On June 29, YouTuber Colleen Ballinger posted a video to her channel “apologising” to fans in response to recent allegations made against her. Ballinger had been accused of creating inappropriate relationships with her underaged fans, grooming and exploitation, all of which she has denied.
Many YouTubers have used the platform to apologise. So many, in fact, that a genre of apology videos has formed. Users of the platform now have expectations around what an apology video should look like, many of which fall into the genre of apology broadly. Ballinger, however, subverted genre expectations when she sung her apology.
