Have you ever tried to lessen your punishment from your parents with crocodile tears? Well, Laura Lee attempted to fool her audience the same way. Laura Lee is a makeup artist on YouTube with over 4 million subscribers, although unfortunately for her, the numbers are rapidly declining due to an unavailing apology video. What exactly did she do? Like most arguments in the age of social media, it began on twitter. It all started when her fellow YouTuber friend, Gabriel Zamora, posted a picture of ‘her squad’ on twitter, captioning it “b***h is bitter because we’re doing better”, indirectly attacking the respected YouTuber, Jeffree Star. This caused fans of Jeffree to find controversial tweets of Laura Lee, that read:
Due to the prevalence of political correctness in mainstream and social media, today’s youth are more sensitive than ever towards topics such as racism, homophobia, etc, rightfully so. Thus leading to an environment which embodies a zero-tolerance policy towards anybody, specifically those who have a platform and a young, impressionable audience. Owing to this, social media influencers who face intense backlash for controversial tweets are expected to express guilt, regret, remorse and shame towards their despicable actions in the form of a heartfelt apology, yet none of this was displayed in Laura’s video. After Laura’s tweets resurfaced, she released an apology video which many deemed to be superficial and lacking any real emotion, leading to its removal. Many rightfully argued that due to the stars age (twenty-four when she made these tweets) that she should have possessed enough maturity to comprehend the deep racist connotations that the tweets hold.
Everyone makes mistakes, however it is important to hold those with a large audience accountable. With Laura having over 4 million subscribes, it is important that her voice is one that spreads positivity, love and acceptance; which is why her apology is so crucial as it shows her young fans that what she said in her past tweets is unacceptable, while also showing the importance of growing from your mistakes. Which from her lacklustre apology, shows that she failed miserably to achieve this goal.
On the other hand, there are some who see this attack on Laura as going too far, since the tweets were written six years ago. However, I feel that it is of the upmost importance that these successful influencers are not given a free pass. The racism depicted in her tweets is deplorable and her apology fails to communicate any sense of real regret to those who were deeply offended by her words.