Stop Calling me a Homo! (2009)

About

In April of 2009, a 12-year-old YouTuber ChristianU2ber, identified only as Scott, released a series of videos in which he expressed the need to “shape your views” to his own anti-gay, Christian, 12 year old world-view.

However, being 12 years old, he did not completely understand what he was saying. After mindlessly stating that he had “used to be gay,” ChristianU2ber opened up the floodgates for ridicule and, naturally, parody.

(Note: this is not ChristianU2ber’s original account. The original account was deleted.)

At first I had no idea that it was a sin to get married if you’re gay but then I heard it on the news and, well, I figured it out and I used to be and then I decided it’s wrong and I stopped it and now I am very interested in girls. So gay marriage is wrong and you may think it’s right but really it’s wrong because if you can picture this, picture getting married to your hand … I know that’s a stupid example, but how abnormal does that sound? That’s exactly how abnormal that gay marriage is. It’s not a bad thing really, but it’s just not normal."

At one point, Christianu2uber’s videos became the subject of threads all over 4chan. Soon, comments on his videos, especially “Stop Calling me a Homo,” were met with ridicule.

Videos (starting with Blueswimmer’s) dedicated to him being a “homo” were created, prompting him to make one of his final videos:

[video removed]

Memetic Spread

The online bullying of Christianu2uber, and his responses caught the attention of a number of blogs.

The Christian Conservative blog World Net Daily covered the story reported on how the young Christian was subjecting himself to ridicule, but racking in the views.

Excerpt:

His 13 videos have become a YouTube sensation, approaching 1 million hits over the last four weeks, making ChristianU2ber the thirteenth most-viewed YouTube contributor in the “Gurus” channel over the past month.

With his popularity, however, have come tens of thousands of comments from the YouTube community, the vast majority of them insulting. His video “Gay Marriage – Is It Right or Wrong?” generated over 11,000 comments by press time, mostly critical, many laced with profanity.

The LGBT-oriented site Qweerty also covered the story of how this confused child needs help, not ridicule.

Excerpt:

This isn’t a kid we should make fun of. We don’t need to vilify him for his immature views on equal rights. He needs compassion and help, which we’d guess he isn’t receiving anywhere.

Derivatives

The popularity of “Stop Calling me a Homo” inspired only more parodies and spinoffs. However, most of these have been removed from Youtube.

Aftermath

Eventually, ChristianU2ber’s account was suspended, however his alternate account Christianutuber (with fewer videos) has not been shut down, but Scott has not logged in since April.

On April 12th, 2009, blogger, writer, and news media publisher Lyndon Evans reported that he had passed all the information he had collected to the FBI and other authorities.

WorldNetDaily and Qweerty have both reported that the FBI became involved in the situation, and reported that they have provided Scott with counseling.

Two entries about ChristianU2uber were created on Urban Dictionary in the months following.

ChristianU2uber also caught the attention of concerned Reddit users.

Influence on other Youtubers

The u2uber name has been adopted by other Youtube personalities such as Joshu2uber and Dustinu2uber, both users ended up being trolls, posing as friends or supporters of Scott.