- An Insider poll shows the top 10 most disliked influencers currently online.
- The Paul brothers, Keemstar, and
Onision are still on the list after the first poll in December. - New additions include The ACE Family and Lovely Peaches.
An influencer doesn't need to be liked to be profitable: Controversy, scandal, and unlikability can be major factors in driving engagement and views. Some of the most popular creators on the internet are frequently the most controversial, growing their infamy with each hot take or disliked video, as evidenced by a recent Insider poll.
Insider surveyed over 1,000 people through SurveyMonkey Audience to find out which of over 75 influencers are the most well-known, liked, and disliked online. Insider previously conducted a similar poll in December 2020.
Here are the top 10 most-disliked influencers, according to Insider's poll.
10. David Dobrik
Starting off the list is David Dobrik, the YouTuber with 18.4 million subscribers and founder of Dispo, a social-media app. Throughout this year, his popularity took a sharp decline after a woman featured in one of his vlogs told Insider she was sexually assaulted by a former member of Dobrik's Vlog Squad. He's lost sponsorships, brand deals, and subscribers to the scandal and has since posted two apology videos.
Dobrik's unfavorability more than doubled since Insider's previous poll, bringing him to a 46% rating.
9. Shane Dawson
Shane Dawson, one of YouTube's earliest successful pioneers, earns the ninth spot on the list. After having his online reputation annihilated in 2020 when offensive clips resurfaced online, Dawson has all but disappeared from online discourse in recent months.
Of the 23% of survey respondents who said they knew of Dawson, 48% found him unfavorable. With Dawson seemingly out of the spotlight, it's a testament to his legacy that he is still that well known and disliked.
8. The Ace Family
Austin McBroom, Catherine Paiz, and their three children are the stars of the ACE Family channel on YouTube. With 19 million subscribers and videos that pull in hundreds of thousands of views, their content mostly centers on family vlogs and tours of their mansion.
The family has been involved in controversy. McBroom has said called his fans "ungrateful" for his free content, ran a charity basketball game and donated $75,000 of the $100,000 he promised, and posted a video of his young daughter licking a penis-shaped lollipop in a sex shop.
Of those surveyed, 13% knew of the family, with 50% of those respondents finding them unfavorable - up 5% from the 2020 poll.
7. Lovely Peaches
Internet provocateur and musician Brittany Johnson, known online as Lovely Peaches, has built up a career by being controversial. With over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube and 164,000 followers on Instagram, fans seem to watch a lot of her content just to keep up with her wild antics. In January 2021, she was arrested on animal-cruelty charges after allegedly picking up her dog by the neck and spraying perfume in its face.
Treating animals poorly remains a simple way to earn disdain online: 9% of those surveyed knew Johnson and 50% of those found her unfavorable.
6. Jeffree Star
Jeffree Star, the infamous beauty guru who has been accused of tasing, sexual assault, and hush-money bribes, lands at number 6 on the list. In Insider's last poll, Star was the sixth-most-disliked.
With 16.5 million YouTube subscribers and a line of successful makeup lines, Star has found a way to monetize extreme controversy.
28% knew who he was - up from 23% in the previous poll - and 52% found him unfavorable, down 4% from last time.
5. Zoe Laverne
The 19-year-old with 17 million TikTok followers has faced multiple controversial accusations over the course of her short career. In 2020, leaked audio of Zoe Laverne insulting Charli D'Amelio went viral, and then she admitted to kissing and "catching feelings" for a 13-year-old fan.
Most recently, in February, Laverne announced that she was pregnant with her current 20-year-old boyfriend.
Laverne held onto the same spot on the list as last time, with 6% knowing who she is and 52% disliking her.
4. Keemstar
One of the most infamous drama channel hosts on YouTube, Daniel Keem, known as Keemstar, earns a spot halfway through the list.
The host of DramaAlert, which has 5.8 million YouTube subscribers, Keem's online persona frequently involves trying to get a rise out of social-media users and influencers, such as with his feuds with other online personalities like YouTuber Ethan Klein. Sometimes his contoversies are radioactive, like when in 2019 he told Desmond "Etika" Amofah to "just jump off a cliff" just days before his suicide.
Recent Twitter feuds with K-Pop and Minecraft stans may have bumped Keem up from the ninth spot on the previous list. Of the 10% who knew who he was, 57% found him unfavorable (up 10% from the previous list).
3. Logan Paul
One of YouTube's most well known and controversial figures is Logan Paul, the elder of the two Paul brothers. With over 22 million YouTube subscribers, a successful podcast and a (less successful) boxing career, Logan, 26, keeps himself busy.
Over the pandemic, he announced he was going to move to Puerto Rico and caused the Pokemon card market to explode in value, but has remained fairly uncontroversial. But the stigma of his 2018 suicide forest video, where he allegedly filmed a dead body and posted it online, still hangs over his career.
Logan was the second spot on the previous list. His notoriety increased by 7 percentage points to 38%. His unfavorability rating also dropped from 68% to 64%.
2. Jake Paul
The "everyday bro" follows in his brother's footsteps and drops one spot lower on this list compared to last time. Though Logan Paul has tried to stay out of controversy the past few years, his brother has done the opposite. The list of his recent controversies is long- he threw a ragerr during quarantine, his house was raided by the FBI, called COVID-19 a hoax, and was charged with trespassing in Arizona after a video circulated of him at a mall where looting and vandalism were occurring.
4% more people knew who Jake was this time around, bringing his notoriety up to 34%. His unfavorability dropped the same percentage, bringing him at 67%.
1. Onision
The top spot on our list goes to James Jackson, known as Onision. He's been accused of grooming underage women, body shaming in his videos, and killing a turtle he left under a plastic pool. On our last list, Jackson was only fourth but a recent docuseries released by Discovery+ may have contributed to his infamy.
On both lists, only 7% knew who Jackson was but his unfavorability grew by 16 percentage points, bringing it up to 75%.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Recent polling data collected 1,129 respondents March 26-27, 2021 with a 3 percentage point margin of error, December data collected 1,042 respondents December 24-25, 2020 with a 3 percentage point margin of error.