Drew Gooden apologizes for past “insensitive” joke with huge donation

Commentary YouTuber Drew Gooden has apologized after an old tweet of his resurfaced that made fun of Asian people, and in turn, has donated a huge amount of money to charity.

Drew Gooden is a popular YouTuber who typically makes comedic commentary-style videos commenting on current events or news from the online world. He’s also well-known for being the star of the viral “road work ahead” Vine.

However, while he might comment on other YouTubers, he certainly isn’t immune to having to face up to his own actions in the eyes of his fans. On Monday, April 26 Drew posted a video to his Twitter drawing attention to a tweet by the YouTuber from 2016 which was a joke making fun of Asian people.

According to Drew, the tweet had recently reemerged and prompted some of his fans to message him explaining that they were hurt by it.

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He said, “a few of you have been reaching out to me about a really shitty tweet I made in 2016 and I just want to publicly address it and apologize for it… I tried to make a joke that frankly doesn’t make sense, there’s no punchline it’s just two offensive stereotypes back to back.

“I am baffled that I ever thought this was funny,” he added This is the laziest form of comedy that there is and I’m so sorry for making such a stupid insensitive tweet. I’m sorry to the Asian community, and specifically to Asian fans of mine who saw this and felt betrayed.

He went on to explain why this tweet was wrong: “I want to make people laugh and feel good and this type of shit does the opposite because not only is it not funny but using these lazy racist stereotypes is harmful to the Asian community.

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The YouTuber revealed that he had actually deleted that tweet a few months after it was first posted and had “regretted it ever since,” before concluding “it’s not up to me to tell you how I feel about it or expect you to forgive me I just wanted to apologize because I’m really ashamed of myself for this and I’m sorry for letting you guys down.”

Following on from that tweet, Drew also announced that he would be donating $5,000 to three separate charities.

It seems as though Drew has been met with a good reaction from his followers since he posted the apologies with one user responding: “As an Asian fan of your content (who didn’t know about that tweet), thank you for being sincere, making no excuses, and putting your money where your mouth is. You’re content after that point has proven your learned sensitivity, and more comedians should follow.”

As far as YouTuber apologies go, this one seems to be relatively drama-free.