as a prolonged scandal between 2017 to 2019 surrounding his history of sexually harassing female fans (even one of his female Twitch mods) while being married at the time. Even his history in gaming isn't spotless: he was declined from teams in the Overwatch League he offered to try out for due to his conduct, and he also became infamous for colluding with opposition during charity tournaments to throw fights, particularly from one incident in a $100k prize Counter-Strike tournament in 2022 where — after seeing Kephrii allowing himself to be killed by knives, then furiously denying he was throwing — his teammates unanimously voted him out of the game and forfeited out of refusal to continue playing with him.
- Andrew Price (aka Blender Guru) is a YouTuber who specializes in creating tutorials for the Blender 3D modelling/animation/rendering software, and is most notorious for his "Donut Tutorials", where he guides the viewer in modelling a pink frosted sprinkled donut. However, throughout The New '20s, he would attract controversy for heavily endorsing NFTs during the crypto boom, and after that, becoming a strong supporter of generative A.I. This caused many members of the Blender community to disown him, and few discussions of him online manage to avoid bringing up his pro-NFT/pro-GenAI opinions.
- Prison Mate Luke is a commentary YouTube channel dedicated to ongoing drama across the internet that exploded in popularity in 2020, likely due to his clear (if unremarkable) presentation and deadpan delivery. However, he was soon criticized by other commentators for his lack of research on delicate topics and Manipulative Editing to the point of borderline defamation (for instance, when covering the then-controversy surrounding art channel Hopeless Peaches, he dismissed her depression as fake despite there being a lot of evidence that she did, indeed, have depression - none of which he showed in the video, of course). While he made a video defending himself, his claim that commentary channels only need an opinion, not definite evidence sunk his reputation within the commentary community further.
- Although gaming YouTuber ProsafiaGaming is highly successful, having over 3 million subscribers, any discussions of him will focus less on his content and more on his tendency to put major spoilers for recently-released (or, in some cases, upcoming) video games in the thumbnails and titles of his videos, which has earned him the ire of many gamers that don't wish to be spoiled, especially since his high subscriber count means that his videos often show up in the recommendations of anyone watching anything related to the game in question (Prosafia's response to the controversy was that the spoilers are necessary to avoid being misleading, and that anyone who wants to avoid spoilers should use a third-party browser extension to block his channel). The hate for him was so severe that he started getting death threats, and when he narrowly missed being shot in March of 2020, most people jumped to the conclusion that it was the work of a hater actually acting on those threats (although some commenters noted that it's more likely to be a stray bullet from an unrelated incident).
- YouTuber Red Bard, who primarily focuses on anime and convention related videos, is more known for her involvement in the attempt to cancel Vinny from Vinesauce than her videos. Of the people involved in the incident, she was the most vocal person speaking out against Vinny in support of the accusations, even as other people pushed back or retracted their support once it became clear the allegations were not fully credible or were even potentially fake. She only stopped once Vinny announced he was going to take legal measures in response to the claims, but her lack of apology and poor handling of the reaction she got from people resulted in her briefly going silent before mostly swapping to other social media platforms and continuing uploading like it never happened. As such, mentioning her usually results in people only knowing her for her role in the VS allegations.
- RelaxAlax is a moderately popular Nintendo-centric essayist and analyst who was accused in 2019 by an ex-girlfriend and YouTuber, Ray Mona (aka Bobdunga), of inflicting sexual, mental, and emotional abuse on her. Her story was eventually corroborated by several people who knew of Alax personally. This story would not pick up steam until 2020, where many of his supporters left in protest, and many fellow personalities cut ties with him (including Scott The Woz cutting his cameo at his 200th episode, Borderline Forever). Alax still commits to making the same content he always had after addressing the allegations directly though the controversy still clouds his reputation, to the point where, when searching his name, it would bring up the allegations against him and discussion around them first.
- It's impossible to discuss the videos of postmodern feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian from the Women Vs. Tropes web series without discussing the critics she attracted, both legitimate and sexist, particularly during the Gamergate controversy.
- Dovendraw, formerly DaftPina (real name Ryan Burke) is an American YouTuber who initially specialized in reviewing media, critiquing other YouTubers and covering art drama, later transitioning to interviewing online animators and creating lookbacks on the history of their work. Ryan gained infamy in his early days as a critic when his critiques were overly harsh to the point of cruelty, or downright slanderous, with the most notorious video of his being one where he accused JaidenAnimations of faking her face reveal video in which she came out with her struggles with anorexia for attention. Although Ryan would apologize to many of the people he wronged, including Jaiden herself, he kept getting into a lot of other controversies such as: making inflammatory videos against James Rallison aka TheOdd1sOut featuring a disgruntled ex-friend of James, botching an attempt to expose a Twitter artist named Tinafate1 of grooming and catfishing which made many side with the accused artist in question, and being accused by YouTuber Just Stop of being a major force in helping him investigate the personal lives and marriage of LS Mark and Veronica Gallardo (veronicaandjelly), which was revealed to the public in 2023. Despite Ryan completely rebranding himself, many still view him with distrust because of his multiple controversies.
- Draikinator (real name Nathan Schoonover) was an animator known for their Multi-Animator Projects and already a polarizing figure in the Warrior Cats fandom due to their reactions to younger members of the fandom (including an incident where a kid commented on one of their videos they didn't like their LGBT content, with Nate replying the kid should get run over by a train) and opposing opinions from others on their headcanons, along with the plots of their MAPs, such as Cabinet Man [COMPLETE Evil!Spottedleaf MAP] thanks to the content in Spottedleaf's Heart (covered on the literature page). However, their already shaky reputation was drilled into the ground in the summer of 2019, when Nate sent porn to a 14-year-old Twitter user during another incident where they were calling out another user for drawing NSFW content. The outrage was so large they were essentially scrubbed from the whole community soon after it was revealed they did this, with legal action from the 14-year-old's family reportedly following. They made an apology video six months later and had promised to stay away from the Warriors fandom… only to delist it and upload an AMV they made based on Mapleshade's Vengeance. While Nate still makes content on their YouTube channel, the controversy hangs over their head, especially in the Warriors fandom, which they've strayed away from.
- While online anime critic Trey Eric Sesler (a.k.a. Mr. Anime and later Mr. Bryko and LensCap Productions) was the subject of considerable praise and attention during his lifetime as part of the first wave of reviewer YouTubers to rise to prominence on the platform, today he is mainly remembered for committing familicide in 2012, with the later revelation that he was plotting a school shooting only driving more nails into the coffin and ultimately resulting in his channel being terminated 8 years later.
- Antoons (real name Anton Severtnik) is an Estonian YouTuber and animator best known as the creator of Deathbed and YouTube Animations. However, beginning in 2020, Antoons became involved in numerous controversies that saw irreparable damage to his reputation. First off, he was accused of tracing other people's artwork for his animations, which Antoons responded by sending false copyright strikes (one of which was successful) towards anybody who criticized him. Then he began creating politically charged comic strips that drew criticism for their bigoted overtones, which wasn't helped by him defending blackface in a video with fellow YouTuber Censored Anon. Most infamously, after being criticized by a then-underaged artist named Puppychan on Twitter, Antoons created a game titled Pillfighter which featured Puppychan's eponymous fursona battling Antoons' own persona Mr. Freaks with period blood.
- SSSniperwolf (real name Alia "Lia" Shelesh) garnered a reputation for being a very controversial reaction YouTuber known for her insensitive comments and habit of starting petty feuds with other creators who had made fun of her content. However, her popularity would soon take a massive nosedive on October 13, 2023, where she posted an Instagram story asking her followers if she should go to Jacksfilms' house, which was five minutes away from her location. This was likely in response to Jack being a very vocal critic of Lia's lazy and sometimes plagiarized content, and making a parody of her channel. A day later, Jacksfilms uploaded a video stating he no longer felt safe in his home due to Lia's actions. In response, YouTube would demonetize her channel on October 20th, and Lia would lose her partnerships with G-Fuel and Dhar Mann. She would try to evade her demonetization on a third channel, only for that channel to be demonetized as well.
- Tumblr blogger Sixpenceee was widely known for posting interesting facts and horror stories; however, her public image took a turn in 2017, starting with her offering a service called "Sixpenceee Heals": people would pay her to essentially receive amateur therapy from her. This was widely mocked and accused of being potentially harmful, to the point where Sixpencee apologized and cancelled the service. Other controversies, such as allegations of plagiarism and ableism, started to pop up, but everything came to a head when she revealed that her extended family members in Bangladesh utilized child labor. Nowadays, she's mainly known as "that tumblr blogger who had a child slave."note
- Benjamin "Apollo Legend" Smith was once revered in certain parts of the Speedrun and Score Attack community for helping expose cheaters—most notably Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell—but is now known for making a now-unlisted video in 2018 that criticized Games Done Quick for permanently banning speedrunner RWhiteGoose for making bigoted comments on a forum. He claimed that GDQ was banning him simply because a member of Antifa pointed it out to them, while intentionally neglecting to mention what Goose had said, before telling people to boycott GDQ for being "ban-happy" (despite them only perma-banning eight people throughout the event's history with this being the first outside-event ban). This controversy reached its breaking point in December 2018 when DarkViperAU made a video calling him out for lying to his fans about the situation. The resulting fallout caused many people to believe that Apollo was overly sympathetic towards Goose, an allegation that was confirmed in a livestream where he and another person not only admitted to knowing about Goose's behavior for years before the messages leaked, they also thought it wasn't a big deal and felt that people were overreacting. Backlash was swift and fierce with many saying that they would no longer support him.
- Then, in 2020, he shot himself back into relevance when he flamed DarkViper on Twitter, then deleted the tweets and made a video saying that Viper attacked him. This only reignited the controversy and introduced a whole new audience to the drama, leading to him becoming a pariah among speedrunners. Tragically, at the end of the year, due to several severe and incurable physical health problems, as well as mental health problems, Apollo committed suicide, but not without referring to DarkViperAU, as well as another speedrunner, EZScape first. This instigated further drama in the speedrun YouTube community, with people arguing about DarkViper and EZScape's level of responsibility for the suicide. However, it appears that health problems were by far the primary reason for Apollo's suicide, and the line about DarkViper and EZScape was simply a final jab from Apollo as he decided to let it all out in his final moments.
- James Somerton (also known as James of Telos) was a video essayist who focused mostly on LGBT content and issues. He was generally well respected among the community and his fanbase until the release of H.Bomberguy's video "Plagiarism and You(Tube)", with nearly 2 hours of the video focusing on many instances in which he plagiarized and stole the words of other queer creators in his script. This video was then followed up merely one day later with another exposé on Somerton made by Todd in the Shadows, which further chronicled many instances of Somerton lying in his videos and making dubious statements such as the attractiveness of Nazi soldiers. This prompted numerous other people such the Ace Couple podcast to come out with negative stories about him, killing his career on the spot. He tried to come back on multiple occasions, but after being caught faking his own suicide, Somerton deleted his Internet footprint. He’s so associated with the controversies brought to light by those videos that his own Wikipedia page is now a redirect to a section of Hbomberguy's page on "Plagiarism and You(Tube)".
- Wilbur Soot was at one point an incredibly prominent figure online, well-known for both his music (as a solo act and with the band Lovejoy) and for being part of various Minecraft projects (most notably having a substantial role on the Dream SMP). However, this all came crashing down in February 2024, when his ex-girlfriend Shubble revealed that he'd abused her during their relationship (among other things citing an incident where he ignored a safe word during sex and bit her hard enough to draw blood). Wilbur released an apology that downplayed the severity of the situation in response, which Shubble rejected; in the aftermath, most of his former friends and collaborators cut ties with him and Lovejoy was forced to cancel upcoming concerts due to the backlash. As such, he's known as an abuser first and a content creator second; it doesn't help that much of his creative output (e.g. his more well-known songs having Entitled to Have You themes, his Dream SMP character eventually becoming a toxic presence to those around him) is now much harder to engage in as a result.
- YouTuber Randy Stair aka Andrew Blaze is known less for the content he produced and more for perpetrating a shooting spree at a grocery store before killing himself, with his mindset believing that he would be reincarnated as Ember McLain from Danny Phantom, whom he had an obsession over.
- Internet celebrity, singer-songwriter, and entrepreneur Jeffree Star was once known for being the most followed person on MySpace and more generally as an LGBTQ+ icon for the scene era, and is currently known for his extremely successful beauty company. This claim to fame has been eclipsed by his feuds with various celebrities (especially tattoo artist Kat Von D), his lengthy history of extremely offensive racist and misogynistic comments (that he has repeatedly apologized for but continues to make), and sexual harassment allegations (including him groping a member of a band on the 2010 Warped Tour), and, as of June 2020, an old website called "Lipstick Nazi" that was unearthed where he displayed swastikas and posted self-harm pictures.
- Cryaotic, real name Ryan Terry, was a massively popular and successful gaming-centric content creator throughout The New '10s who rose to stardom through Let's Plays of story-driven games that invested him along with his viewers. In June of 2020 Cry was accused of sexually explicit activity by numerous women, some of which were underage at the time of the misconduct with Cryaotic alleged to have known about the ones who were underage and pursuing them regardless. Cryaotic admitted to the allegations on social media and was promptly dropped by sponsors, along with being removed from Twitch series Late Night Crew as well as the cast of Monster Prom. Further investigations found that his predatory behavior went as far back as 2011. Cryaotic, who had already been under severe stress due to the state of his channel and at one point had a very public meltdown, disappeared from social media and despite teasing a comeback in November of 2020, he has not been heard from since. Even most fans will admit their memories of Cryaotic are tainted as a result.
- Northern Irish YouTuber Craig "Mini Ladd" Thompson is nowadays less known for being a former and frequent collaborator of Vanoss and his crew, as well as for his content, and better known for the allegations against him, where in June 2020 he was accused of sending inappropriate messages to underage fans while he was in his twenties, to which he tweeted out his admission. It gets even more egregious by the fact that it was later revealed he attempted to stop these issues from coming out and when that didn't work, he would just ignore them. To make matters worse, in his "apology" video, he kept mentioning his troubled past and his deteriorating mental health in an attempt to defend his actions. However, by doing so, he destroyed his reputation and career. Then, in February 2021, his Twitch channel was permanently banned.
- Toby Turner, better known as Tobuscus, was a fairly popular YouTuber thanks to his parody videos and comedy songs. In 2016, allegations of rape, abuse, lewd behavior, and peer pressure from several of his various ex-girlfriends as well as other YouTube influencers such as Philip De Franco were made against Turner, causing many within Turner's fanbase and sponsors to turn against him. Although the allegations have yet to be proven, and no one ever took Turner to court for his alleged abuse, the accusations have defined his reputation on the internet today. Not helping matters was his inconsistent responses to the accusations, as he went from calling the woman who fired the opening salvo his ex-girlfriend in one video to calling her an obsessed fangirl pretending to be his girlfriend in another. He is nowhere near as popular as he once was thanks to the scandal.
- Puerto-Rican YouTuber and voice actor Gamerduck (real name Gabe Velez) had his career and reputation eclipsed by accusations of sexual assault and emotional abuse. After the news broke, he was recast with Griffin Puatu in ENA and by Corey Wilder in Spooky Month. Nowadays, any conversation about Gabe will be about his allegations and subsequent end of career.
- Chilean YouTuber Peluchin Entertainment (MatĂas Vera) already had a divisive reputation for his videos' reputation for amateurishness, his badgering of other users, and sexual misconduct allegations from his classmates. His reputation was destroyed when he uploaded a video of him abusing his cats, one of which was killed. Many Spanish-speaking YouTubers condemned his attitude, including AuronPlay or Jordi Wild, and the outrage was so momentous that it even crossed the language barrier. YouTube also received criticism for refusing to take action against Peluchin, although pressure from Cr1TiKaL resulted in his channel getting terminated in September 2020.
- Argentinian VTuber Nimu was at one point was the most subscribed and well-known VTuber in Latin America with more than a million followers, having become the "face" of the Hispanic VTuber community due to her popularity. Only for her reputation to do a complete 180 thanks to being involved in numerous controversies, such as making false accusations against and harassing a much smaller VTuber, participating in scams and supporting Argentinian YouTuber Coscu, who has been accused of sexual abuse. Because of the mounting controversies, her reputation has swirled down the point and is now the butt of a popular joke in the Spanish online community, being at the center of the phrase "It had to be Nimu"Translation, which is used every time she messes up.
- boogie2988 (real name Steven Jay Williams) was once a popular YouTuber whose main claim to fame was his rant videos as the character Francis. Nowadays, he's more famous for his numerous scandals, which include several comments that were widely seen as insensitive or offensive (such as comparing his trolls to Nazis and rapists), an ex-girlfriend's allegations of manipulation and abuse, accounts of him lying to and manipulating his fans about topics including his mental and physical health, and that time when Frank Hassle came to Boogie's house and Boogie fired a warning shot at him because he wouldn't leave. Things would only get worse as Boogie would eventually wind up joining a podcast where his egregious internet spats would wind up looking belligerent and pathetic, such as when he was "forced" to beg on his hands & knees to apologize to his co-hosts for going on another livestream to talk about one such spat instead of the podcast. As his subscribers and viewership dwindled, he allowed a documentary to be made about himself which wound up exposing all the terrible decisions he was making with his life and the doc made him Unintentionally Unsympathetic even if it did give a bit of resurgence to his channel. Somehow it got even worse in 2024 when he promoted a cryptocurrency scam, claiming he needed the money for cancer treatments, only to unwittingly reveal that he likely fabricated a cancer diagnosis due to a refusal to provide proof of his diagnosis, citing privacy reasons. The backlash to both of these were swift and brutal and ended what was left of his reputation, and these days any content he produces is flooded with people bringing up his controversies or just mocking him.
- Belgian YouTuber Marcos Wilton, better known as LionMaker, was once a significant presence in the Minecraft community. This changed when he was exposed as a sexual predator who groomed underage fans and solicited minors for nudes. Now, his pedophilic tendencies and subsequent mental breakdown from the fallout have become the first things anyone associates with him.
- Ms. Yeah, a Chinese YouTuber known for her videos of experimenting with office supplies to cook dishes, is known more for an incident when two girls, a teenager and a preteen, attempted to copy her popcorn cooker experiment and ended up with very severe burns, with the teenager dying later. Ms Yeah did apologize and compensate the family; however, she also denied responsibility for how she added Don't Try This at Home notices to her videos and noted the girls didn't copy the video exactly. After being branded as a murderer by users and taking a hiatus, she still continues her web business, though it has significantly died down.
- Iilluminaughtii (real name Blair Zoń) is a video essayist who built her reputation calling out shady businesses, particularly multilevel marketing schemes. Her reputation soured in May 2023 when she accused LegalEagle's editor of plagiarism, based on his videos using highlighting and ripped paper effects similar to hers, both of which are standard effects plugins; this led to H.Bomberguy accusing Iilluminaughtii of engaging in actual plagiarism in some of her videos, including quoting at least one Brian Deer documentary word-for-word without specifying such. She didn't take this well, insisting that she never plagiarized despite mounting evidence to the contrary. She also doubled down on trying to shift blame onto Legal Eagle's editor, ruining her reputation further. This would spiral into her past abuse against fellow content creators and staff coming out, later leading to her posting a response video that only made it worse (among other things, she aired out a past team member's suicide note to try and make him look unstable and accused another of willfully harboring pedophiles because he wasn't awake to personally kick one out of his Discord server) as well as filing frivolous lawsuits in an attempt to silence her former collaborators. As a result of the controversy, her channel began hemorrhaging subscribers and viewers left and right, all of her videos had the comments section locked, and Blair eventually disappeared from the internet altogether around February 2024.
- TheDarkId was once known for very high quality screenshot Lets Plays of various games, including Drakengard and NieR. However, in 2024, it was revealed that he had lied about virtually every aspect of his life, building up a "story arc" that lasted almost twenty years, which included making fake sockpuppet accounts for his supposed "wife" and "daughter". While he still got a great deal of well-deserved flack for manipulating people on Discord and Twitter (which included saying that his "daughter" died of cancer, followed by him gaslighting his fans into thinking that anyone who thought he was lying was actually a Nazi), it's largely considered to be just as funny as it is infuriating, due to the utterly absurd nature of the lies he told. Among other things, he claimed to be a US soldier-turned-mercenary married to the secret granddaughter of Heinrich Himmler, to have beat up and murdered multiple people for being bigoted, and that Russian Neo-Nazis carried out an attack on his house. Once it all came out, however, he claimed to be dying of stomach cancer and vanished from the internet.
- Nowadays, the French content makers known as the VoxMakers are less remembered for their content than for the scandals they are associated to:
- Nearly all the members are associated to the VoxMenteur scandal: between 2019 and 2023, it was mostly known as the previous members reuniting after the dislocation of the crew and accusing their former boss Thomas Cyrix of various forms of abuse; since 2023, it's been revealed as the "opération Mai 68", a gambit planned since the enclosure of the website by nearly all their previous members to retrieve their past fame by destroying Cyrix’ solo carrier.Disclaimer Aside from 100Pseudo who apologized for giving fake accusations and took his distance from his former partners, nearly all of them are still connected to this scandal.
- L'Ermite Moderne is now better known for the international failure of Tsubomi, a project of app to read manga online. The project collapsed because of the disastrous execution leading to a compulsory liquidation (reselling all the material to refund creditors), the people who funded it online didn't receive any refund, and as the authors waiting for a publication were not paid, most of them declared they would refuse any business with French partners in the future.
- Shindehai has been accused of plagiarism for some of his songs, but also of various forms of abuse on his former partner.
- While Mickael J already was the most divisive member of the crew, nowadays he’s known for being an aggressive hater who rages on nearly every topic he talks about, for being a very close-minded guy who blocks anyone that contradicts him on Twitter / X, and for the scandal linked to his ex-girlfriend who accused him of various forms of abuse; even after it was revealed that the girlfriend was the real abuser, the fact MJ and his fans tried to doxx anybody who talked about the scandal before this revelation certainly tarnished his reputation even more.
- Many members have been revealed as groomers.Disclaimer Some leaks showed that Noru-Da tried to groom teenagers when he was 21, MadStalker has been accused by the YouTuber Arcade of grooming him when they were 22 and he was 16, and 123Lunatic has been accused by a previous partner not only of grooming, but of non-consensual sexual relations, and also of psychophobia and transphobia when said partner transitioned from female to male; he was also heavily criticized for the livestream that followed the revelations where he tried to reduce the gravity of the situation.
- It's been revealed that Sainte SĂ©ĂŻa commissioned drawings of lolis.
Web Videos and Webseries
- The ContraPoints video Opulence is most frequently associated with the massive backlash following a short voice clip of Buck Angel, an older generation trans man infamous for his support of transmedicalist,note transmisogynist and anti-non-binary views. Natalie's actions in around the time of its release note did little to sway her detractors, and the follow up video Cancelling would include a more in-depth response to the controversy.
- At its height, the Dream SMP was one of the most popular private Minecraft RP servers around. Nowadays, it's better known for the fact that a large number of its contributors have fallen into their own controversies (most notably server namesake Dream and Wilbur Soot, both of whom have their own entries in the "individual creators" folder), as well as for the various inter-personal conflicts that arose during and after its run.
- Game Grumps' playthrough of Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey is primarily known for a graphic rape joke about the very young player character, to the point they had to include a trigger warning and an apology. While the Grumps have made a lot of jokes about sensitive topics, this joke in particular gets brought up the most for using pedophilia as the punchline.
- Game Life was once celebrated for being the first YouTube channel centered towards gaming, with talks of making the channel into a television show. Nowadays, they're not known for anything but the fact that the founder of the channel, Andrew Rosenblum, was arrested after threatening to shoot up his ex-girlfriend's school the day after the Virginia Tech shooting.
- Very few knew of the web film Innocence Of Muslims on YouTube until after protests against it in Muslim-majority countries were sparked by an excerpt that aired on an Egyptian television station. The video actually led to YouTube being banned in many countries with said majorities.
- While MLP Analysis continues to be popular with most My Little Pony fans, it's safe to say that their reputation will forever be tainted after an incident in January 2018 where one of the community's members, ToonKriticY2K, was discovered to have been engaging in sexual roleplays with underage girls. This got worse when people started accusing other members of the analysis community of either keeping quiet on Toon's crimes or outright being pedophiles themselves. For example, when Dr. Wolf and Silver Quill made a video explaining the issue, some mistook it as defending ToonKritic and his actions. While that was eventually cleared up — Dr. Wolf and Silver Quill had nothing to do with ToonKritic's behavior, and were not defending his actions — they later posted videos emphasizing that ToonKriticY2K's victims should forgive him to find closure. This was perceived by a few people as Victim-Blaming, causing the controversy to flare up again.
- The Man in the Suit itself is well-received, but whenever G-Fans and fans of analog horror attempt to discuss this web series, there will always be at least one mention of how the toxic harassment Unknowingly received resulted in its cancellation — which worsened in 2026 when it and personal issues caused Unknowingly to attempt suicide.
- Rooster Teeth:
- During a 2013 Let's Build of Dark Achievement City, Geoff Ramsey and Gavin Free casually discussed a "game" they would play occasionally where they would discreetly follow attractive young women around for a bit. Almost immediately, there was a massive outcry, accusing the duo of sexism and stalking, and even the most forgiving tended to find it extremely crass and tasteless at best. While the backlash towards this has died down over the years, several continue to hold this against them.
- gen:LOCK was intended to put RT on the map for animation projects, having high-profile backers (Michael B. Jordan) and voice actors (e.g., Maisie Williams, Kōichi Yamadera, and David Tennant). Despite a promising start and critical acclaim, Season 1's production suffered from toxic working conditions and financial mismanagement at the hands of animation head Grey Haddock, generating poor reviews from employees on Glassdoor and blogsites, being picked up by local and tech industry media outlets, and leading Haddock to resign in disgrace. Despite internal efforts to improve the working environment, that reputational damage continues looming over the company and the gen:LOCK project. And once the series was out of RT's hands in season 2, one moment that could be positive, a tasteful, creative, and trans-affirming sex scene between Kazu and Val, entered this trope by being ruined by the circumstances around it: one episode prior, a heterosexual sex scene that came out of nowhere and was mostly focused on its parties' lack of chemistry made fans a bit too taken aback by the awkwardness to be receptive to a good sex scene an episode later; and then later in the episode Kazu is killed, making viewers unhappy at such a blatant case of Bury Your Gays. And on another very negative aspect of season 2, there's also the handling of the topic of suicide when Cammie effectively kills herself via Ascension, only to get Technopath superpowers out of it with Ascension soon being treated as a good solution to the season's conflict with many people considering this as a very disgusting portrayal of suicide that sends a genuinely harmful message to viewers by treating it as a positive solution.
- While Nijisanji revolutionized VTubing by introducing Live2D as the standard technology for animating characters, and is still one of the biggest names in the industry, anyone from outside Japan trying to get into VTubers is more likely to learn about the company's missteps rather than its successes. Early 2024 is where the overshadowing becomes most firmly established due to the termination of Selen Tatsuki, which garnered so much negative PR due to how it was handled that it all but killed Nijisanji's foothold in the English-speaking VTubing fanbase, as well as receiving attention from content creators and more mainstream news sources that normally don't cover VTubers, such as Polygon, Mutahar, and Legal Mindset. Along with this, public opinion of Nijisanji has further been soured by controversies involving other talents who are still employed by the company, as well as critical but veiled-for-legal-reasons statements from former talents citing problems dealing with management, projects either being denied or shut down for flimsy or arbitrary reasons (if any were given), and some talents facing potentially serious legal issues due to how their finances were being handled by the company. It's worth noting that the Japanese fanbase, to date, seems to be largely unaffected by the aforementioned issues and Nijisanji is still very popular there.
- The Slender Man Mythos was once one of the most well-known creepypastas, but its reputation was tarnished after two girls stabbed another girl in 2014, citing their motivation as a desire to please Slender Man. The incident has eclipsed much discussion of the creepypasta, with a film on the creepypasta having to edit scenes to avoid resemblance to the incident. Slender Man’s reputation slightly improved in The New '20s, largely driven by its then-young fans growing up and becoming nostalgic for it, but the 2014 stabbing continues to hang a dark cloud above the mythos.
- One major series in the mythos was Tribe Twelve, which was often praised for the high quality of its visual effects. However, it's now known more for the controversy surrounding the series' creator, Adam Rosner, who was exposed in 2020 of having groomed and financially exploited several underage fangirls during the series' run (and sexually assaulted two adult female friends). Rosner has since deleted his social media accounts, and all of his former friends and collaborators have cut ties, leaving the series effectively dead.
- The 2017 SuperMarioLogan episode "Jeffy's Tantrum" is mostly known for when a 7-year-old fan imitated a scene in which the character Jeffy attempts to hang himself. When the kid's mother discovered what had happened, Logan issued an apology for the incident, with the subsequent age-restricting of his channel by YouTube. This event would start a domino effect leading to Nintendo issuing a cease & desist towards Logan in 2021 forcing him to stop using their characters, which only further cementing the incident's place in people's perceptions of the video.