How to Survive Cancellation

On the brink of well-deserved cancellation? Need a way out of it? Learn from our immortal influencers...  

CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of suicide 

The internet loves to sleuth. If you give audiences a reason to dig, they’ll unearth every one of your flaws before you can script, film and edit your apology video. Telling people they’re wrong about their perceptions of a situation only makes you the enemy.   

While the influencers below made it through cancel culture unscathed, others have had their careers tanked. Think of David Dobrik, Colleen Ballinger, Cody Ko, and Shane Dawson. Where did they go wrong you might ask? They denied their crimes.  

Cancellation kills careers, but if you play it right, it can also boost them. Ultimately, internet cancellation is more about gossip than accountability. Even when wrongdoing causes real harm, the inherent privilege these influencers have allows them to cultivate their cancellations for their own benefit.  

However, there’s been an immortal few who have, even when their actions have been inexcusable. But how do they survive complete and utter cancellation?  

Logan Paul: Find an audience too young to care  

At the beginning of 2018, Logan Paul faced cancellation after posting a video where he discovered and filmed a dead body in Japan’s Aokigahara Forest – also known as the Suicide Forest. The internet assumed his downfall. Yet, seven years later, Paul still averages 950k views on YouTube and 9 million on Instagram reels.  

So, how did he survive cancellation? By embracing a child audience too young to remember his previous mistakes.  

He creates content which appeals to young viewers, with recent videos titled: I Caught the Guy Who Stole My $5,275,000 Pokémon Card and Why I left MrBeast’s $1,000,000 Challenge. Let’s be real, no one above the age of 18 is clicking on this content. He’s even released a collection of kid’s snack boxes with Mr Beast and KSI.  

If you’re worried your viewers will care about topics like suicide, follow Paul’s strategy and find an audience who won't know what the word even means. 

Tana Mongeau: Monetise your mistakes 

Tana Mongeau has faced a multitude of scandals. To name a few: use of racial slurs, cultural appropriation, breaking Covid rules, and a sketchy OnlyFans agency. Of course we can’t forget her fan convention, TanaCon, where attendees were subjected to overcrowding, lack of food or water, and serious injuries. 

But instead of hiding her mistakes, Mongeau wears her problematic badge with pride.  

In 2021, she came out with her podcast literally titled Cancelled. Not only was this flipping the PR script, but it’s also logistically genius. Now when you search up “Tana Mongeau cancelled”, her own brand shows up instead of content about her many instances of misconduct. 

Tana is the poster child of all press is good press, even turning TanaCon into a 3.6/10 IMDb rated documentary. She’ll never shake her unhinged brand, nor does she want to. It’s the only thing that's kept her career alive all these years.  

Trisha Paytas: Just keep swimming 

If you were cancelled for something, would you repeat it with your kids five years later? Well influencer Trisha Pautas has. After receiving backlash in 2020 for dressing as Cleopatra and lip-syncing to ‘King Tut’ by Steve Martin, she repeated the video with her husband and two kids last month. Her 2020 caption read: “#euphoric will prob delete. Prob offensive.”   

The 2020 scandal was far from Paytas’ first, last, or even most shocking controversy, yet she’s survived each and every one. She is an internet relic. Whether you love, hate, or love to hate her, you cannot help but admire her ability to maintain relevancy for the past 20 years. She has repeatedly and understandably been dragged through the mud for an array of offenses. We’ve not only watched her mock many communities, but we’ve also seen her then claim to be a part of them  

In response? She has just kept on creating. 

Despite her uncountable number of apology videos, Paytas continues her two-decade grind of creating content. Week after week, she posts dozens of reels, TikToks, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes. She’s living proof social media isn’t about enjoyment, it’s about attention.  

From her first ever 2007 YouTube video TRISHA PAYTAS’ FIRST YOUTUBE VIDEO, to one of her latest videos, I’m Fat ...that's OK, she’s never let any scandal affect her content calendar. Paytas’ brand embodies a consistent and quantity-over-quality strategy which has stood the test of time.  

Don’t let the scandal ruin your scheduled posts.  

Jojo Siwa: Become the villian  

Jojo Siwa is one of the internet’s most recent victims of near cancellation after her ex claimed she cheated on her with Love Island star Chris Hughes. A once self-proclaimed ‘creator of gay pop’, audiences were taken back as Siwa’s identity transformed from queer to tradwife.  

Slipping out of her jewel studded jumpsuit and into a blonde 1960s wig, red lipstick, and white lace top, Siwa began serenading the internet with soft rock. She responded to the backlash and straight slander by becoming the symbol of heterosexualism – a tradwife. Ultimately, she became the straight performative villain the internet claimed her to be.  

So, if worse comes to worse, use the scandal as inspiration for your new right-wing persona.