I Hate Myselfie

by Shane Dawson

  One a.m. The sound of thousands of robotic birds chirping repeatedly filled my room. This could only mean one of two things. Either I was finally having that “nervous breakdown” my mother told me was hereditary, or my Twitter was blowing the fuck up. I didn’t have the urge to shave my head and jump out my bedroom window, so it must have been the latter.

  When my Twitter blows up my first thought is, “OH MY GOD LINDSAY LOHAN DIED.” Every morning when I wake up I wonder if the number-one trending topic in the world is gonna be #RIPLINDSAY right above #SHEWASSOGOODINMEANGIRLSWHATHAPPENED. I mean, not to sound morbid, but it’s just a matter of time, right? I think we are all just waiting for it. We want her to make it through, but let’s keep it real: ticktock.

  Anyways, my Twitter wasn’t blowing up because of a former child star’s death or even because of another hurricane with a waitress’s name. It was blowing up because I was supposedly “a racist.”

  There are few words that actually offend me. Putting my life out on the internet for so long has made me numb to pretty much every criticism and insult. I got a comment on a video once that said, “I bet your grandmother is looking up from hell crying because you are such a stupid cock sucking faggot with aids,” and my first thought was, “Shouldn’t ‘AIDS’ be capitalized?” So not much bothers me. But when people say I’m racist it really gets under my skin. My superior, perfect, white skin.

  So you are probably wondering what set Twitter off. What set Twitter ablaze wasn’t even anything I had done but something that people ASSUMED I had. It was a sketch on YouTube about Harriet Tubman making a sex tape and it went viral after CNN got ahold of it. Because some of the actors in the video are actors I have used in some of my work, people assumed I created it. Which was completely untrue and really frustrated me. I would NEVER do a video about Harriet Tubman making a sex tape. Cameras weren’t even around back then. I take creative liberties in my sketches, but I don’t want them to be completely inaccurate!

  As I scrolled through my timeline I saw thousands of “SHANE DAWSON IS RACIST” and “SHANE DAWSON HATES BLACK PEOPLE” tweets and each one was like a dagger in my heart. The angry mob started posting links to other videos I had done and pointing out every offensive joke I had ever made. They started creating a narrative that I was this secret KKK member who was out to brainwash the youth of America with my sick racist comedy. Which is ridiculous. If I were trying to brainwash the youth of America I would brainwash them into buying more merch. My merch doesn’t really sell that well. It’s unfortunate because it’s good shit.

  But I digress. I tried to set the record straight and explain that I had nothing to do with the video, but that went unheard. The fire was too big and no amount of explanation could put it out. So I waited. It eventually blew over and I went back to waiting for Lindsay Lohan to die.

  But this wasn’t the first time I’d been labeled a racist. My videos have been controversial since I first started back in 2008. The “did he really just say that” and “whoa too far Shane!” comments have been flooding my YouTube channel since the beginning. But I never set out to be some kind of shocktuber (just made up that term; feel free to use it). Pushing the envelope is just something that I naturally do without even trying. It’s second nature to me, like riding a bike or making an audible sad-sigh sound when I walk by a homeless person. I can’t help it. My humor was created by my environment. Margaret Cho isn’t considered a racist for making jokes about Asians and their stereotypes because it’s what she grew up with. It’s what she knew. And the same goes for me.

  I grew up in Long Beach, California, where we are famous for raising Snoop Dogg and having lots of stabbings. All my jokes, all my characters, all my points of view as a comedian were created while living in that environment. I’m sure as I get older I will be influenced by new experiences, but for now I still grab from that period of my life.

  My first time performing for an audience was in tenth grade. It was a sketch I wrote, and my drama teacher chose it to be performed in front of my entire tenth-grade class. It was about a white kid who wanted to fit in with his black friends, so he tried everything he could think of to impress them. It was a sketch full of stereotypes, and to an all-white audience it would probably have been received with crickets and uncomfortable silence. But to my diverse class it was received with uproarious laughter and a standing ovation. And to get tenth graders to stand for ANYTHING is a huge victory.

  That day after the performance one of my teachers, who was white, asked me if I thought the skit was racist. I was shocked. How could satire be considered racist? I hadn’t said anything demeaning, I hadn’t used words that were hurtful, and I sure as hell hadn’t said I was superior to anyone. Luckily I had a friend stick up for me and risk getting detention doing so. My friend happened to be black.

  Friend: How was what he did racist?

  Teacher: He was showcasing stereotypes. He was encouraging people to laugh at African-Americans and the way they act.

  Friend: But some of us do act like that.

  Teacher: Well, that doesn’t make it right!

  Friend: No, it makes it relatable. I KNOW people who act foolish and coonlike. And those people are ridiculous to me. Shane wasn’t making fun of BLACK PEOPLE, he was making fun of a group of black people who act ridiculous.

  Teacher: Well, I disagree.

  Friend: Well, you’re not black. You don’t understand what it feels like for white people to walk on eggshells around us. Scared to say anything that could be misconstrued as racist. Making us feel like we should be treated with kid gloves because we can’t take the fact that our skin is a different color and some people don’t like us. I LIKE laughing at shit I relate to. And I like that a white person was doing it. It made me feel more a part of this society and less like an outcast.

  Now, I know it sounds like I’m making that conversation up. It’s too perfect and too well crafted to be an actual conversation between a high school student and his teacher. But it really happened. And it really changed the way I thought about comedy. There are things people are afraid to joke about, things people think are taboo, but I don’t want to ever be afraid to go into that territory. Everybody just wants to relate and feel like a comedian “gets them.” I think it’s the reason I have such a diverse audience on YouTube. Because I truly relate to people who feel like they don’t belong. I might be a white guy who hasn’t been ignored by a taxi driver, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like to have people treat me like shit for being different. I don’t ever make jokes that are hateful for no reason. If one of my characters says something completely over the line and offensive, the audience isn’t meant to be laughing with them, they are meant to be laughing at them. Laughing at how stupid the character is for saying something so horrible, because there are people in this world who say horrible, stupid shit. And instead of just sitting back and taking it, I like to make fun of them.

  Now, I can’t control it if some racist person watches my video and laughs for the wrong reason. That would be like not making horror movies because you don’t want to give serial killers something to jerk off to. Every viewer has a different experience while watching something. All I can do is hope that my audience “gets it” and enjoys it.

  One week later. One a.m. I hear the sound of thousands of robotic birds chirping repeatedly in my room. I rush to the computer. Has it finally happened? Is this it? I open up my browser and check the trending topics of the day. Nope, she’s still alive. Just another hurricane with a waitress’s name.

  PROM

  ABOUT THE ARTIST

  Ashley D’Altilio is an honor student at Pace University in New York City. Art has been a hobby of hers since she was only six years old, and she plans to continue with it. Originally from New Jersey, Ashley is a volunteer firefighter who loves traveling and learning foreign languages. She has been a Shane Dawson fan since 2008 and hopes to one day change lives like he has.
Follow her on Twitter at @ashleysnotcool.

  A wise person once said: “Prom is only for whores and for the guys who want to fuck them.” My grandma was a smart woman. Don’t even get me started on her thoughts on quinceañeras. I’ll give you a hint: they’re horribly offensive and completely accurate. Anyways, there are so many people who will tell you that prom is a magical night full of romance and stomach butterflies, but they forget to tell you about the pain and embarrassment that come along with it. My prom experience was like watching a deadly car crash in slow motion. Heads were flying through the windshield, airbags were breaking people’s skulls, and there was even a cute puppy smashed up against the hood getting sucked into the grille. It wasn’t just the big night that was a disaster, it was the entire lead-up. So I’ll take you through it slowly so you can get the whole sad, bloody picture. If you have any sharp objects or pill bottles nearby, hide them in a cupboard. This entire experience might throw you into a suicidal state.

  One day during my thrilling senior year I was hanging out with my group of friends at lunch talking about all the exciting things going on in our lives. It was always a very short conversation. You know how every school has what’s commonly known as “the crazy tree”? Well, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, let me explain. During lunchtime all the cliques hung out in their designated sectors outside. Nobody hung out in the cafeteria because that’s where the school food was, and being within ten feet of that would give you the stomach flu.

  I don’t know who decided on the sectors; I feel like it was a natural instinct thing. For example, I would NEVER have even dreamed of walking up to the benches by the school’s side gate. That was an area filled with jocks who were getting pocket hand jobs from their cheerleader girlfriends. Just walking by, your nose would fill with the smell of splooge and hot Cheetos. The rest of the sectors were taken up by the nerds, the Asians, the black kids, the Mexicans, and the pregnant girls.

  Finally, on the far side of the quad next to the girls’ bathroom was a large tree that looked like it had been ripped out of some depressing Tim Burton movie. It created more shade than all the queens on RuPaul’s Drag Race combined. If the tree could have spoken, it would have said, “Dear God, cut me the fuck down. I hate my life.” It would probably also have asked that one fat girl to stop practicing her make-out skills on it. But that fat girl would never have stopped. That fat girl was me, and that tree marked my sector.

  My group was made up of misfits, and not in the fun comic-book way, more in the rejected-scraps-of-meat-that-­become-bologna way. I would say I was the leader of the group, but that implies that we did stuff that required leading. We more or less just stood around and shared a family-­sized bag of Doritos. First there was Tara, who I told you about earlier. Although she wasn’t usually around at lunchtime because she was in the parking lot “hanging out” with her guy friends. Then there was a four-foot-tall stoner named Pam who had an undiagnosed case of Tourette’s syndrome. Her vocabulary was limited to cuss words that she would somehow combine to make full sentences.

  Me: Hey, Pam. What’s up?

  Pam: Fuckin’ bullshit bitch. Motherfuckers dumb-ass fuckin’ with that bitch again. Shit.

  She was a true linguist. Then there was Brandon, who was a loose cannon with slight serial-killer tendencies. One time he brought a Taser gun to school and gave Pam five bucks to let him try it on her. I don’t remember exactly how it went down, but I do remember she almost died. Finally there was my lesbian friend and future prom date, Kelley. Did I mention she was a lesbian? Ya, we’ll get to that later.

  Kelley was a unique girl. Her wardrobe was a mix between Kenny from South Park and that guy who shot all his classmates in that one news story. There was lots of camo, lots of cargo pockets, and lots of stickers on her backpack that said “Aliens > People.” She was a true freak, which is why we had so much in common. Kelley and I spent pretty much every weekend together. We would eat mass amounts of junk food, we would drive around while blaring Britney Spears and TELL NO ONE, and most important, we would make sketch comedy videos. Some of my first videos I ever posted on YouTube were ones we had made together. We had a great working relationship. I would hold the camera and force her to do whatever I wanted her to in front of it. In one video she had to give herself a fake abortion and then smear the blood on her face. Trust me, it’s funnier than it sounds.

  So it was the week before prom and everyone was planning out their epic romantic night of dancing and sex. Those of us under the crazy tree were more focused on who was going to get to pour the crumbs at the bottom of the Dorito bag down their throat that day.

  Then the unthinkable happened. I was asked to prom.

  Now, before you start imagining some amazing, beautiful moment when a girl walked up to me with a hand-painted sign that said PROM? and flower petals falling from the sky, let me share with you the bleak reality. Get ready for this. Once again, hide the sharp objects.

  Kelley: Hey, Shane, can I talk to you over there for a second?

  Me: By the trash can on fish stick day? This must be important.

  Kelley: So . . . Do you want to go to prom with me?

  Me: Um . . . what?

  Kelley: I’m serious.

  Me: You’re a lesbian. Like a big lesbian. You constantly have new scabs on your forearms.

  Kelley: What does that have to do with being a lesbian?

  Me: I don’t know. But it doesn’t scream “I like dick.”

  Kelley: You wouldn’t have to pay for it.

  Me: Why? Is this a Make-A-Wish thing? Did the principal put you up to this? I keep telling him I’m not dying, I just have that dying-kid resting face.

  Kelley: No. My dad is going to pay.

  Me: Why? He doesn’t even like paying for shampoo. I mean, your hair has more grease dripping from it than a deep fryer at the county fair.

  Kelley: You really know how to make a girl feel pretty.

  Me: Ok, what’s going on? For reals.

  Kelley: My dad wants me to go with a guy, so he said he would pay for you to go with me.

  Me: Yikes. That’s like the plot for some terrible nineties movie. Does it end with you realizing you’re not gay and actually in love with me?

  Kelley: I’m really glad we’re next to a trash can right now. I feel chunks rising.

  Me: So . . . If I say no, then what?

  Kelley: Then I don’t get to go to prom.

  Me: Do you really want to go? A bunch of straight people fondling each other doesn’t really sound like your thing.

  Kelley: I know it’s dumb, but I really want to go. The only time I’ve ever worn a dress was at my grandma’s funeral a few years ago and I didn’t even get to enjoy it. I had to change into something that would cover up my boobs while I helped carry the casket.

  Me: Ya, funerals are tough.

  Kelley: So what do you say? For me?

  This was a hard decision. I didn’t know what would hurt more, letting my friend down or going to the prom with a lesbian. It was like choosing between lice and crabs. One was contagious, the other would only affect me. I also didn’t quite know how I felt about her dad pimping me out like I was some fat hooker. The sad part is what she said to sweeten the deal.

  Kelley: My dad said he would pay for our Denny’s meal.

  The even sadder part was my reaction.

  Me: I’M FUCKIN’ IN!

  So it was settled: Kelley was all mine for the night at the low cost of prom tickets, my tux, and my Denny’s meal. The night of the prom arrived in a flash. Before I knew it, it was time for me to lie on the floor and have my mom help me zip up my tuxedo pants. As I put on my suit and looked in the mirror I couldn’t help but notice how much I looked like a lesbian myself. Maybe this was meant to be. Maybe Kelley and I would be the hottest lesbian couple at the prom. Although we did have some pretty stiff competition. There were these two Ca
mbodian girls who’d deejay at birthday parties on the weekends. They were pretty cool.

  So I hopped in my never-been-washed car and headed over to my date’s house. I picked up that wrist flower thing on the way there and then accidentally sat on it. To say it was destroyed would be an understatement. I did to that wrist flower thing what God did to the dinosaurs. EXTINCT.

  As I pulled up to Kelley’s house I started getting nervous. I’m not sure why, because it wasn’t even a real date. But there was something about the suit, the romantic song playing on the radio, and the crushed corsage in between my ass cheeks that made me get stomach butterflies. Maybe this was what all those people were talking about. Maybe this night was going to be magical. Or maybe I was having bubble guts from all the sheet cake and refried beans I’d had the night before.

  I got to the front door and before I could knock it swung open and I was hit with a storm of flashing lights. It was a photo­grapher who her father had hired and he wasn’t shy about getting all the shots he wanted. There were so many flashes I started to wonder if I was having a stroke. Which was totally possible, once again, considering the sheet cake and refried beans.

  After the lights stopped flashing I looked up and saw Kelley standing in front of me looking like a completely different person. She wasn’t the camouflaged, metal-tipped-hiking-boot-wearing girl I was used to. She was a beautiful princess with a dress perfectly fitted and a hairstyle ripped out of Seventeen magazine. No wonder she had to change her outfit at that funeral. She was probably giving the priest a chub. Well . . . probably not the priest; maybe the altar boys.

  Me: Wow! You look great!

  Kelley: I feel kind of stupid.

  Me: Why?! You look amazing! You look like a child prostitute but happy about it!