Trending 19th March 2019 by Valerie Loftus

Why Is Everyone Talking About YouTuber Shane Dawson And His Cat? Well…

A clip of Dawson claiming to have had sex with his cat went viral over the weekend. Yikes.

If you hadn’t heard of Shane Dawson before this weekend, you’re probably wondering why the entire internet is talking about him and his cat. So who is he, and what exactly is going on?

Well, Dawson is one of the biggest YouTubers going, with around 21m subscribers on that platform alone. In recent years, he’s found a niche in posting conspiracy theory videos and documentaries on fellow YouTubers, which have been generally well-received.

HOWEVER. Over the weekend, a snippet from a 2015 episode of his podcast Shane And Friends in which he jokes about having his “first sexual experience” with his cat went viral on Twitter.

(We will not go into what exactly is said on the recording because it’s truly unpleasant, but it is of course freely available to listen to elsewhere on the internet. It’s definitely five yikes out of five.)

Talk of the ‘story’ has consumed Twitter – some people took it at face value and were absolutely disgusted, while others recognised that it was probably a joke, but still weren’t exactly wild about it.

Dawson has vehemently denied any wrongdoing in a series of tweets posted yesterday:

https://twitter.com/shanedawson/status/1107464566332489728

“I’ve apologised many times for all the dumb sh*t I’ve said in videos and podcasts over the years,” he continued. “I’ve learned my lesson over and over again and I’m more confident now in my ability to be entertaining by just being myself and not being so shocking for laughs.”

The story was fake and based on a dumb awful sketch idea I had years ago that I never made (THANK GOD) and when the opportunity came up for a funny moment on the podcast I told it as if it was a real story which was DISGUSTING and VERY VERY DUMB.

Dawson explained that his goal for his earlier work was to tell “shocking stories”, but he now finds this “embarrassing.”

“Now that I’m making stuff I love and I’m being myself it feels so much better and I finally feel like I’m putting stuff out into the world that means something,” he tweeted.

He isn’t wrong. He’s been called out/has apologised numerous times since setting up his channel in 2008 for things like making inappropriate jokes about pedophilia and painting himself in blackface to portray celebrities like Chris Brown and Raven Symone.

As many Twitter users have pointed out, this is just one in a long line of ‘controversies’ that Dawson has weathered – it’s also worth noting that his documentaries often serve as image rehab for other contentious YouTube personalities like Jake Paul, Tana Mongeau and Jeffree Star.

https://twitter.com/stellarcarol/status/1107597235234242560

Will this be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Well, considering Paul, Mongeau and Star have bounced back from similar scandals, he’s probably going to be just fine. But has he really learned from his past indiscretions, as he says he has? We’ll see about that.

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