As we come to the end of 2019, it is interesting to reflect on the continuously evolving internet culture. We were blessed with an abundance of embarrassing, poorly executed and ‘Razzie award worthy’ apology videos. A few names may spring to mind such as James Charles, Gina Rodriguez and Laura Lee etc. It seems ‘terrible apology videos’ has become a valued and entertaining genre in itself, but what exactly makes a terrible apology video? Well, I’m going to endeavour to find out why these celebs and YouTube influencers keep falling flat on their contoured-camera-ready faces. How does their language and body language fail when attempting to be ‘uncancelled’. 

What is Cancel Culture?

Before we start the analysis, we need to look at what or who is causing the demand for these ever-so-entertaining apology videos. Firstly, a celebrity or influencer is ‘called out’ for their mistake by the public, which can be from varying social media platforms, and for the celebrity to ‘save face’ they need to apologise. The public’s criticism of the celebrity is considered a ‘face threatening act,’ which means the controversy can damage or affect their reputation and public image. Therefore, this is why celebrities attempt to combat this with public apologies.

What Makes a Successful Apology?

Well, it seems the real world has very different ideas of what constitutes an acceptable apology compared to the virtual world. For example, Lakoff wrote about the certain condition which needed to be met in order for an apology to be ‘successful’ in real life. So keep this in mind if your sibling ever apologies for being the absolute bane of your existence and never letting you have the TV remote.  Regret, responsibility, wrongdoing, hurt, one-down and compensation/future prevention are all conditions which need to be expressed when apologising according to Lakoff. These can be expressed through utterances such as, ‘I should have behaved differently’ or ‘there was a lapse in my judgement’, phrases of which, by the way, I’m still waiting to hear from my siblings. But I digress. Paralinguistic features can also be used to emphasise their regret and emotional distress at having made a mistake. For example, voice cracking, heavy breathing and sighing are all body language behaviours which indicate that the person is genuinely remorseful and regretful. These features (or conditions) seem pretty straight forward, right? So how come when they are transferred into the online format of a YouTube video, they seem to lose all sense of authenticity as a form of apology. 

The scripted, edited and pre-planned nature of YouTubevideos completely changed the expectations of an apology. Suddenly many influencers found that wiping fake tears away; forcing out the words ‘I’m so so sorry’ through staggered breathing, is not an effective way to win your audience over. For example, in the notorious Laura Lee apology video, where a beauty influencer on YouTube apologised for her past racist tweets which had resurfaced, she demonstrates a hyperbolic re-enactment of an apology. She opens the video by dramatically rubbing her face which her freshly manicured acrylic nails and sobbing into the camera lens. This clearly came off as a desperate attempt to evoke sympathy from her YouTube audience, who are very aware of the edited nature of the video, which allows Laura Lee to carefully craft an image to present to her audience. Lee’s apology is drenched in self-pity as she states ‘this is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do’ which fails to show responsibility and concern for those she has offended, as her focus is directed on her own position. The awkward 5 second breaks of Lee sniffling and doing her best impression of a kicked puppy, also did not go down well with viewers surprisingly. Her attempt to apologise came across as disingenuous and borderline insulting to the viewer’s intelligence, by assuming that they would not recognise that this is a scripted and fake effort to ‘seem sorry’. 

How can they win? Does the contrived nature of YouTube videos make it impossible to deliver an authentic apology? In my opinion… no. Rather than thinking that your audience have the mental abilities of a 5 year old, and won’t realise that you have sat at your computer for various hours editing the ‘raw’ footage to craft your apology video, use it to your advantage. Do not present this frantic and dishevelled ‘I haven’t showered in 3 days’ appearance, which your language reflects through rambling and incoherent speech. To an audience these come across as slimy, manipulative attempts to get pity, rather than owning up to your mistake. Instead, offer an articulate, well-constructedand thought out apology, which shows you have thought about the controversy and how you’re going to learn from the mistake. Perhaps, if most youtuber’s followed this structure some of them may still have thriving careers although, we wouldn’t have Fridaynight’s entertainment sorted. Ultimately, however, how severe their past actions were which caused the controversy is a big factor in whether they are forgiven or not by the public. 

So, there you go. I am interested to see what 2020 will bring in terms of controversies, apology videos and twitter scandals. Hopefully, a lot of these celebrities will learn to give decent apologies which don’t rely on almost bursting the listeners earphones because of loud, wavering and nasally sobs. 

Quick thank you to Dimi, Leo, Cynthia and Emerline for letting me use some of their research to write this article.

Ella Macdonald