



Shane Dawson:

As a viewer, I have personally enjoyed documentaries with their interesting topics and top notch editing. In documentaries, they tell stories that capture and captivate our imagination and hearts. Yet, from a rational perspective, there are many documentaries that often leave a lot to be desired as far as portraying their chosen topic in a fair and unbiased light, and as far facts are concerned, documentaries are often lacking in that department as well with the sources they choose to cite if at all.



Even though documentaries in themselves are ripe for a criticism of their own, today we must decipher if the YouTuber Shane Dawson is doing more good or more harm with his YouTube Documentary series on controversial YouTubers like Jake Paul and Jeffree Star just to name a few. By harm I mean to say does Dawson create documentaries that misrepresent the YouTubers in his by omitting certain questions/facts and framing these YouTubers in a sympathetic light?



We are here to discover the truth whether it favors Shane Dawson or not, and I ask my readers to let the facts speak for themselves before drawing any conclusions. If Shane Dawson is in fact misrepresenting these YouTubers, it must be discussed because of how it lowers the standards for factual reporting and establishing the truth of actual events.









Dawson's Background



Before we can really pick apart anything in the documentaries he's created, we must evaluate his background and experience to determine if he is indeed capable of to making a documentary series that is factually sound and neutral. Shane Dawson is one of the first YoutTubers to gain traction on YouTube. Starting off on YouTube in 2005, he made comedy sketches in which he would play characters, impersonate famous celebrities, or poke fun at pop culture icons.



One of his most popular videos to date is his Fred is Dead video uploaded in 2008, in which he kills the YouTuber Fred and becomes the most beloved YouTuber, which gained him millions of views. In 2010, Dawson rose to the prominence of being one of the most famous web celebrities through collaborations with other big YouTubers like TheFineBros. As YouTube changed, Dawson changed with it by uploading various types of videos which from exploring conspiracy theories to confronting his own childhood trauma, which greatly benefited his overall growth on YouTube from then until now. Viewers often saw a very real and personal side to in Shane in his later uploads, which made his viewers more easily connect with him vs just him playing a persona like he did before.



While his background his impressive as far as fame is concerned on YouTube, that does not give him any real experience in making anything remotely factual. While this doesn't disqualify him from making these type of documentaries about controversial YouTubers, it doesn't make him an authority figure in making reliable documentaries.









Dawson's Tactics



Because Dawson wants to leave his own personal touch to the videos he uploads, he inherently leaves his own biases in these videos as well. He wants to stay on everyone's good side while avoiding the hard questions like for example: "Why doesn't he question Jake Paul about how he merchandises to children in his videos?"



While Dawson gets the benefit of being able to more easily talk to the subjects of his videos by not confronting them outright, it makes his videos less insightful and less likely to spearhead any real changes because his subjects aren't really confronted about anything. Dawson also makes fervent use of music and visuals to paint them in a certain way, such as how Dawson played sad somber piano music and slow motion in his final Jake Paul Documentary video to paint Jake Paul in a certain sympathetic light which comes off as very manipulative.



And that is is just one of several examples of him using this type of framing to affect they way his audience views the subjects of his videos. While his videos may be entertaining, they are in no way factual or reliable. While Dawson is in his right to make these types of videos using these questionable methods, is that the type of standard we want for something as valuable as the truth? Should entertainment and views come at the cost of presenting a factual reliable videos?









Dawson's Objective?





What exactly is Dawson's objective in his documentary series? While this may seem like a simple question it is important to help us understand what his videos even achieve at the end of the day. Does Dawson really provoke change or confront the subjects of his videos in meaningful thought provoking ways? I'd have to say given the way he structures his videos, no. So given how the videos are made, it suggests his videos are made to humanize controversial subjects like Jake Paul and to entertain his viewers, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, however these videos are inherently biased towards these subjects, and these videos do not do enough in way to accurately represent all the bad things the subject has done and how it was negatively impacted others while also showing their side of the story.



Like in his Jake Paul documentary, him merely suggesting Jake Paul could be a sociopath is not fairly addressing the criticisms labeled against him. While it may be an interesting story, that nowhere satisfies the criticisms leveled against Jake Paul. Entertaining your audience is not educating them or giving valid unbiased truth. While Dawson's videos are entertaining, they do not do what they were advertised by Dawson to do, which is to fairly and objectively weigh the criticisms mounted against these YouTubers.









Where do we go from here?

Well Dawson is guilty of making his YouTube documentaries factually and objectively unreliable, he's hardly the first one guilty of this and he won't be the last either. While it might have not been his intention to be this biased and one sided, his videos come across as emotionally manipulative and the fact he's been cast as the defacto patriarch of YouTube documentaries is alarming in its own right. But honestly, the "standards" for documentaries are questionable themselves. Dawson is a symptom of a much larger issue which is how documentaries are sold to us. We need to reevaluate how we evaluate documentaries and question the creator's intentions more. Viewers need to think for themselves and not be told or manipulated to feel one way or the other on various topics. Thank you for reading!





Shane Dawson YouTube Videos:



