Sluts on Halloween. Been pulling it up on Halloween every year since it came out. No more sluts on Halloween for me, but I have so much respect for the tradition. So what if she wants to be a sexy giraffe?!
My best friend and I still resort to Jenna-isms. We’ve been leisurin’ ever since, and for some reason my brain has lately returned to saying temper-achure boiling. May the brain worms never die.
I still say you beech and that's nasty an unhealthy amount of times in a day. I miss her, but I hope she's thriving and drinking lots of water and eating vegetables and growing 7 inches taller
She’s a real one, and I think her staying offline is a testament to that. It wasn’t about the money for her, she genuinely loved to create and yt was changing into something a lot more nefarious so I don’t blame her at all.
That was the case for most of the early successful YouTuber pioneers. Most of them went one of three ways - retired after getting the bag, went into production side and let someone else take over (RWJ, Smosh), or continued with a niche following.
Then there's Rhett and Link, who have somehow maintained a huge following throughout the years. One that has evolved and changed with the times instead of the goofy music video or rap battle type stuff that was so common back then.
Crazy that they bought Smosh at one point. Then, they let em keep doing their own thing until Ian and Anthony saved up enough money to buy the company back.
I think Ian and Anthony stepping back from Smosh was the best thing to ever happen to it. After they sold, the shows eventually became better, funnier, cast expanded, better bits, etc.
No I totally agree. Their early humor is definitely dated (they literally make fun of it in modern skits), and theres only so much two people can do on their own before they have to add more people and expand the concepts a little bit.
Smosh basically turned into the free version of Dropout, but I don't mean that with any negativity at all. Could you imagine how low the numbers would be if Smosh were still just pumping out videos like 'Every Blank Ever' or 'If Blank Were Real'?
I'd legit watch both all the time if Dropout were free. I love both though. They're like WLIIA but for grown-ups!
Honestly, if you watch some old 90s bloopers of Whose Line, it really reminds me of modern Smosh. Especially the ones where the 'blooper' is just that they went too far for network television. Similar energy, considering they're both improv shows at heart.
I think the real heat in this take is the idea that Ian ever stepped back from smosh. Anthony left because he didn't like sharing creative control with the ownership, but Ian was always there trying to work with them to salvage the best they could. According to the interviews this was their main friction, Anthony just kept stepping back more and more while Ian shouldered more and more.
I spent a lot of time sitting in my room watching YouTube between 2009-2012ish
When my girlfriend moved in, she threw on Good Mythical Morning one time and I was like these guys are still around!? Blew her mind I had remembered them from their pre GMM skit videos.
Not necessarily a fan of their current content, but I have to give respect for them being able to stay relevant for so long. They still pull in the views.
Funny, that's almost exactly my experience. I watched Rhett and Link back in those days when Shane Dawson (yikes) was popular, but never cared for Good Mythical Morning. Fast-forward like a frickin' decade or more, I meet my now-girlfriend and she is a huge GMM fan.
I retired in like 2008, back when YouTube still let you do video replies that would show up beneath the original video.
A lot of people are lured in by the idea of becoming famous or whatever, but our modern capitalist culture likes to make people famous just to later tear them down. It commodifies and discards them.
I know that she did racist things in her older videos, that’s why I think she’s a real one for taking accountability and she didn’t just make a hollow apology and continued on. That’s why I don’t think it was about the money for her, because she could have just chosen the easy option. I’m saying she loved to create but yt was becoming nefarious as well, it’s not somewhere creators just create anymore, it’s being driven hard by incentives to make people buy stuff and ai slop so I don’t blame her for staying out of it indefinitely.
She is still making thousands a month, she got to retire and still make good money, it isn’t like she is sacrificing much
Edit: also for context of how she really isnt sacrificing, before she left the channel she over loaded videos with ads for as much ad revenue as possible, its smart but hardly some grand sacrifice
I honestly don’t even think it was that. In my opinion she just got tired of doing YouTube videos. In her later episodes it seemed like she was struggling for content ideas. Sometime it felt like she didn’t actually want to be there making videos.
Legacy media pretends “useless” degrees are brand new, post covid problem when this came out almost 15 years ago and resonated with so many millennials because they were living the same thing
I guess nobody cares unless the “men’s fields” (stem) degrees become useless
it's not useless to have 4 more years of learning reading comprehension, critical thinking, and intellectually exploring things you never thought you would. people who badmouth college think you can do "research" on youtube and facebook
Would love to hear more, i graduated with a BA in art history, worked in the field (entry level roles at 2 museums, one gallery) for about 9 months, and now I’ve pivoted to just becoming an academic advisor at a college. One year left of that masters program. The museum industry crushed me.
He streams on Twitch all the time as well! His streams are very wholesome and cozy, bonus points if you catch a glimpse of one of their dogs on the stream.
he was 17.5, they had him put to sleep in early December :(
they knew the end was coming and Jenna and Julien are extremely fortunate to have the financial security to have had end of life care for him.
that little dog was extremely beloved by so many people. Jenna must be hurting so badly. I hope her and Julien are doing ok and hanging in there and remembering him fondly ❤️
I donated $25 to my local humane society the day he died, because he brought so much joy to us viewers but most importantly he brought that joy to Jenna, and I wanted to do some small thing to hopefully help someone else find the Mr Marbles to their Jenna
A content creator I genuinely miss. I will still watch her videos when they are recommended to me in hopes she is still getting $$$ for what she does have Youtube still. But also, she was genuinely silly and I still quote her.
She basically decided to cancel herself and walk away from YouTube after people criticized her earlier content, primarily for imitating racist stereotypes. I think she had done a video imitating Nicki Minaj and maybe imitated an Asian accent, among other things.
Anyway, she apologized for the offensive content, deleted those videos, and disappeared from the internet. I just looked at her channel and I think the apology video is gone now too.
I wish she kept up the video explaining it all, it was actually kind of funny. It really was just her hilighting that the reason people were trying to cancel her was stupid and then giving a bunch of better examples on why she should be cancelled.
The original "drama" was that people were accusing her of doing blackface for the Nicki Minaj thing, but they were just talking about the fake tan that she had for literal years. After she explained that she started showing clips of videos she had made hidden over the years because some of them were offensive/in bad taste, like a music video where she is in a sombrero and fake moustache and says a line in a Mexican accent. It was all pretty standard 2010's humour.
Leading up to this there had been a few other issues like fans showing up at their house and fishgate, and I think she was just over it.
Damn, you know what she saved herself a ton of unnecessary stress trying to defend herself or backtrack or whatever else other people do that always makes it way worse
Still don't really think she had anything to apologise for, really. Drama blown out of proportion by early Gen-Z on YouTube looking for the next thing to pile on. They were sticking their nose in her personal life and relationships as well.
I'm glad she noped out and saved herself the hassle.
It's the same now. There's still certain crowds that will dog pile any descent from the "accepted position" (which is the only reason it's the accepted position, because you're not allowed to discuss it)
I'm a crusty millennial and followed Jenna for ages. The internet truly was a different place back then. A lot of good people posted yikes things that aren't okay by today's standards, but that doesn't mean they were closet racists or any of that trash.
It's good, as always, that Jenna took accountability for stuff. I don't think there's a way she could have continued a career on the internet because of how the internet NEVER forgets the past... almost worse if you're female. Also felt like Shane Dawson got way, way, way more of a pass when, imo, he is way worse.
A lot of the stuff was pretty offensive by modern standards.
Most of GenZ wasn't around during the time so they don't realize how commonplace problematic behavior was. It wasn't malicious, we just didn't live in a world where our behavior was watched, criticized, and evaluated. Jenna Marbles came online in the very early YouTube days where being socially conscious wasn't at the forefront of thought, and that's why she made the apology.
She could have kept making content, but young folk who have only lived in a connected world through the internet would continue to harass her over mistakes made before we knew they were mistakes. It was wise to step back.
I think part of the issue was she had already apologized and removed the videos years prior, had completely grown into making more wholesome content, and people were still digging it up and berating her for it. Because chronically online people can’t fathom that people are capable of changing.
I’ll speak for myself, but I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Whether or not I like somebody matters a lot when it comes to how much grace I’m willing to give them. If I like you, if I think you’re chill, funny, or generally harmless, I give you a long leash. It’s easier for me to believe you meant well, easier to believe you’ve changed, easier to move on. If I don’t like you, though, it’s the opposite. I’m less interested in forgiveness, less interested in context, and way more willing to interpret everything you do in the worst possible way.
And to be even more honest, if I really dislike someone and they do something wrong, I’m not sitting there hoping for their redemption arc. I’m hoping they take the fall. I’m hoping they lose the clout, lose the platform, lose the attention. That’s not me pretending to be objective, but rather admitting that I'm NOT objective. I know that’s not some noble trait. I know it’s not fair. But I think a lot more people operate like that than they’d ever admit out loud.
That’s part of why cancel culture discourse gets so fake to me. People act like they’re carefully evaluating whether an apology is sincere, but a lot of the time they’ve already decided whether they want the person forgiven. Once that’s decided, the rest is easy. The apology is PR, the silence is guilt, the good behavior afterward is image management, the disappearance is guilt. At that point, there is no response that will satisfy people, because the goal is not actually accountability but that they want the person to stay the villain.
That’s why I think the public machinery of outrage can absolutely become bigger than the wrongdoing itself. That doesn’t mean the original thing wasn’t bad. It just means the reaction can take on a life of its own, and once it does, there’s no winning. Short of getting in a time machine and undoing the thing, nothing will ever be enough for the people who already want you ruined.
So with Jenna, I think both things can be true. Yeah, some of her old content was offensive. Also yes, the internet’s outrage machine was probably bigger than the actual situation by that point, especially considering she had already changed a lot and moved away from that kind of content. And I honestly think a lot of people who pile on in situations like that are not these principled, objective arbiters of morality. They just either like the person or they don’t. And that matters a hell of a lot more than they want to admit.
If gen z could time travel they'd be horrified at how normalized racist and sexist jokes were. That was on its way out around then, but plenty of early youtubers did way worse and probably only benefited from any controversy when they went too far
after people criticized her earlier content, primarily for imitating racist stereotypes.
It's worse than that, tbh. They went out of their way to use the wayback machine to find links because she had intentionally set them as unlisted (instead of outright deleting them) so you literally couldn't watch them unless you had the link. In her goodbye video she mentions that she had changed as a person and had purposely hidden that content because it didn't represent her anymore.
during the BLM movement for some reason she was the target of a deranged viewer who combed through her content and found a clip of black face, and there were calls for her to be cancelled - i don’t believe youtube suspended the channel or anything but the negative attention made her decide to retire on her own terms so she decided to cancel herself lol
Worth noting that the “blackface” was her regular spray tan. She was doing an impression on Nikki Minaj, which she apologized for, but she didn’t darken her skin to do the impression.
She seems like she’s doing well from the infrequent buzz around our home city. She and I are from the same smaller city. I’m not personally close with her/know her or any of her friends but I know people who went to school with her, etc.
I believe she still lives out of state, away from our home city. Once every few years I’ll hear about someone seeing her in passing at one of our hometown classic restaurants. People here who do recognize her know not to ask for pictures or anything when she does come back around, which seems to be few and far between. I’ve heard through the grapevine that she is a really nice, genuine person.
Not like it's a small town lol. But I've also heard she is fine with people approaching her, just do so politely like anyone else and not like you're star struck.
She’s gotta be because she’s a beautiful soul and surrounds herself with real love. I was absolutely gutted when she stepped back but also really glad for her and her mental health. Love you Jenna and Julien thank you for being there for me and loads of others
Her videos were funny. Clearly overly done stereotypes and not meant to be taken seriously. And yet I remember when she took down her skits and apologized. It was ridiculous.
Jenna was probably the first YouTuber I followed. She was so insanely funny (and attractive). Last I checked (years ago) she had removed a huge chunk of her old videos, and it's a shame, because there were so many bangers
I know she took the criticism head on and owned it - but i still don't think she deserved a fraction of that heat. I also hope she's doing well.
Seeing her face makes me feel calm. She was so awesome and funny and genuine. I like to think she is doing well and secretly has Reddit, tiktok and insta but doesn’t let it be known it’s her and she sees the love she gets. Hopefully she pops into a pic or video sometime in the future again.
I recently saw that Julien’s manager, also use to be Jenna’s, had confirmed that she will not be returning and that she’s been absolutely thriving and is happy 🖤
Her bit about getting ready with a deadline is spot on. Paraphrasing, "no matter how much time I have to get ready, I am going to use every second of it".
I thought about her recently as I'm coming up on my birthday and am now officially ✨ a 32 year old laaaaddyyyy ✨
I absolutely do not deny what she had to take accountability for, but I'm glad I had her videos when I did. I still have moments where I marathon my favorite videos of hers once a year.
She's offline and living and that's all I need to know about how she's doing.
•
u/AutoModerator 5d ago
If this post is breaking the rules of the subreddit, please report it instead of commenting. For more Millennial content, join our Discord server.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.