Twitch star Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys broke down why she thinks Shane Dawson’s return to YouTube is problematic. The OfflineTV streamer was critical of his apology and take on being “canceled.”
In 2020, Shane Dawson came under fire after controversial comments from his past resurfaced online. The entertainer took a lengthy hiatus before making his return on October 7, 2021.
One person not a fan of how the creator made his return is Twitch streamer Pokimane. The Moroccan-Canadian criticized the 33-year-old during her live broadcast. According to Anys, the YouTuber didn’t seem genuine in his apology.
Pokimane calls Shane Dawson’s apology “disingenuous”
During her Twitch stream, Pokimane reacted to Shane Dawson’s first upload since 2020. While watching his return video, the 25-year-old explained to viewers why she wasn’t buying into Dawson’s apology for his past mistakes. “The way he is jumping between topics, I hate to say it, it just sends disingenuous vibes,” she said.
“Like, if you really care about something, like, ‘hey I want to come back. I want to seriously apologize and I want people to know how aware I am of the sh**ty things that I did’… When someone’s serious they look like they feel bad, they say at lengths what they did wrong. That’s how you really do it.”
The star told viewers that most wouldn’t accept an apology if someone acted that way. “Whereas if someone is like, “Sorry you feel that way. If you hate me you’re gonna hate me, and omg my cat’s so cute!” If someone apologized like that, you would be like, ‘What?!’… It just wouldn’t feel right,” she said.
Pokimane then called out the YouTuber on how he was glossing over his past controversies. “The way he summarized it, I felt kind of sucked, where he was like “All these clips came out, and that was bad. And if I talk about how I really feel about it, then people will say I just want sympathy.” … But then it’s like, maybe you haven’t thought about what you did long enough.”
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The streamer also wasn’t buying Shane Dawson’s explanation for taking a hiatus from YouTube. “All the things he listed, none of them were like, “I felt bad about what I’ve done. And like I wanted to give people time and space.” People need time to get over, and you need to showcase you’ve changed,” she said.
Poki followed that up and explained, “If you’re going to go off the internet for like two years, specifically because of you being canceled. When you come back and it’s your first video back, I think you need to acknowledge what you did. And in acknowledging what you’ve done wrong, you need to say that you’re sorry, to showcase that you’re genuinely sorry.”
Pokimane summed up her whole take on his return by saying that the controversial YouTuber seemed “unsure” of whether he should care about people being angry at him or not. The streamer reiterated that Dawson’s lack of a straightforward apology made him come off not genuine.
“You need to go about things the way you genuinely feel. If you feel you are sorry, say you’re sorry. But you also have to accept that if you choose not to apologize and some people think that makes you disingenuous then so be it. But the vibes that I get is that he’s unsure.”
