Last month, an audio clip from Shane Dawson's old podcast resurfaced on Twitter, with Shane making a joke about... doing things that are not advertiser-friendly to his cat when he was nineteen years old. Once the internet got ahold of the clip, they blew up in a rage about what he said and even threatened to "cancel" Shane Dawson. Once I heard about this, I couldn't help but think about all these other celebrities that have been caught under fire for things they have said or done years ago and people just now deciding to stop supporting them even after they knew what they said or did was wrong.

I have seen so many posts about "canceling" celebrities for problematic behavior in the past before, and this is not about saying that not wanting to support a celebrity anymore is a bad thing. What I am saying is to think about the context behind that podcast and the joke that was made. That podcast first broadcasted in 2015, when shock humor and black comedy was still a pretty big thing on YouTube. Before YouTube's algorithm changed and they stopped monetizing videos that were not advertiser-friendly, you could basically make jokes about anything without your YouTube career being at risk.

Not only that shock humor was still somewhat big on YouTube in 2015, but if you watch one of Shane's videos from when he first started his career and one of his most recent videos, they are completely different. It's almost like watching two completely different people. Shane has clearly changed and has made it clear that he is not proud of the things he joked about in his older videos. Hell, I also made a lot of dark and uncalled for jokes in my older YouTube videos when I was in high school that I openly apologized for and admitted that those jokes were uncalled for and I am not proud of them.

People will "cancel" celebrities for almost anything nowadays and even threaten to stop being friends with people that are still fans of the celebrities that they "canceled" (now that's something that's uncalled for), and all I can think with that is, how immature can people on the internet be? I know there are some cases where I know I would stop supporting celebrities, like if they are a serial rapist or a child molester, but over a joke that was made years ago? That's completely ridiculous.

Canceling celebrities over things that happened years ago without realizing that people change has what made cancel culture a lot more toxic than it would need to be, and when we realize that people change, we can focus on the real offenders who are actually should no longer be supported by the general public. Everyone deserves to have the chance to grow and bringing up things from years ago should not haunt anyone for years, especially if they have changed over the years and are ashamed of who they once were.