In the last few weeks, there has been some controversy for a famous YouTuber. What is controversial isn’t the topics that she vlogs about, the quality content of her videos, or her political or social views. What is highly appalling is that there are speculations that she has been kidnapped.
The YouTuber in question is Marina Joyce, a 19-year-old vlogger from the United Kingdom. Marina Joyce has been active in the fashion and make up community on YouTube, where she posts videos about her various outfits and makeup tutorials. Marina Joyce has an active subscriber base of 600,000 subscribers and the views on her videos are in the millions. She has over 197,000 Twitter followers and has done collaborations with plenty of other YouTubers. Within the past month of her youtube videos, there are claims that she was kidnapped by ISIS and that she is being forced to record videos of herself against her own will.
In her videos, she seems to be carrying out everything that you would expect a fashion vlogger to do; however, careful attention from her viewers pointed out a handful of concerns. The most common concerns are: Marina would pause when she is talking, shows faint bruises on her arms, would look at something that is there beyond the camera, and conveys a range of sad facial expressions when she is posing a new outfit in front of the camera or vlogging in general. There was even a gun pictured in the background of her room — which she said was a BB gun.
Active YouTubers who were quick to notice this began to share their concerns in the comments section of her videos and on Twitter and through different social media channels. Rumors about this quickly spread like wildfire and YouTubers such as HauntingStories, FleetingPrecision, and OiO expressed their concerns openly, pointing out some of this evidence in her videos. This caused a hashtag to trend later on this week entitled #SaveMarinaJoyce.
After much concern over the whole thing, Marina Joyce later Tweeted that she is fine and well and is immensely proud for the support of her loyal fan base. Police even paid Marina and her mom a surprise visit at 3 a.m. at her place to check in on her, but she was found at her home. Her mother, who called the situation ridiculous, came out to say “Everyone is fine.” There were reports of Marina’s cellphone getting blown up with calls from devout fans asking about her well-being.
Marina also responded via Twitter about her bruising, saying that she does bruise easily, and about her gun, which she has gotten as a toy. There was further concern that she was in an abusive relationship with a potential boyfriend or ex-boyfriend.
Marina said in an interview with the Sun that she appreciated the support that people were giving her and that if anything were to happen to her, she would feel safe with the help of her fans.
