YouTuber Apology Parody

"I'm sorry for putting lots of ads in my last apology video."

"I know everyone is angry about that video where I made a homeless man twerk while I rained dollar bills on him, but in my defense, I suffer from... eosinophilic esophagitis...?"

— Terrible Writing Advice, "Apology Video Template"

(starts recording and adjusts camera; big sigh)

...So, fellow Tropers, you might have heard some rumors about me. Perhaps they've said that I did something absurdly offensive, or I posted something incredibly racist on social media. I may have even committed a horrendous crime that I really should be in custody for. Since the backlash is getting too large and people won't know I'm sincere if I apologize with just a text post, I'll make an apology video and post it on YouTube (or some other video-sharing site). Of course I'll start my video with a long sigh, and then I'll get very emotional and use lots of Jump Cuts as I try to apologize, occasionally playing with my dog in hopes of leeching some Cuteness Proximity...

These kinds of videos are rife for parody, but they're still considered necessary to repair one's image whenever a vlogger gets into trouble. This trope covers parodies of apologies made by video creators, though the trend of YouTubers giving emotional apologies in the mid-to-late 2010s (and the ensuing parodies) is the Trope Codifier. They're the favorite tool of the Bad Influencer. Parodies often start with a Clickbait Gag and exaggerate the offensiveness of the transgression being apologized for. The apology parody could use the words of spoofed creator, but make them full of sarcasm and actually unapologetic, blaming it on everybody but themself.

Compare to Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!.

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I'm sorry I couldn't find more examples:

Anime and Manga

• Witch Watch:
  • In chapter 64, Kan talks about wanting to make a prank that goes overboard for his and Nico's YouTube channel, then following it up with an apology video with them in suits. As it turns out, Keigo made a video from stuff that Kan had previously made up about marbles, which went viral, and so Keigo, Kan and Nico end up having to make an apology video together.
  • Chapter 87 centers on Nico turning her male roommates into girls to make videos with their female personas on a new channel. Things goes well until Keigo/Keiko turns into Wolf(ina) on a livestream and exposes her breasts. Afterward, their channel is deleted and the other four (still as girls) apologize together on her behalf on a video on the old channel.

Fan Works

• Voice actor Spencedubs has the Joker doing one here, where he brings up the time where he attacked the Gotham Orphanage… because it was then and there where he disparaged Harley Quinn by giving her the unflattering name of being his "sidekick", prompting a backlash on social media.
  Joker: I took a shit on years and years of work she's put into this gang. And, y'know, after years of tormenting her and throwing her into vats of acid, I thought it was socially acceptable for me to call her a sidekick. Generous, even! But thankfully, many of you Gothamites took to social media and made me see the errors of my ways. The truth is, words hurt. So, for tonight's attack on this city, I just wanna give a shout-out to my partner-in-crime, Harley Quinn. Also, I strapped a bomb to the mayor's chest and you have thirty minutes to stop me, B-Man! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Film — Animated

• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Twice, when Miles relays what happened in the Time Skip between the end of the last film and the start of this one. The first time was for endorsing a brand of baby powder as Spider-Man (which, via Freeze-Frame Bonus, got a ratio of 87 likes to 69 million dislikes, even though it though it has less than 11 million views), and the second time was for growing a moustache as Spider-Man (90 likes to 90 million dislikes, despite, again, having far less than 90 million views).

Live-Action TV

• Stephen Colbert, in episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, makes fun of a video by Johnny Depp and Amber Heard where they apologized for sneaking their dogs past Australian customs. Colbert then follows this up with his own apology to Australia, where he and an actress apologize for bringing an assortment of weirdly named fauna to Australia.
• Saturday Night Live: The Daniel Kaluuya / St. Vincent episode had a sketch featuring a fictional YouTube channel called "Prank Posse," where the YouTuber's history of abusive behavior and problematic pranks (such as "Shrek Costume at Funeral" and "Racist Fart on Bus") comes to light, which he keeps addressing with somber but clearly insincere apology videos. He nearly kills his friend by tossing a television on him as a prank, makes an apology video where he promises to delay an upcoming video where he pranked said friend into kissing his penis, then releases the video anyway, remarking that the worst part about the situation is that he lost his sponsors. At the end of the video, his friend tosses a television on him as revenge, quickly says "I would like to apologize" to the camera when he sees his friend isn't moving, then runs away.
• During Stargate Atlantis, David Hewlett (who played Rodney McKay) released a behind the scenes video of him rapping about Stargate. Not much later, he also released a video where he profusely apologized for being horrible at rap, although the sarcasm isn't really obvious until the punchline.

Music

• Mr. Grande has "The YouTuber Apology Song," which every YouTuber sings along when they do something wrong. The song makes fun of the tropes used in apology videos, like apologizing for being in a very dark place, the lack of makeup, a simple background, and their Crocodile Tears.

Theatre

• The play A Series Of Public Apologies In Response To An Unfortunate Incident In The School Lavatories is a satire revolving around a series of these, first for the titular Incident, then for the apology for the incident, then for the apology for the apology for the incident... In case of curiosity, the incident was a student writing "EAT MY SHIT. EAT MY SHIT ALAN" on a toilet wall in blood and faeces.

Video Games

• Dead Island 2 combines this with an Apocalyptic Log when you explore the Goat Pen, a Bel Air mansion where a group of influencers lived. On a whiteboard, you can find a script for an apology video that one of them wrote, wishing that they took the outbreak more seriously and got out of Los Angeles in time.
  I'm alone in the house, it's 1 AM, and I just wanted to say sorry to all many fans that I disappointed, but most importantly my sponsors — I'll do better next time. <CRY HERE FOR SYMPATHY> This isn't scripted, this is from the heart. Please take the evacuation seriously, it was a mistake, I shouldn't have joked about it — love you all.

Web Animation

• Overly Sarcastic Productions' April Fools' Day "We're So Sorry" video. It opens with Red apologizing for being at best "moderately sarcastic", and escalates into both Red and Blue apologizing for multiple catastrophes and atrocities from history and mythology, including the sinking of Atlantis, The Tunguska Event and the sacking of the Library of Alexandria. For added hilarity, the background music is a Softer and Slower piano cover of "Megalovania".
• Terrible Writing Advice's "Apology Video Template" explores how to make an apology in its typical, sarcastic style.
• Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers: "Mario is Cancelled" sees Mario being banished to another dimension after being cancelled online, with the only way to escape being to make an apology video. He doesn't even pretend to be sorry, which makes sense, since he didn't even do the bad thing he was accused of doing, but it still works.
  Mario: I'm very sorry, and I apologize... for the inconvenience of me NOT GIVING A FUCK!!
• hololive: After fellow hololive Vtuber Towa Tokoyami got embroiled in a scandal when "fans" thought they might have heard a male voice in the background of one of her streams, Fubuki Shirakami mocked the people making it a scandal with an apology video in which she "admitted" there is a male living in her house, and that she prepares his food, bathes with him, and sleeps in the same bed with him. Near the end of the video, it becomes apparent that the "male" in question is her pet cat.

Web Comics

• In Lovely People, when Peony comes under fire for posting anti-Alizongle messages on Tooter, the site suggests that she make an apology video, advising her to say things like, "I didn't understand what I was saying!" "I was tricked into saying it!" or "My account was hacked!" Peony ignores this advice and proceeds to make an angry rant and moon the camera.

Web Original

• From Hard Drive: Twitch Releases Mad-Libs Style Stock Apology for Popular Streamers. The template includes an apology for saying a slur, pledges to donate to and meet with various social justice orgs, and references to friends who are members of the affected group.
• During Sonic the Hedgehog Twitter’s Twitter Takeover 6, one questioner requests an apology for the roasting he got last year (that they decided not to tell him to troll him). Sonic gives a half-hearted one, completely confused if he’s doing it right and if he should be crying now. Tails does it at the end after Amy reveals that the person had said some bad things about Tails.

Web Videos

• "hey gotham." is a video by Abe Timm where he plays the Joker playing a ukulele and deflecting the accusations against him, as a mocking parody of Miranda Sings' infamous "Toxic Gossip Train" song:
  I vandalized the paintings in the museum
  'Cause I was trying to make a statement on climate activism
  I never thought everybody would get so triggered
  When I killed that man on live television
  You treat me like I'm a criminal
  Just because I'm a criminal
  Now Bruce Wayne has disliked every single one of my videos
  I may have brought a gun to the children's ward at the hospital
  But at least I didn't do anything weird with the kids

• "A Word to Derek Savage" by Bobsheaux starts off with Bob sighing and expressing regret to Derek Savage for harshly reviewing Cool Cat Saves the Kids. He notes that the video was taken down because of a copyright claim, but he then defends it as fair use.
• "Apology for the diss track (I went to his house)" by Boyinaband: Dave makes a video where he apologizes for the diss track he made with iDubbbz on Rice Gum. The apology isn't to RiceGum, though, but rather Casey Neistat, whose name was dropped in a Take That! during the diss track.
• "I apologise." by Caddicarus, where he admits that this is the first time he's ever posted an apology video, in which he apologizes for not informing everyone that he'll be making an appearance at Seattle in September, which he conveys through a parody of Miranda Sings's ukulele apology song.
• CGP Grey mocks The Fine Brothers in "Update." for their (stilted, sarcastic-sounding) apology video after their attempt to license the word "react" and their easily replicable video format. Have a listen.
• "My Apology to TheOrionBroadcast" by Evil Broseph: The video is initially presented as a sincere apology to Orion for a parody made on him, but Broseph actually just goes on to insult him further.
• Community Channel recreates the apology video of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, who apologized for failing to declare their dogs in Australian customs. In this version, however, it's shown that the video's director is actually the country Australia (played by Natalie Tran), who is holding them hostage and forcing them to read from a script.
• hashtag fearless makes fun of these videos by apologizing for abusing his green pig, referencing the apology video made by Trevor Martin, the owner of a CS:GO gambling site.
• Jacksepticeye made one after he controversially played the same indie horror game twice on accident without realizing. In it, he jumps through a few different video styles (including a direct satire of Travis Scott's apology video where he constantly massages his entire face while moaning about how bad he feels) and quotes parts of Logan Paul's infamous apology as he says he's sorry for what happened and vows to be better... before PSYCHE!, cheerfully admitting that no, he's just a moron with a poor memory and isn't sorry in the slightest for being one.
• Jacksfilms has done multiple parodies of apology videos.
  • In "My Apology," he apologizes for producing content and he gets annoyed when the video constantly fades to black.
  • In response to Logan Paul's apology video, he made "i'm super sorry," where he repeatedly apologizes for doing increasingly offensive stuff.
  • For Halloween 2018, he made his own apology video costume, which a kid later wore as a cosplay costume at VidCon 2019.
  • In 2020, he made a Choose Your Own Adventure style game called "Choose Your Own Apology Video," with the goal to either get the absolute best or absolute worst reaction on the hypothetical video.
  • For YIAY #555, he asked his fans to write an apology video one line at a time, and then read the script (which was produced by the moderators of his Discord) blindly. Said script, where he insincerely apologizes for setting fire to an orphan, includes healthy doses of blameshifting, several plugs to his merch store and padding of the runtime to reach the 10-minute mark.
  • "just say you're sorry." is a parody of Colleen Ballinger's apology song on ukelele. The verses consist of fan-submitted Backhanded Apologies while the refrain is An Aesop about just apologizing normally.
    Nobody's as bad as their worst mistake
    Nobody's as good as the claims they make
    Nobody's got a heart that you can't break
    But when you double down, you're bound to come off rude
    And that's hard to undo
    So say you're sorry, and the world will move on
• In Jenny Nicholson's video "tyrion", she parodies the then-recent James Charles apology video but done in-character as Daenerys Targaryen, who apologies for burning down King's Landing with her dragon, referencing events of the also then-recent episode "The Bells".
• Jreg:
  • In the video "Addressing Incriminating Past Tweets..." Nazi does an apology video for past tweets he did... mainly progressive tweets showing that he has a progressive message like "Trans Rights are Human Rights".
  • In "Addressing Allegations that I have ties to the Far Right"^note Which is a very unsubtle satire on claims that PewDiePie is secretly a Nazi or otherwise far-right, Jreg himself clears up any misunderstanding over several things in past videos that could be construed as him being in support of Nazism...while dressed in full Nazi regalia.
  Jreg[explaining away him wearing an Iron Cross]: I mean, come on people, what do you have against the Prussian Empire?
• Julie Nolke made a pre-emptive apology video, in which she also plugs her own merch.
• Keemstar, a drama news commentator on YouTube, posted a video on Twitter where he compares how various communities make apology videos and makes fun of how emotional beauty vloggers can get.
• Karuna Satori ASMR parodies beauty guru apologies with an ASMR twist. The video starts with a call from her manager encouraging her to make the video, and then she justifies her racism by saying she grew up in the South. She apologizes all the while plugging her beauty products.
• The Key of Awesome parodied Paula Deen's video where she apologizes for using a racial slur, where she apologizes for using the "n-word" (nutrition). She gets Onion Tears and reads her apology from a Mad Libs script.
• The Killer Doll's video "I'm So Sorry... a Very YouTuber Apology," where she apologizes for calling ASMR thots "thots" and struggles in not calling them "thots" and her critics "SJWs". In the comments she promises to release "ASMR Thots 2", because she clearly hasn't learned her lesson.
• LegalEagle's "I'm sorry." has Devin giving a big sigh and "apologizing" that his reactions in a recent reaction video not being made in real time, promoting the video by warning viewers not to watch the hilarious observations or explanations of legal issues, and then corpsing at the end.
• MrRepzion parodies a "Real Man's Apology" by interspersing footage from the video with his own dramatic apology to all women.
• RTGame did a mock apology in this style during his Pokémon Legends: Arceus playthrough, apologizing for going on an Oshawott massacre...and letting one of the little bastards get away.
  • Another video saw him parody this format, apologizing for jokingly supporting child labor and sticking a baby in a blender. He gets reminded by his chat to give a melancholy sigh, and pauses it to plug his merch.
• PeanutButterGamer has a "Sincere Apology" where he apologizes for an error he made while playing Super Mario Galaxy.
• In this Mother's Basement video, Geoff tearfully apologies for leaving Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun out of his best anime of 2019 video.
• Smosh has a Parody Commercial for a YouTube Apology Service, where they coach YouTubers to apologize for hurting other people's feelings, not what they actually did. They also remind creators to cry with an air-horn ("cry horn") and bring them to tears with pepper spray ("sympathy spray").
• Tom Nicholas does one in his video on cancel culture where he apologises for his audience being too sensitive to understand his work and sense of humour. (It's in response to him using a dodgy French accent which commenters find cringey, which in itself is a parody.) It's part of a wider commentary on how those who claim to have been cancelled might have just gotten a lot of mild criticism, and eventually use their experience of being 'cancelled' as a gateway to greater fame and notoriety.
• Too Much Mouth's "My Truth: A Beauty Guru's Guide to an Apology" has a checklist of requirements for beauty vloggers to make an apology video, including "clickbait thumbnail", "look stressed", "white shirt", and "add more jumpcuts".
• Vexolyte's "I've Been Banned From Fortnite" is a parody of FaZe Jarvis's apology for getting banned after using a Fortnite aimbot for a YouTube video. In the parody, he apologizes for cheating even though he knew he shouldn't have cheated and that nothing would happen, but now he only regrets doing so because he got banned.
• Daniel Thrasher's "I've grown as a person" features Daniel standing over a blue background, sighing, then rambling vaguely at length about a indiscretion he committed in the last couple years, but he claims that it's okay because he's grown as a person since then. The audience is less concerned about his apology, and more concerned with the fact that he has literally grown, to like eighty feet tall (the blue background was the sky). Apparently, he get struck by lightning ten times in a row to end up like that, and it was all over the news.
• Jim Sterling opened the Jimquisition video "Randy Pitchford is Poison" with one of these as its Cold Opening, using a lot of Stylistic Suck and intentionally keeping what the actual apology was about ambiguous (but it apparently included taking a dump on a guide dog's head) to play up the absurdity.
• Drawfee's We Messed Up cuts between Jacob and Nathan apologizing for a video that went horribly wrong in which a microphone fell up Nathan's butt and recorded a loud, bass-boosted fart that was interspersed with random jumpscares, contained a "who can scream the loudest" contest, and ended when they forgot to stop the recording and watched a video full of movie spoilers. Julia occasionally cuts in, confused and horrified by the video that she seems to have lost all memory of. They only tell her it was an April Fools joke at the end.
  • In the same video, Karina "apologizes" for allegedly throwing a snowball full of ice at her friend and frequent guest Spencer Wan "that one time in college." The camera eventually pans to Spencer standing just out of frame glaring at her. She seems genuinely surprised when she realizes that's not what the video is about.
• The SiIvaGunner channel has posted several of these, mostly referencing the serious apology video produced by the channel after the "Puzzle Room" incident in 2016:
  • "A Sorry Announcement.", the announcement video for the "7 GRAND MAVERICK" album, is an edit of the apology video posted by Logan Paul following his infamous Aokigahara vlog, with a Digital Head Swap and redubbed with a certain Synthetic Voice Actor with a few lines from the "Puzzle Room" apology video mixed in. (This was the follow-up to a Logan Paul-themed rip of "Puzzle Room", whose Faux Horrific conclusion was a Hypernova-filtered still from said vlog.)
  • "Apology. (Beta Mix)", part of the 2023 April Fools' Day Self-Parody event, follows the text-only format of the 2016 apology video but turns it into a Backhanded Apology with zero contrition.
  • "Bosun Bill (Beta Mix) - Sea of Thieves", uploaded on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, is a pirate-themed parody of the "Puzzle Room" apology video, including "Twitter" as a Pirate Parrot.

Websites

• Vat19 parodied this trope to promote their Hottest Chocolate Bar product.

Western Animation

• Amphibia has a Freeze-Frame Bonus gag involving this. During a montage of Anne staying up all night browsing the internet, she's shown looking at a video on Toob from a user called Amy-Chan about writing believable isekai fanfiction. To the right is a queue of other videos, and up next is Amy-Chan's apology video, with a thumbnail of her crying.
• Animaniacs (2020) has the Warners apologize to the viewers for calling Ralph a "silly goose", which apparently offended a lot of geese. When the Warners realize they didn't do anything wrong, they stop apologizing and start relaxing in the pool, causing the dislikes to rapidly increase.
  Yakko: Ah. I'm glad being famous hasn't changed us.
  Wakko: Yeah. We've always been terrible.
• The South Park episode "Coon 2: Hindsight" parodies the commercial where Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, apologizes for an oil spill off the Gulf of Mexico. The parody cuts to Hayward in different scenic environments saying "we're sorry."

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...So, in conclusion, the reason I posted that stuff was because of trauma from my bad esophagus. I'm sorry if you were offended. (reaches to stop recording)

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