Shane Dawson said he felt his past mistakes ruined the lives of everybody around him when old offensive clips resurfaced
- Shane Dawson appeared on his fiancée Ryland Adams' podcast "The Sip" on Wednesday.
- He spoke about getting canceled, and feeling like he "ruined everybody's lives" around him.
- The internet turned against Dawson last summer when old offensive content resurfaced.
YouTuber Shane Dawson appeared on his fiancée Ryland Adams' podcast "The Sip" on Wednesday, where they spoke about his future as a content creator, and how that was impacted by getting canceled last summer.
Dawson has been a YouTuber since 2009. He grew a following of over 20 million subscribers on the platform, becoming particularly well known for his multi-part documentary-style videos on figures such as controversial influencers Jeffree Star and Jake Paul. But in the past year, Dawson has been mostly absent from the internet, appearing only in Adams' YouTube videos and podcast, where he and cohost Lizze Gordon talk about internet drama.
On the latest episode, Dawson said he felt like he had "ruined everybody's lives" around him when his past mistakes were dredged up. The internet turned against Dawson in July 2020 when compilation videos of him dressing in blackface, making pedophilia jokes, and talking about adult topics to his audience circulated online. He told Adams and Gordon that he felt Adams had taken on some of the backlash.
"This is such a dark place to go, but over the last couple of years I feel like, and I've really tried to work through it, but it is hard not to feel like I've ruined everybody's lives around me because of my mistakes in the past," Dawson said. "And that was definitely a feeling for a while. And it's like, I don't know, I just felt like you've got thrown through the mud."
Dawson added that he was proud of Adams and Gordon for continuing to make the podcast, and staying "loyal to the people that watch."
The conversation happened about an hour into the episode, titled "Spooky Special with Shane Dawson," where they also discussed Adams and Dawson's life since moving from LA to Colorado, and mental health.
Following the resurfaced clips in June 2020, Dawson posted an apology video before disappearing from the internet, reappearing in Adams' Instagram stories and YouTube videos in October 2020, which was met with a mixed reaction. Dawson and Adams recently relocated to Colorado from LA. Dawson said he was "ready to create again" in an Instagram story on August 28, according to PopBuzz.
According to a recent Insider poll, Dawson has a net favorability rating of -35.3%. Out of the 15.1% of 1,105 respondents surveyed who knew him, 7.8% liked him, while 43.1% didn't. However, many of the comments underneath the podcast episode on YouTube appear to be positive, congratulating Dawson on being so open.