The Tragic Aftermath of Bobby Burns

[Music] in a very very long time it just felt almost like everyone that i had tried to help build and reach out to just turned on me i think just because because it didn't get clicked it gets clicked and it's so insane yeah like it got to the point where i i didn't leave my house ever i think it became trendy to hate me i think [Music] let's talk about the guy we all love to hate shane dawson is one of youtube's earliest pioneers and still remains one of the most talked about creators to this day with his contentious past coming under massive scrutiny seemingly every other month now it's hard to deny that shane's contributions to the platform have not been met without criticism and for good reason come on man what is this good job lucy but next time shake your titties more and you take off the jacket and show more good job over there hey what's up you guys but as his reputation continues to crumble in front of our very eyes it's important to remember how shane dawson was once commonly affiliated with the rehabilitation of broken individuals in recent history he's actually worked to reconstruct the shattered careers of some of youtube's greatest villains turning an otherwise negative situation on its head and satisfying every party by offering a new perspective into the lives of select online personalities but at what point can a person's generosity go too far and when does a seemingly simple act of compassion inadvertently lead to a cautionary tale of what it means to kill someone with kindness if you ask me the perfect example of this may lie within bobby burns um bobby are you are you going to clap the chain or anyone from the team yes but first i want to thank our sponsors storyfire if you've been watching youtube for as long as i have you probably know mcjuggernuggets you're trespassing on my property you well he started his own social media platform being a combination of youtube and twitter storyfire allows viewers to watch their favorite creators express themselves freely without a looming thread of censorship giving you the ability to write stories make videos and grow a following all at the same time or you know you can just watch the exclusive q a i made over on my channel link in the description below but before anything else let's figure out how bobby got started hey guys so about two weeks ago i told you i was going to tell you the story about how i moved from nashville tennessee to los angeles into this house to become a professional youtuber and guess what it's not time for that story bobby burns is a 23 year old vlogger slash commentator slash musician with well over 600 000 subscribers on his main channel because his content doesn't exactly fit into one distinct mold it's fair to say he's undergone a series of titles over the course of his time on the platform first breaking into the youtube scene an entire decade ago with the debut of his first channel chicken feet films where he could find anything from nerf battles to lego stop-motion animations in fact these videos served as my first introduction to bobby burns probably five or six years ago it's safe to say he's been a prevalent creator for quite a long time [Music] though it wasn't until april of 2014 that bobby announced the launch of an entirely new channel with the aim of producing movie reviews this is when bobby officially shifted over to the channel we know today where he began creating exactly what he set out to do for a couple years bobby continued to review films react to trailers and even upload some of his own original short films and sketches he even announced his own feature linked film he was working on with his friends at one point i mean it was clear from the start that bobby had a love for movies and dedicated himself to entertaining his viewers no matter the cost naturally this drive led his channel through a myriad of evolutions with bobby categorizing each new wave of content with a different number for example bobby 1.0 had to do with pretty innocuous album and movie reviews while bobby 2.0 took a more serious look at films and collaborated with the likes of larger movie channels like cinemasins overall it wasn't a bad way of categorizing his seemingly lucid flow of content but as time went on and his style naturally changed and morphed along the way he adopted a rougher more aggressive tone one that seemed to fit perfectly in line with bobby 4.0 which involved bobby taking a closer look at youtubers themselves through a more analytical lens this is when bobby first started getting some real recognition his main thing he does on youtube is he reviews food and drinks everything that anthony says in this video is so intentional on june 26 2017 bobby burns uploaded a scathing critique of youtuber apologies using anthony from smosh as a catalyst to delve deeper into the disingenuous emotions frequently displayed by online personalities well this video ended up taking off and garnered well over a million views in a pretty short amount of time one of the first real glimpses of online notoriety bobby had ever received at that level so naturally he began to make more and more until his uploads were mostly commentary having to do with the lives and careers of other youtubers not too dissimilar from what you may get from the right opinion or priming today ultimately his career was being set up for long-term success so long as he continued delivering the content his new subscribers were tuning in for there's a list of things that i've come up with to look out for when watching a youtube video from a youtuber you really enjoy when they're talking about something that seems very emotional or hard for them to deal with the videos were complete with creative skits and nuanced perspectives bobby was finally making a name for himself as well as paving the way for more channels like his in the meantime he was doing really well that is until a very peculiar upload so you might be saying oh do you have a problem with that bobby so another youtuber making money off something that someone else enjoys not necessarily i have a problem with people manipulating people ultimately i would argue bobby would be in a much better place today had he never made this video in november of 2017 bobby set his crosshairs on shane dawson and he didn't exactly hold back either making terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible condoms he used blackface like a lot i don't think you guys are getting this enough blackface blackface this person blackface now although looking back i think a lot of the criticism here was actually pretty valid not everyone felt the same way at the time and it became one of bobby's most contentious videos to date the like to dislike ratio was one of the worst i had ever seen from bobby at the time this show shane does is a conspiracy theory show where he sits down and goes through all these different popular conspiracy theories about things that are going on in the world today in 2017. the only problem with this is that almost none of them are [ __ ] conspiracy theories i have so much i want to say about this 17 minute video let's get started but it's also not really a bad thing to generate a reaction so polarizing just means a lot of people had some strong opinions on what he had to say one of those people being our favorite cat boy himself see shane decided he was going to try something new filming his reaction to a hate video evidently the video he finally landed on just happened to be that of bobby burns now usually you would think shane would just respond to some of bobby's criticisms offer his own rebuttal maybe and move on with his day right well that's not really what happened i like this i like this ooh i like the background i like the camera he looks like he showered can't relate and instead of just like sending him an email or tweeting him i think what i want to do is fly him out here bring him to my house and confront him in person and maybe just maybe i can turn a hater into a lover or maybe it'll end really really badly we'll get to a huge fight and he'll kill me as his conspiracy videos were growing trite and repetitive it was obvious shane was looking to make something new and i guess he decided it was time to get a little bold shane decided to go all out and insisted on flying bobby burns to la to confront him in person let's fly a hater out to my house this is a bad idea see you soon bobby burns getting to know someone as a person face to face is an entirely different experience than just watching glimpses of their lives unfold online and that's something shane set out to prove in his first collab but keep in mind this was also before he took the plunge into the youtube docu-series world so it's fair to assume he didn't exactly know the full scope of what he was about to get himself into i don't think i thought this through completely because i don't know if he actually like really doesn't like me or if he was only doing that video to get views and he was like man this will be a good video i don't know i've never really interacted or confronted somebody that publicly said they think my videos are terrible like i'm sure a lot of my family thinks it but they've never told me maybe he wanted to help bobby i don't know maybe he wanted to boost his channel or something but to me i think he saw it as a golden opportunity a publicity stunt and an attempt to turn one of his biggest haters as he called it into an ally a friend he was going to make amends with his critic a stunt which would ideally assist both of their reputations in the process and that's not so much of a bad thing but it's also worth a second glance in hindsight when you consider how dramatically this move affected bobby's standing on the platform and the next few years of his life as a whole whether or not shane meant to do this out of the kindness of his own heart was besides the point this decision undoubtedly shifted the trajectory of bobby's career on a permanent scale and honestly why wouldn't it i'm filming this because i want to have how i was feeling documented i definitely feel a lot of stress for sure i didn't know how i was gonna feel stress from the start it didn't seem like anything too out of the ordinary shane wanted to address what was said in the initial hate video and again i'm using quotations because i wouldn't consider anything bobby said to be hateful it was just honest criticism of what he saw from shane dawson's repertoire of content but when you use such a visceral title and promote the idea that this guy is some kind of hater it's going to appear a little disingenuous when he actually turns out to be really friendly in person hi oh my god oh a hug oh my god it's a good sign it smells good oh you do so good thank you from the second these two met it was almost as if bobby hadn't said the things that got him there in the first place i thought you didn't watch my videos dude i've been i've been watching your videos since probably probably 13 14. yeah i've been watching your videos for years and years and years you already love him though well no because he apologized and i'm all good with that that's like a bunch of mean [ __ ] i mean it wasn't a bunch of mean [ __ ] it was it was like a critical video you shouldn't do that almost as if bobby was intimidated by shane or maybe just the prospect of being introduced as a hater to you know 11 million new sets of eyes for bobby the stakes for this single collab were higher than ever here he was being called a hater by one of youtube's biggest stars in front of the menacing mob of shane's more than dedicated fan base the exact fan base that had the power then to make or break this guy's career and on one hand i'm sure it was exhilarating to have your personality acknowledged at such a monumental level but by that same token it also sounds like a terrifying prospect bobby's anxiety is almost palpable in their first collab which really did a lot to set the tone for the upcoming series of unfortunate events to ensue any sense to be intense about and i'm like what the [ __ ] are you doing bobby what are you doing a couple times been like oh [ __ ] no one's gonna like the video so many people are gonna come to the channel and like [ __ ] hate them i've been doing this for so many years and i've tried everything i've just tried [ __ ] everything trying to make it work so i was like 11 i think i've been making videos for youtube i'm turning 21 in january and i just hope this is the thing man the next few parts of the series were when things got interesting and by interesting i mean not not good for bobby when i look at your instagram like all your comments are just hate from shane dawson fans and i'm like how do you feel about that like i'm i'm genuinely interested like what do you think yeah on the instagram everything i post i know over half of the things the comments are going to be hate from shane dawson fans the audience was slowly starting to turn on this new addition to shane's channel they weren't so sure bobby was using shane for clout which was something that people in shane's camp seem to just kind of laugh off if you had the chance to kill me with no repercussions and you'd get all my subscribers would you do it oh he'd kill you how why why are you hesitating no are you gonna kill me no no what no hey my hater tries to kill me is a good title you're just a milk oh you're strangling you this is too real even strapping you up to a lie detector and lobbing him some hard-hitting questions in one video are you using my boyfriend no [ __ ] are you using it for use i mean yes yeah so if people weren't skeptical before they definitely were now it makes sense to at least be self-aware of the possibility that bobby was using shane but these failed attempts to play it off as a joke didn't help dissuade anyone who may have actually thought that i mean let's be honest the theory itself isn't completely dead in the water there are numerous instances of bobby expressing an interest in moving to la to pursue a career in entertainment and it is possible he saw shane as his big break maybe he wanted to use him for subscribers money a way to make connections in the youtube world i don't know in hindsight it's impossible to say for certain what his intentions were either way shane stands during this time felt he was a hater receiving undeserved publicity to the point where it felt forced and inauthentic oh and did i mention he went out and bought him a car what wait what wait what what if a hate video is all it takes to get a whole ass jeep i think lily's saying has some paying up to do it would be cool to do something that's kind of following my move out here and kind of tracking the whole experience of what it's actually like to be a youtuber that would be you could do all the things i don't want to do like go to youtube or parties oh my god take showers get makeovers oh my god okay that's the show it didn't help that many of shane's fans felt the jeep and the attention should have gone to another youtuber destree smith who was another friend of shane's at the time it was an entire mess the fact of the matter was some were mad at shane for giving bobby air airtime and others wanted bobby to return to commentary on his own channel regardless the fans on either side were torn one way or the other after a total of five collabs had passed you'd think things would have gone back to normal bobby could return home and focus more on his channel and shane could go back to jacking off to willow smith but there were already other plans in motion bobby was offered the opportunity of a lifetime his own series on shane's channel much like other creators in the past bobby was given the chance to upload every sunday for shane dawson's at the time 12 million subscribers giving bobby more publicity than he ever could have imagined it was during this time that his notoriety on youtube skyrocketed garnering around 600 000 more subscribers on his own channel in the meantime boosting him to nearly 900k at around the peak of his career in a matter of a few short short months bobby had gone from producing typical commentary videos to having his own house in la working with a crew on weekly vlogs alongside shane dawson with about three times the amount of subs he had before if you don't think a change that drastic is gonna [ __ ] with your mental health you are dead wrong on top of this brand new atmosphere bobby was attempting to grow accustomed to in such little time shane's fans were still not too keen on this little decision and before long the comment sections were absolutely flooded with negative feedback regarding bobby's addition to the channel and although bobby is nowhere near a bad guy i can at least understand where some of the anger came from up until this point bobby was mostly known for his hard-hitting criticism and biting commentary of his fellow creators this is why his own fans liked him and it's ultimately why i enjoyed watching him too he had a distinct style that he was able to just nail down and it didn't make any sense for him to change things so drastically out of the blue but that's exactly what he did we are here at target and i'm going to be joined by my friend thomas and nathan oh and i guess also jordan as well they're going to be spending 50 each to buy me a surprise birthday gift that i don't know what it's going to be and they're spending my money on it so see how it goes it was like he was trying to go for this david dobrik kind of thing he even said of himself a year later i was trying to make like a show like i wanted it to be like like friends and like what david dobrik was doing kind of mixed with the feeling of friends and kind of the pace of that these videos weren't necessarily bad they just didn't connect with people the same way his old ones did because not only can it be a nice sports car but it can be a forklift [Music] [Applause] even if he was trying to show a more intimate side of his life he ended up doing the opposite with his particular vlogging style stripping away a lot of bobby's personality coming across as highly manufactured and forced to a lot of people i'm very excited to share my life with you guys in a way that i can be proud of i have been a filmmaker for a very long time and it is part of my dna i shoot like a filmmaker or at least that's what i like to tell myself and i want to make films about the things happening around me it's the things that i know it's the things that i am good at telling stories about at least i think i am it was almost too polished you want vlogs to be presented nicely but you also need some element of rawness in order to keep it real the whole reason people watch vlogs is to get an edited yet authentic sense of your life and ideally you relate to it and i guess people just weren't getting that from bobby vloggers draw their viewers in through a brief yet seemingly real window into their life which doesn't work when that window appears deceiving i mean the best collab videos are when you're working with someone that you really care about or at least someone you have something in common with that you can make a video about that thing you can fake it for views yeah but people can tell that whatever it was bobby was attempting to do ultimately fell flat on its face and shane was quick to take notice hey guys um i wanted to talk about um the bobby burns situation a little bit because i haven't really said anything i think it is affecting him i mean i know it's affecting him talk to him about it um and i've been a little out of the loop so when i saw all of the comments and stuff i was like okay like i should say something after it was established that the series was on a let's say extended hiatus shane was quick to clear the air of any potential rumors and that although things hadn't gone down the way either of them had intended he had still hoped to work with bombi again in the future uh he didn't as far as working with bobby in the future i mean yes of course i don't know about the sunday show i'm gonna be honest me and him still have to sit down and figure it out but i know for a fact i'm still gonna do stuff with him whether that's on his channel my channel i don't know but like that whole sunday thing if it happens again needs a whole reinvention just because this was like way too hard to make way too like it just all of it um it's a lot all right i am gonna go shower just kidding never fight in fact they never really interacted much publicly after this it was just a very surreal ending to an even more surreal venture bobby was thrown to the wolves before losing his newly found audience at an unprecedented rate and subsequently becoming the subject of numerous critiques himself it didn't even feel like it happened really it was all so fast and never gave bobby a chance to get situated just like the whole the backlash i guess oh destroyed my entire life completely no way oh yeah yeah like i it got to the point where i i didn't leave my house ever i stayed in bed most days i i think i did like it like crumpled everything around me and it it got it got really bad for the next few months bobby continued posting to his channel as regularly as possible [Music] just got our carpet in um let's let's open it up i have a crotch hole my [ __ ] no you look pallid paladin or ghostly because i am oh okay i feel like a weird sprouse yes that's fine i had to crush them on disgusting scraggle hairs right here bobby 5.0 consisted of 12 to 16 minute documentaries as he described them centered around his own experiences living in la with shane but once the sunday show was axed this particular era of bobby's channel took even more of a nosedive taking a massive toll on his online and offline life why do you think like just because you changed your content there's i think there is a a lot of different things that though there's a lack of communication definitely i communicated to my audience the exact same way i had always communicated to my audience i didn't tell them what was going on in my videos i didn't give them much behind the scenes i didn't tell them almost anything ever so when this huge audience came in i continued to not do that because i was like i don't have to do that i can just make the videos but you can't whenever there's that many people because if you they don't see you they think you're dead but i don't think that was it at least not all of it the problem had to do with bobby's rampant inconsistency which polarized both old and new viewers alike bobby was trying to make content centered around his personality without giving his viewers enough of his personality to latch onto from what we did see at the time it seemed like he had an ego mixed with an awkward funny boy persona even if it wasn't it still felt disingenuous without becoming attached to him it was easy for people to grow tired of this shtick and question his rampant character changes nothing stays stagnant on his channel long enough for this new audience to become invested or even understand what was going on because once 5.0 was literally beaten into the ground a new persona rose from the ashes one that nobody and i mean nobody could have seen coming face task right as the car was heading towards the cliff bobby hit the [ __ ] accelerator rolling out not only an entire album he had apparently been working on since 2017 but a brand new character as well dubbed nasty appropriately it wasn't even that his music was bad it was just so completely out of line for what people were already kind of expecting i mean i get you want to subvert expectations but come on [Music] [Music] i'm sure this could have gone over somewhat better had he been a little more tactful about it but instead he just threw all caution to the wind and hoped for the best didn't exactly work out that way though the whole idea for the nasty tape and nasty in general a bisexual person in the deep south was abused and treated horribly for his sexuality and became this ultra masculine nasty aggressive basically a version of everything i hate but then at his core he's still secretly bisexual if you want to use sexuality to create a compelling narrative that addresses homophobia and suppression then that's great that's not what this is if you want to shield your bad music from criticism by slapping on a half-assed narrative about sexuality then that's not so great why you sound depressed sponsor chips plus a jeep wow a lot of [ __ ] strands pull it in your chest mango you see in your life with a knife check that's right you guys uh i honestly don't know what to say i think the man is literally going through a manic episode just like fujitsu everybody's saying that fuzzy tip is crazy maybe bobby burns is actually the one we should be looking out for but i honestly do believe that ever since bobby's actually met shin his content is completely diminished and not because of shin but because of the apparent fakeness that is spearing out of bobby burns his fame hungry body get your [ __ ] together get your [ __ ] together get it all together at the end of the day i think bobby's real fans only want him to be happy making whatever content satisfies him the most a lot of the criticism thrown his way since the shane collabs have been based on the subjective opinions viewers seem to have of bobby's character and assumptions that may or may not have been grounded in reality but shane dawson's core fanbase also sees this sort of fake aura around bobby the fact that he switched up so crazily from hating shane to being his best friend or some [ __ ] and working for him and bobby used to make videos on shane's channel and they were getting a [ __ ] ton of dislikes most of the comments were like [ __ ] this guy stop uploading videos of him please we don't know the real bobby we only know what he chooses to display online which also means bobby can't get so defensive when people rightfully complain about him making such a sudden and jarring change so when are you gonna be back to making sick youtube videos again you know the only thing you're really good at which sick ones the like lego angry birds or what does suicide squad mean about the future of film yeah i'll go back to doing that people change people's interests naturally grow and evolve with them bobby should be able to make whatever will fulfill him creatively because nobody ever wants to be placed in some kind of box it's a completely valid request and i get it though i can't help but think it was this type of disconnect with the fans that helped get him in this position to begin with as his content matured bobby wanted people to follow him along his creative journey but they can't exactly do that without first getting to know who you are and who your personality is which is a front in which bobby failed and i don't even know if it was completely his fault either are you scared are you are you ever scared i'm terrified okay i'm terrified of how quickly everything happened how unprepared i was that's that's the main reason i think so so much of the stuff out there was just because i was 20. yeah i got a decent chunk of money and the ability to help a lot of people but i was 20 and i didn't know what i was doing and i tried to do it and i just fell apart in my hands because i was like i don't know how to handle financials well we're naturally inclined to believe that such monumental fame is an inherently good thing but when it happens so spontaneously at an extreme level it can often have the opposite effect on a person's overall psyche in hindsight joining forces with shane dawson turned out to be the most damaging choice bobby could have ever made and although no one at the time could have predicted the tumultuous series of months to come shane didn't exactly make bobby's life any easier shane never really defended bobby from the unprecedented onslaught of unjust hate coming from his fan base neglecting his apparent needs and taking the easy way out by cutting ties with him publicly to save face when shane's fans attacked bobby for getting into a car crash i couldn't find anything from shane trying to stop it he deleted videos and changed titles so he obviously knew there was a problem but i don't think he did enough to stop it from a business perspective it makes sense you want to keep your audience happy but bobby was essentially left without a figure to guide him along this new path of fame and ended up caving under all the weight he had been burdened with losing his house and girlfriend in the coming months due to finances the career altering publicity combined with a lack of public support after the fact inadvertently helped fan the flames of the devastating collapse that soon followed to put it simply bobby had little to no experience navigating through the unprecedented amount of attention so suddenly thrown his way and with shane doing little to protect bobby from the menacing heat of his own fans bobby was hung out to dry as we all witnessed the slow yet persistent downfall of a bright young creator who hadn't exactly figured it all out crushed by the intimidating nature of such sudden and immense success diminishing his potential and making bobby burns the victim of another manipulative youtuber's forced generosity once again i want to thank storyfire for sponsoring this video and putting food on my table when susan wouldn't imagine youtube twitter and patreon having a love child that child would look something like storyfire storyfire is made by creators for creators giving you the chance to browse and upload your own content whether that be making videos or writing stories free of censorship providing the most open space for creators of all kinds storyfire gives you the option to earn spend and tip with their integrated in-app currency called blades it's the easiest way to show support for the creators you love and keemstar again if you want to check out my channel and watch an exclusive q a i made for story fire click the link in the description below thanks again to mcjuggernuggets for making this all [Music] possible [Music] running down

Channel: j aubrey

Views: 1,671,490

Rating: 4.9494228 out of 5

Keywords: bobby burns, the, aftermath, of, bobby, burns, shane dawson, shane, dawson, vlog, commentary, nasty boi, interview, rap, what happened to, what, happened, funny, comedy, video essay, j aubrey, satire

Id: QVNhB_3S2As

Length: 33min 12sec (1992 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Angie-P]

I feel like j audbrey did a great post mortum on the shane/bobby era. Looking back, Shane probs could've helped him out some more.

[u/JanusChan]

Mmm, I'm one of those people that don't really feel this 'Bobby is in the gutter'-narrative.

There's this whole subgenre of rap with an industrial edge and rough esthetic that Bobby likes personally and is embracing. He's not really trying to get any clout, he's just living life being creative in a more unconventional style, just doing a little bit here and there online, making music, not being the best, but having fun and sharing it with people who like it. Not being some kind of million dollar YouTube star, but a less popular one just living life and doing more of what he likes.

A lot of people only start to do what they actually like as they become older. Bobby isn't in the gutter doing drugs every minute and getting wasted every day, he's just living and trying to be creative. The fact that it's unconventional does not make him 'ruined'.

Look up 'Tommy Cash', and you'll see Bobby is not just being the way he is because he's in the gutter, but because he likes to play around with a certain already existing esthetic and musical style. That only fans thing or the fact that he's still a way too enthusiastic young man are just age things. He's not being a famous celebrity having to be an example either, just a kid living life.

Edit: of course he had trouble during the transition of living in LA and not doing that anymore. Stuff did happen. Shane could have helped with that. Not talking about that part btw.

[u/Jadisons]

I always felt bad for the guy. It was simply a guy who wasn't used to being under millions of watchful eyes, being painted as a terrible person. Shane really didn't do him justice when the entire Shane fanbase was on his ass at all times. Didn't even bother to tell them to stop. His content wasn't even bad. It was down to earth, relatable.

Glad to see he's doing well enough for himself with a smaller audience, though.

[u/Unknown404Error]

Op, please give a rundown of the video.

[u/mengad]

Just watched the vid, checked Bob's ig, and it looks like he chose to respond to it via this post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDXA9pZF69C/

[u/khayriarefaat]

Shane actually used this kid, it was obvious from the beginning! Why would you fly someone you think is “a hater” to your house it wasn’t necessary He could’ve just met him and talked about the points he made in his video. The fact that he brings him to his house and bringing him an expensive gift shows you how this guy is very manipulative. It’s not a fair ground, when you make all you can to look superior instead of just sitting with the guy and talk it through. It just shows you how shane really doesn’t want to deal with criticism, he had to make this guy look like the bad guy.

[u/Newuser3213]

That’s part of what was so unfortunate about bobby getting involved with Shane - at the time it was such a big opportunity and when it didn’t work he was seen as failure since Shane was morphing Into his weird YouTube messiah persona who just wants to hElp pEoPlE. Poor kid.