A controversial YouTuber's ukelele 'apology' video was so bizarre it's sparked a whole new genre of meme

• YouTuber Colleen Ballinger posted a 10-minute ukulele song in response to accusations she was inappropriate with fans.

• Many of the people who accused Ballinger have expressed anger at the video.

• Now TikTokers are responding to the bizarre apology by making their own parody versions.

On June 28, YouTuber Colleen Ballinger strummed along to a ukulele while she responded to allegations of inappropriate behavior with fans in a 10-minute YouTube video titled, "hi."

The song, which has been dubbed "Toxic Gossip Train" after one of its lyrics, has gone viral, and TikTokers are using it as inspiration to create their own parody songs.

Ballinger created "Miranda Sings," an eccentric fictional character that sings and dances badly and responds to her critics with her catchphrase, "Haters back off," in 2008. She rose to huge popularity in the 2010s, and today, Miranda Sings' YouTube channel has over 10.7 million subscribers.

Over the past few years, accusations have been mounting against Ballinger. In 2020, the YouTuber confirmed that she had sent lingerie to one of her fans, Adam McIntyre, when he was 13 years old. (At the time, Ballinger said it wasn't "sneaky" or "gross," but rather a part of a longstanding tradition she had within her fandom of giving away different items.)

The allegations have recently resurfaced, partly as a result of a new YouTube video posted by McIntyre, and a TikTok video posted by a user named Becky. Both have alleged that Ballinger acted inappropriately towards them when they were minors.

After taking several weeks away from the internet since the accusations began, Ballinger responded with a 10-minute video on June 30, in which she sang along while strumming a ukelele — a choice many found bizarre.

In the video, she denied being a "groomer." She sang, "Many years ago, I used to message my fans, but not in a creepy way like a lot of you are trying to suggest. It was more of a loser kind of way."

So far, the video has been viewed over 7.8 million times and sparked a whole new meme.

On June 30, comedian and "America's Got Talent" judge Howie Mandel, who goes by the TikTok username @officialhowiemandel, spoofed Ballinger's video with his own mock apology video captioned "Apology Video".

In his parody song, which has been watched over 6.3 million times so far, Mandel strums a guitar while pretending to apologize for a controversial TikTok video he posted in July 2022. In the TikTok, Mandel had shown his friend's prolapsed anus and asked, "Does somebody know if this is COVID related?" Mandel deleted the video soon after he posted it, but many users had already seen it.

"People told me not to do this, but nobody said I shouldn't sing this," Mandel said in the video, seemingly referencing the beginning of Ballinger's video, where she said: "Even though my team has strongly advised me to not say what I want to say, I recently realized they never said I couldn't sing what I wanted to say."

In the rest of his two-minute video, Mandel sang that he was "just a human being, who didn't know what a prolapse was." He referred to the incident as getting on the "prolapse train," parodying Ballinger's concept of the "toxic gossip train." Throughout the video, someone off-screen sellotaped objects to Mandel's head while he sang.

Amanda Nolan, who goes by the username @amandumb on TikTok where she has over 613,000 followers, has made multiple videos parodying Ballinger's.

In one, which has over 3.9 million views, Nolan sings from the perspective of several influencers including Shane Dawson, who joked about sexually assaulting a cat, and beauty YouTuber Jaclyn Hill who was accused of selling broken lipsticks in 2019, reimagining their apologies.

In another video, which has 1.9 million views, she referenced Jenna Marbles, who made a 45-minute YouTube apology video after fans accused her of animal abuse for buying a circular fish tank in 2017.

TikToker Chris Quazzo, who goes by the username @quazzomodo and has over 700,000 followers, posted a parody video captioned "Colleen Apology Video (Ice Spice Remix)." In the video, which has gained over 200,000 views since it was posted on July 2, Quazzo rapped over the sound of Ballinger's ukulele apology song.

In the song, which he appeared to be singing from the perspective of Ballinger, Quazzo suggested that she was "not really sorry," and that she was playing people "like a ukulele."

On July 1, TikTok user @fleetwoodmacarena also posted a parody apology video in which she pretended to be sorry for eating a human being. She said that she was "not a cannibal," and that she was "just hungry," playing off Ballinger's "not a groomer, just a loser" lyric. "Oh, so you're all so perfect and you've never gotten really hungry or wondered what humans taste like?" she said.

So far, the video has over 155,000 views.

Many of the people who accused Ballinger have expressed anger at the apology, including McIntyre. On July 1, he responded to Ballinger's video with his own apology song titled, "hi." So far, his video has been viewed over 1.8 million times.

On July 3, YouTuber Trisha Paytas, who had recently begun collaborating on a podcast with Ballinger titled, "Oversharing with Colleen Ballinger & Trisha Paytas," uploaded a YouTube video titled "colleen," where Paytas revealed they were "shocked" by Ballinger's video.

"I wasn't aware of the most recent things that are coming out," Paytas said. "Everyone knows I have a very, very, very firm stance on talking to anyone underage. Platonic or not, I've always been very firm with this that I think it's inappropriate."

Ballinger did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

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