Trisha Paytas is a name you have likely heard swirling around the internet lately. For one, she’s a very popular YouTube creator, boasting a whopping 4.99 million followers on her channel, blndsundoll4mj. She boasts an additional 7 million more followers on TikTok. Earlier this year, she announced that she was expecting her first child with husband, Moses Hacmon. She recently gave birth to her first child, Malibu Barbie, which has also sparked quite a bit of media attention.
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You will notice quickly, though, that the headlines surrounding Paytas frequently label her as a “controversial YouTuber.” She certainly has earned the title as she raised many eyebrows over the years with trolling videos, racist remarks, public feuds with other celebrities, and by seemingly disrespecting the LGBTQ+ community. While Paytas has claimed that her trolling, racism, and other actions are simply a social media strategy to gain attention, it certainly doesn’t cast her in a good light.
Who is Trisha Paytas?
Paytas was born in California, but spent most of her childhood in Illinois. However, she says her heart was always in California where she moved as a teenager to pursue her dreams of making it big in Hollywood. She started out working odd jobs to pay the bills, but started gaining early recognition for her appearances on reality TV shows. Paytas tried to break the world’s fastest-talker record on Guinness World Records Gone Wild and also appeared on My Strange Addiction, where she admitted to being a tanning addict. She also found success taking part in the 2012 Frenemies podcast and producing music.
Paytas started her YouTube channel in 2007, which was initially all about her idol Quentin Tarantino. However, she slowly started to make it into a personal channel where she made mukbang videos, vlogged, or gave advice to her followers. Little by little, she was gaining popularity and publishing content that was relatable and funny to her viewers. She even earned herself a spot on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. However, in the midst of it, Paytas suddenly changed directions.
You see, most YouTubers become controversial unintentionally when they make poor choices or let their skewed rhetoric slip. Paytas is quite a different story, as she is a YouTuber who specifically sought to make herself controversial.
Trisha Paytas’ “strategy” of being a racist troll
For the past decade, Paytas content has become increasingly weird and very offensive. She has posted videos of herself in black-face, using the N-word, defending Hitler, using anti-Semitic language, claiming she voted for Mitt Romney, and even once infamously tried to argue that dogs don’t have brains. Most recently, she came under fire for using insulting language when talking to her former Frenemies co-host.
Frenemies was a podcast she ran with Ethan Klein, who is Jewish, before quitting last year. Paytas was fairly vague about the reasons why she quit Frenemies, though she indicated it came down to business disputes. However, in 2021, she used the offensive term “Jewy” to describe her co-host Klein. Meanwhile, Paytas has frequently defended her offensive content, claiming that she is just “trolling” to get attention. In 2015, she even admitted to Business Insider that she dumbed herself down in hopes of getting more views. Essentially, she knows that her content is racist and offensive, but is choosing to continue posting it because she thinks it garners her more attention, even if it’s negative attention.
Trisha Paytas and the LGBTQ+ community
Paytas has also been accused of being disrespectful to the LGBTQ+ community. Around 2016, Paytas posted a now-deleted video titled “I’m a chicken nugget.” In the video, she claimed that she identified as a chicken nugget and stated, “When you feel like a chicken nugget, you feel like… not delicious. Well, you feel delicious, but you also feel, like, fried. And fake on the inside… I’m pink goop and now I’m a chicken nugget.” Of course, it was yet another of her trolling videos, this time targeting the LGBTQ+ community.
As a result of her facetious chicken nugget video, Paytas received criticism in 2019 when she came out as a trans man in a now-deleted video. Initially, after coming out, she chose to continue using she/her pronouns. Since then, she has updated her pronouns to she/her/they/them. Odd comments that she made in her coming out video, though, again came across as offensive to the LGBTQ+ community.
In the video, she talked about how she was “100% transgender” because she had more guy friends than girl friends, was attracted to gay men, and doesn’t wear makeup every day. Oddly, her thumbnail was a picture of her dressed a Troy Bolton and she also claimed in the video to identify as a “drag queen,” as well. Needless to say, many viewers believed that her whole video was a joke at the LGBTQ+ community’s expense. However, she has maintained that she was not joking and now identifies as non-binary.
Trisha Paytas controversies, explained
While Paytas’ coming out video may not have been a joke, it certainly illustrated a lack of education and a lot of disrespect. For one, she trivialized the complexity of identity, indicating her whole identity merely rides on whether she’s girly or not, or has girlfriends or guy friends. She also didn’t seem to understand that sexual identity and sexual orientation are independent of each other. Plus, the Bolton costume and some of her statements certainly did point to her baiting for attention.
The problem with Paytas is that most of her offenses are intentional. She dumbs herself down, she trolls, she makes assumptions, and she tries to be shocking. It is exceedingly difficult to tell when she’s being serious or when she’s being facetious. Additionally, even when she doesn’t intend to be offensive she shows an unacceptable lack of awareness and knowledge.
What’s particularly sad is that Paytas does occasionally try to be an inspiring voice for her followers. She advocates for being yourself and being confident. In fact, she has succeeded in being quite empowering in her discussions of body positivity. However, the fact that she feels the need to stir up controversy and scandals left and right, makes her claims of self-acceptance difficult to believe. With Paytas, we never know if we’re getting the real her, or the Paytas who feels the need to be controversial to attain fame.
(featured image: YouTube)
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