Opinion – Colleen Ballinger’s apology is a grim blur of comedy and consent

Allegedly, Colleen would also give these young people access to her social media accounts, asking them to essentially run them for her free of charge.

These statements epitomise the grooming process in that Ballinger exploited her position of power and influence to manipulate her fans for her own benefit.

Her use of social media – not only as an initial platform for fame, but as a space for coercing young people into digital environments they felt they couldn’t escape from – underlines the uncomfortable coalescence of entertainment and abuse that exists on the internet.

Most disturbing, however, has been Ballinger’s recent response to the controversy.

After staying quiet since McIntrye’s initial statements, Colleen finally addressed speculation in the format she knows best: a YouTube video.

But unlike the cringey tell-all apologies often favoured by tainted content creators, Ballinger’s response wasn’t remorseful, nor serious. Instead, she stringently denied any wrong-doing in the form of a ukelele song.

Perhaps Ballinger didn’t get the memo that ukulele videos went out with the cinnamon challenge in 2013.

Regardless, it wasn’t an appropriate format for responding to allegations of abuse and child grooming. I think almost anyone could tell you that.

McIntrye was quick to call out Colleen for her (quite literally) tone-deaf video, suggesting it proves her guilty of the unhinged behaviour she’s been accused of.

‘As much as colleen discredited & made fun of me, I’m glad her video did ONE thing, show you all EXACTLY the type of evil woman she is [sic]’ he said in a tweet.

Others have suggested Ballinger is simply too ignorant and juvenile to grasp the severity of the situation.

‘Her complete lack of awareness surrounding intent vs impact shows just how juvenile she is i guess?? [sic]’ Olivia tweeted on Wednesday.

But I think this cuts Ballinger too much slack. The fact she even felt it socially acceptable to create a saccharine song about child abuse points to something even darker than Colleen’s actions themselves.

We’ve suddenly found ourselves in a world where the internet not only dominates most of our lives, but has the capacity to thwart our perceptions of what passes as entertainment.

In the age of virality and memes, nothing is safe from being spun into a bite-sized, catchy nugget of content – to the point that serious, real-world issues and questions brush shoulders with dance videos and morbid jokes.

It’s this proximity that has spawned an endless string of memes about the recent Oceangate Titan disaster. Beneath the thousands of TikToks poking fun at the incident, one needs reminding that five people died.

As Ballinger’s cringeworthy video inevitably sees her go viral (again), we mustn’t lose sight of the lives she’s impacted, and the problematic ways content creators can forge intimate relationships with their followers.

This was perhaps best summarised by an unlikely source – Ballinger’s ex-husband Joshua David Evans, who took to Twitter this week to share his thoughts on the controversy;

‘Anyone feeling hurt & gaslit right now, my message to you is this: Your experiences were real […]. Your trauma should be taken seriously […]. Your anger is justified […]. You deserve better. Take your power back. Sending you love.’