As a former fan of Shane Dawson, I now have to say one very important thing: he has gone down the crapper. My opinion of him has radically changed for the worse. Maybe it's not he who has gone down the crapper, but rather I who has matured and seen him for what he is, which is nothing more than a gross human being who still thinks flinging shit and vomit is hilarious. His sketches and characters have become old and tired, and their quirkiness has run thin. There is literally nothing he can do which I've not seen him do already. On top of that, he has a deranged sense of reality that basically appears wholly dependent on his Youtube career. We as Youtubers (yes, I was using "Youtuber" before he and his ilk tarnished the word) are his audience, not his fucking family, and not his fucking support group. He has a creepy emotional connection to his audience that turned me off every time it surfaced through one of his many "heartfelt speeches" that mostly involved him tearing up at some point. His inability to separate personal feelings from professionalism was the stone that started the avalanche, but as I watched, I realized something else. He dwells in the center of a sphere of influence which is good enough to coax the rabid 12-year-olds who think it's cool to make repetitive jokes about race and social class your only comedic weapon, but it's fair to say that we've seen the extent of his talent as an entertainer. Driven by who knows what, he seems perfectly content to rest on his laurels and deliver the same crap about the same handful of people he expects his audience to know. When he pokes fun, he seldom lets it travel without assuring his subject that he means no harm, which is detrimental to the comedy. He is simply too sensitive to be taken seriously as an entertainer. At the same time, his comedy is extremely immature and far too one-note to carry any lasting entertainment value. It wasn't long before I realized that with Dawson, I've seen it all of I've seen it once, especially as he and the rest of Youtube drifted into commercialism.

His "ilk" btw includes such untalented leaches as iJustine, BrittaniLouiseTaylor, OlgaKay (who has "ilk" of her own, god help us), JoeNationTV, and others I don't even care to remember. None of these people would have careers if not for Youtube, which I've become convinced is an incubation tank for mediocrity. Sure, I watched all thse people too, and while some have the talent and charisma of a hobo on the street (iJ