Shane Dawson is what you would call a YouTube veteran. Starting out in 2005 fresh-faced and hair meticulously straightened, he’s seen and been part of 14 years of YouTube success, drama, and scandal.
With a rapidly growing following that currently stands at just over 20 million, and increasingly ambitious projects, he’s slowly but surely taking over the internet, armed only with a diet co*ke and his cameraman Andrew.
So how did he get here?
Creating his first channel ShaneDawsonTV (which still has an impressive eight million subscribers despite not being active in two years), he quickly became known for comedy vlogs, sketches, and music video parodies, including his viral video Fred Is Dead.
Hitting a million subscribers back in the olden days of 2009,Shane put his growth down to ‘word of mouth’ when recalling his ‘YouTube story’.
‘I was never featured, I was never on the homepage,’ he explained. ‘You guys kept watching and you told all your friends. And all your parents. And your grandparents.’
Opening up about his depression, he explained that he lost his job due to a YouTube video and then decided to put all his effort into making videos – which was when he started to see success. ‘YouTube has just given me this feeling of I have a reason to be alive,’ he confessed.
However, his rise to the top hasn’t been smooth sailing.Along the way, Shane became known for his infamous and controversial character Shanaynay, even featuring her in her own short film which he titled ‘How Shanaynay stole Christmas’.
Although she was loved at the time, he laterfaced major backlash for the character, and for other videos which saw him using black-faceto play characters like Wendy Williams and Chris Brown, and portraying undeniably racist stereotypes.
Issuing an apology video in September 2014, he acknowledged that the behaviour had been unacceptable and was looking to learn from his mistakes. He also retired Shanaynay completely from his channel, although he still faces backlash years later – particularly for his association with controversial figures like Jeffree Star and Jake Paul.
Later creating his current channel, he started to focus on collaborations with YouTube pals including Joey Graceffa, Trisha Paytas, and then-girlfriend Lisa Schwartz, known online as Lisbug.
Although Shane and Lisa split in 2015 after dating for four years, the pair remained good friends, even joining forces last year to make a cringe-inducing video reading out their text messages to each other.
Over the years, the YouTube star faced speculation about his sexuality, which he admits he reacted to ‘defensively’ due to his religious upbringing.
In 2015, Shane uploaded a coming out video, telling fans he’s bisexual and explaining that he wanted to make the video for anyone else who had been confused about their sexuality growing up.
He started dating his current boyfriend Ryland Adams in 2016, with the pair now living together and featuring heavily on each other’s channels.
Over the past couple of years, Shane became known for his conspiracy theory videos, which gave his channel its trademark dramatic twist. Then, back in August, after his friend Tana Mongeau hosted her disastrous convention TanaCon, he created a three part documentary series attempting to get to the bottom of what happened, which viewers compared to a binge-worthy Netflix show.
The series launched a string of high-production projects, including his five-part series The Secret World Of Jeffree Star, which gives viewers a glimpse into the glitzy life of the makeup mogul and musician, and The Mind Of Jake Paul, a series designed to see behind the scenes of the controversial vlogger’s life.
While both series received backlash over Shane seeming too sympathetic to Jeffree and Jake, all episodes gained in the range of 14 million to 33 million views, well and truly taking over the internet.
And, despite steering awards shows, the 30-year-old has a number of Streamy and Teen Choice Awards under his belt, even winning a People’s Choice Award last year.
Although Shane took a break following the eight-part Jake Paul series, he’s making his comeback at the end of this month with a conspiracy theory series, and later in the year will release a highly anticipated makeup project with beauty guru Jeffree.
As time goes on, fans are increasingly falling in love with his binge-worthy series, his self-deprecating humour and the shocked cries of ‘this is f*cking crazy’ that echo throughout his dramatic documentary-style series.
With his rapidly growing army of fans and his increasingly ambitious projects, he doesn’t seem to be slowing down any time soon. The year of the pig is well and truly upon us, guys.
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