Is Flamingo Getting Canceled for the "Controversial" Jokes He Made in the Past?
Updated Aug. 20 2020, 1:41 p.m. ET
It's been a rough few months for the gaming community and a lot of popular streamers. A huge amount of top pro Smash Bros. players were linked to sexual assault and pedophilia charges and a sizable amount of popular Twitch personalities were also embroiled in scandals of their own that ultimately resulted in cancellations and bans from their respective platforms. Now, Flamingo has found himself at the center of some drama too.
The drama with Flamingo began when people unearthed unsavory jokes from his past.
Like most people who've had their online histories excavated by members of the online community, Flamingo, real name Albert Spencer Aretz, reportedly made some "controversial" jokes that didn't sit well with a lot of people. The 23-year-old Roblox gamer has 7 million YouTube subscribers and nearly 789,000 Instagram followers to boot.
So is Flamingo "canceled"?
The term no personality ever wants to hear is now being floated around in association with Flamingo's name for some of the content he uploaded to his other channel, AlbertStuff. Videos of him saying the n-word and then correcting himself (it needs to be slowed down for you to hear it, which the uploader has done) along with saying "tr---y" in a clip were compiled and uploaded to social media. You can watch it for yourself below.
Flamingo posted a text apology that he screenshot and uploaded to several of his social media accounts, apologizing for language and jokes he made in the past. He writes, "there's a lot of insensitive content and jokes I've made in the past that I've completely distanced myself from for years."
He went on to say he's "completely ashamed of the things [he's] said" and that he "want[s] to continue only making content that is inclusive to everyone."
You can check out his entire apology that was uploaded to Twitter below. It's already garnered over 4,800 retweets and nearly 42,000 likes.
Interestingly enough, there were many individuals in the comments section who expressed that Flamingo shouldn't be the subject of "cancellation" and that the jokes in question were made when he was much younger. Others said that the YouTuber has clearly grown since then and he doesn't have a track record of malicious or mean-spirited behavior, either.
There were others who weren't as accepting of his apology however and began pointing to newer "insensitive" jokes that he's made online about the COVID-19 pandemic. While the joke wasn't directly referenced, the person in question said the "joke" was Flamingo reading someone's confusing username and then quipping that trying to understand it gave him COVID.
For the most part, however, many people have told Flamingo that they either never had a problem with his jokes in the first place or that they've forgiven him for the things he's said regardless.
Others went so far as to call the personality's critics "imbeciles," with some Twitter users textually eye-rolling at "cancel culture" by tweeting the #cancelisoverparty hashtag.
What do you think? Are you a Flamingo stan regardless and think that he's proven to be a good egg? Or is his apology not up to your personal standards?
