Culture

Cancelling Trisha Paytas Will Never Work, Because She Just Doesn’t Care

Sadly, you can't cancel someone who's made being problematic their entire brand.

by Michelle Rennex  25 November 2020
Trisha Paytas Cancelled Problematic

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Over the last week, Trisha Paytas has managed to land herself in hot water once again.

Despite evading being cancelled for over a decade, the YouTuber’s latest drama, which now involves uncovered instances of racism and an online beef with a pair of dancing TikTok sisters, people are finally calling for Trisha Paytas to be cancelled.

But as one of YouTube’s most controversial creators, who has been producing content on the platform since 2007, it has come to a point where it almost seems like the 32-year-old influencer is simply un-cancellable.

Trisha Paytas Is Currently Fighting With A Pair Of TikTok Teens

The 32-year-old YouTuber’s latest controversy comes after she labelled TikTok influencers Charli and Dixie D’Amelio as “disrespectful” and “unbecoming” for their rude behaviour during their first-ever ‘Dinner With The D’Amelios‘ YouTube show.

In the video, 16-year-old Charli and 19-year-old Dixie sat down for a family dinner cooked by celebrity chef Aaron May, with James Charles joining as a special guest. Serving a traditional paella with snails, Dixie made retching noises and “threw up” after trying the dish, while Charli asked if there were any “dino nuggets” available after the dinner was finished.

Charli, as the most followed creator on TikTok, then complained that she wished she had “enough time” to hit 100 million followers a year after hitting one million because she wanted “even numbers”, which left her fans upset.

“Was the 95 [million] not enough for you?,” James Charles quipped during the dinner.

Directly after the video was uploaded, Charli D’Amelio quickly started to lose followers — in upwards of one million — before bouncing back to hit her 100 million milestone.

But during this dip in followers, Trisha Paytas decided to join in on the online pile on against the sisters in a series of TikToks, where she called the D’Amelios out for their behaviour.

Along with the D’Amelio sisters, Paytas also criticised James Charles for defending them and for “always being the victim” in “every single situation”.

In response, as kids do, James Charles shot down Paytas and Dixie D’Amelio decided to be petty and do a dance to an resurfaced audio of the Trish Paytas singing the n-word.

While no one is right in this situation, and weaponising racism by boosting white women using racial slurs was extremely tone deaf and the wrong thing to do, the internet has started to rally behind the D’Amelios and James Charles, calling for Trisha Paytas to finally be cancelled for attacking children half her age for just being bratty kids.

Mainly, people are confused over how Trisha Paytas, arguably one of the internet’s most problematic influencers, can possibly be calling for anyone to get cancelled at all with a track record like hers.

But try as the internet might, Paytas has proven time and time again that being problematic doesn’t always lead to cancellation or losing your platform. In fact, being problematic has become Trisha Paytas’ entire brand and has been the driving force behind her YouTube views in recent years.

Trisha Paytas Has A Long, Long History Of Being Problematic

Trisha Paytas is no stranger to controversy, and as wild as it is to say, if she were any other person she wouldn’t have a platform anymore.

In her thirteen years on YouTube as blndsundoll4mj, Paytas has amassed over six million subscribers across her two channels. But back in 2007, her videos were fairly innocent — odes to Quentin Tarantino, clips documenting her various attempts to get famous through reality TV and gameshows, and “diet blogs”.

As the years rolled on, Paytas diversified her content and begun making music videos, posting sexy clothing hauls, and crafting comedy skits. During this time, the YouTuber also frequently showed off her fast-talking rap skills, which featured the n-word more than once, and dropped more controversial gems like ‘Shit Fat Girls Who Think They’re Hot Say‘ and ‘Do Dogs Even Have Brains‘, which shot her view counts into the millions.

Finding a successful formula in these more personal and opinion-driven videos, Paytas then transitioned from controversial to the problematic videos that she’s known for today. Now when Trisha Paytas uploads a video, a wild ride is guaranteed.

While in some instances, the YouTuber is just being an obvious troll (as Paytas confirmed was the case with the ‘Do Dogs Even Have Brains’ video), in recent years it’s becoming harder and harder to know when she’s being serious.

Fully aware that the more controversial she was, the more views she would get, Paytas has begun to move away from the troll content into the offensive in recent years.

Creating a brand for herself as the chaotic woman who constantly “cries on her kitchen floor”, the YouTuber outed her ex-boyfriend publicly in the video ‘Sean Van Der Wilt Is Gay‘, decided that she would now identify as a chicken nugget in ‘I’m A Chicken Nugget‘ and engaged in more than her fair share in some very public feuds with other content creators like Gabbie Hanna and Nikocado Avocado.

But Paytas started to become a real problem in 2019, when the YouTuber pretended to be transgender for clout.

In her now-deleted video titled ‘I AM TRANSGENDER (FEMALE TO MALE)’, Paytas claimed to be “1,000 percent transgender” while simultaneously saying she also “1,000 percent” identifies with her “natural born gender”, too.

Sharing that she felt “really free and liberated”, Paytas explained that she identifies as a gay man as she’s attracted to other gay men, has “penis envy” and loves “glam and voluptuousness”. Cosplaying as Troy Bolton from High School Musical for the thumbnail, Trisha Paytas also shared that she identifies as a “drag queen” because she likes to dress like a woman.

Then back in March 2020, Paytas tried to claim that she had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) in a deleted video titled, ‘MEET MY ALTERS’.

Showcasing T, Trixie, Tyson, Tierney, and Tobolter, in the video as her different “alters” in action, the YouTuber was met with criticism over her self-diagnosis and spreading of serious misinformation about having multiple personalities.

In a follow-up video, Paytas desperately tried to convince everyone that her DID was real during a review of a spicy chicken sandwich. In the video, the YouTuber takes a bite out of the sandwich, puts it back in the bag and when one of her “alters” take over, they are shocked that someone took a bite out of the sandwich.

Regardless of whether Paytas does or does not have DID, her reckless attempts at proving it to her audience just worked to increase the already-existing stigma around the mental disorder.

Beyond these major faux pas, Trisha Paytas has also said some pretty anti-Semitic stuff over the years.

In the past, Paytas has defended Hitler, posted a TikTok of herself heiling while singing ‘Springtime for Hitler’, trivialised the sacred meal of Passover by turning it into a “What’s on my Seder plate” mukbang, and has blatantly fetishised Jewish men.

Yet even with with so much evidence of how often Trisha Paytas has been offensive and problematic, she has somehow managed to evade the kiss of death that comes with cancel culture.

At The End Of The Day, She Just Doesn’t Care

Even some of YouTube’s most-loved and longest-running creators haven’t been able to avoid being cancelled in recent years.

For example, Shane Dawson was run off his platform after old clips of him being racist and inappropriate towards children were uncovered. Similarly, YouTube veteran Jenna Marbles decided to leave the site entirely over the backlash she faced for the racist lyrics in her parody music video.

And yet, with all these instances of seriously problematic behaviour occurring in only the last few years, Trisha Paytas has remained essentially un-cancellable.

The wildest part of all, however, is that Paytas is self-aware. She knows she should be cancelled but just simply doesn’t allow it. And to be cancelled you have to care. You have to care about the possibility of losing your platform, your source of income, and your fans.

But the strange allure of Trisha Paytas is the fact that she doesn’t care — and she proudly and unapologetically just gives zero fucks about what anyone has to think. Plus, Paytas is an admitted troll. She’s is fully aware that hate clicks, comments and shares drive just as much income to her as positive reactions do.

In an interview with Insider, the YouTuber literally said that she just has “this constant need for attention” that must be fulfilled for her to “thrive”, and this is obvious when you look at her history of controversial content.

For example, back in August this year, Paytas literally uploaded a TikTok, cosplaying as a pharaoh, with the caption: “Will prob delete. Prob offensive”. The clip became a meme, she didn’t delete the video, and for months her comments were filled with people admiring Paytas’ no-fucks-given attitude, claiming that perhaps they were becoming fans after all.

In some ways the YouTuber’s ability to totally disregard what people say about her is kind of admirable, but overwhelmingly it’s an issue. Brushing off someone as problematic as Trisha Paytas by claiming “that’s just how she is” gives her more room to continue to do terrible things.

Even worse than dismissing her terrible actions, deciding to cancel Trisha Paytas now, all because she called a couple of rich, entitled white teens ungrateful, is a slap in the face to the communities that she’s hurt over the years.

This idea that Paytas didn’t deserve to be reprimanded when she offended the trans community, Black and Jewish people, or those suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, implies that influencers only need to be held accountable when white people are affected is concerning.

But at the end of the day, even if we wanted to cancel Trisha Paytas now, it’s just not possible nor will it ever happen. You simply can’t cancel someone who doesn’t care if they get cancelled. It’s not humanly possible to cancel Trisha Paytas.

Michelle Rennex is a senior writer at Junkee. She tweets at @michellerennex.