While some people are all about the drama, especially on YouTube, not everyone is interested in that kind of content. From messy and inappropriate beginnings on the video-sharing website, there have been many YouTubers who found their footing over the years and became better people and better creators over their time in the public eye.
On Reddit, u/netflist asked people on the r/youtubedrama Subreddit for their "examples of YouTubers who truly changed for the better," and people delivered.
OP added that they had been reading a thread about a particular YouTuber who had changed his public image and content, MrEnter. They wrote, "I really admire how over the past decade he’s gone from aggressive lolcow-esque Guy Who Gets Mad At Cartoons For Children to a genuinely good commentary channel doing excellent research and important callouts (as well as just making generally far better content). Have y’all witnessed any similar character arcs on YouTube?"
u/ghostpepperpooper replied, "I can’t give a specific, but I feel immense joy whenever I see another 'I escaped the Alt-Right pipeline' on my recommended." Others, however, had YouTubers in mind.
Check out 15 YouTubers who turned themselves around, according to Redditors, below.
1. iShowSpeed
"I’d say iShowSpeed, went from saying very offensive stuff to traveling the world and is much nicer." —u/Chapple69
2. Fredrick Knudsen
"He was never BAD bad but he did do a Chris-Chan video and focused on 'lolcows' alot. However over the years the quality of his videos has greatly improved becoming some of the best and most well researched documentary video on YouTube." —u/HeyQTya
3. Lemmino
"Lemmino used to make goofy 'top ten' videos and is now one of the most talented independent documentarians on the platform." —u/Sad-Island2185
4. Linkara
"Linkara wasn't ever really bad aside from pushing the angry reviewer tropes that were in at the time. He did at one point say he regretted making personal attacks towards comic book creators and wouldn't do that anymore unless it was something racist or sexist." —u/jesuspoopmonster
5. Vsauce
"Vsauce went from making.. whatever this is...
...to making thought-provoking educational content." —u/thousandcurrents
6. Anthony Fantano
"Anthony Fantano is one that comes to mind for me. It wasn't the biggest issue, but he was definitely leaning into the whole "anti-SJW" trend from like 2014-2016 or sometime around there. There were a lot of creators that did, but he seems like the biggest that dipped his toes in there and eventually left. I'm sure there are others, but he's just the one that comes to mind." —u/hotsexychungus
7. Pyrocynical
"I'd say Pyrocynical. He changed from the leafyishere type content of mocking random people who does cringy things that his fans openly harass those people to game documentary creator which is a huge shift." —u/DrScience01
8. Penguinz0
"Penguinz0 I think used to be very fence-sitty on issues and had poor takes on stuff, like iDubbz initially disavowing his older content, but now, as far as I know, he stuck hard with his defense of transgender care for kids despite getting a lot of flack from some big figures and YouTubers for it, and he posts pretty frequently about bad things the trump administration is doing. He's not like a 'paragon of social justice' or anything, but he's a lot less of a fence sitter." —u/planet_coaster_thing
9. Lazy Bedhead
"Lazy Bedhead, 100%. They address their history in more detail in their 'Bonk: A Measured Response' video, but they started off as an anti-SJ channel that focused on 'debunking' the #metoo movement. Being able to pivot away from that and into actual productive investigations is pretty damn admirable." —u/Human_Ad_6671
10. Hunter Avalone
"Hunter Avalone - over the course of his YouTube career, he moved from far-right grifter to charity streamer. It's crazy to watch his transition!" —u/piperonii
11. Rotten Mango
"When it first started out the podcast treated true crime stories incredibly disrespectfully, like I started listening to her about three years ago and when I went back to check out the catalog from before that I was horrified. By the time she started the RM YT channel the attitude had completely changed, almost every case is taken seriously and the ones that are not tend to be because it's some insane complicated drama within the case going on. She also goes far more in depth than other channels do for some cases, most other people covering Ruby Franke weren't really latching on to the Hildebrandt aspect the way RM did. She put the work in on Diddy by going to the trial every day.
There's now victims and families of victims seeking her out to help get the word out about ongoing ones that don't get a ton of press." —u/mahouza
12. Brainscratchcomms
"Pretty deep cut but Brainscratchcomms used to make some pretty sexist or rude jokes back in like... 2008 [but] almost 20 years later they've all chilled out a lot and openly support LGBTQ+ causes." —u/sapphicgalactic
14. MR Enter
"I will maintain this about MR Enter. He has gotten better but it is telling, and I do mean TELLING that in his 3 or 4 apology videos or 'mistakes videos' where he admits he's been wrong about stuff like the 911 thing or getting angry he has NEVER and I mean NEVER apologised for his Homer Badman take." —u/SomecallmeMichelle
"That is an insane take and if that's him improved I sincerely don't want to know what he was like before. Lol" —u/paintedlotusyt
15. Atrioc
"Atrioc spent lot of money to fund the automated removal of hundreds of thousands of non-consensual images after he got caught looking at deep fakes of his friends. All in all a pretty good outcome for being a gooner on main" —u/monnotorium
"I'll never be ok with what he did at all. However, it's at least refreshing to see a streamer mess up this badly, apologise genuinely, and do a lot of work to try to fix it. Work that has had actual real-world effects.
I wish other streamers and YouTubers would do this. Maybe it'd stop more of them from doing such awful shit if they knew the audience's expectation was for them to put time, effort, and money into fixing the problem they created or participated in. I suspect that might be asking for too much though." —u/re_Claire
15. Phillip DeFranco
"Phillip DeFranco. He even got rid of his old content." —u/VigilMuck
"The only complaint I have about Philip deFranco specifically was that in 2023/2024, he had a segment where he responded to comments at the end of the show. Except one time, he did a news story about autism coverage for ABA being dropped by major insurance, a thing that a lot of people in the autistic community were celebrating. Philip played the autistic speaks/poor grieving parents angle of "this hurts kids," and the comment section was filled with hundreds of autistic people saying that ABA is torture/otherwise sharing their experience and how it damaged them, and that was the SINGLE video that week he didn't respond to comments on. That felt purposeful and, honestly, a bit cowardly. But I mean I get it. Overall, he's much better in his takes than 2010s DeFranco." —u/SomecallmeMichelle
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