An old clip from Shane Dawson's podcast, Shane and Friends, went viral on Twitter on Wednesday, with many left outraged by the popular YouTuber making jokes about a "sexy" child and providing what he described as a "justification for pedophilia."
The roughly four-year-old conversation begins in this Soundcloud at around seven minutes, as Dawson describes a conversation about Instagram he had with a roughly six-year-old girl.
Dawson said the young girl told him she was a cheerleader with more than 100,000 followers on Instagram.
"And she shows me her Instagrams which are like—first of all— I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but, like, she's, like, sexy," Dawson says in the recording.
After his co-host calls Dawson "disgusting," he goes on to describe what he calls "[his] justification for pedophilia."
"First of all, let me just say, having sex with children, or touching children, or anything of that nature is terrible, and you should not do it," Dawson says.
"Here's my thing," he continues. "People have foot fetishes. People have fetishes about, you know, everything. And there's websites on the internet where they can look at that weird creepy shit and jerk off to it. Okay, fine, everybody do your thing," Dawson says.
"So why is it when somebody, looks at — googles like, "naked baby" on Google, and jerks off to it, they can get arrested?" he says.
"Because somebody took a picture of a naked baby," his cohost responds.
Dawson then describes googling "naked baby," but said that he wasn't trying to view child porn.
"First of all, I don't understand why anybody would be turned on by that," he says. "But ... but it was sexy."
"I'm kidding," he immediately says.
In a video posted on Wednesday, Dawson said that he didn't actually conduct the Google search, and was simply telling a joke.
Reaction to the clip was harsh, with people labeling Dawson's jokes "absolutely disgusting."
YIKES that shane dawson thing is really disappointing considering he was one of the first people i ever loved watch… https://t.co/ExmmKK0Ml7
i genuinely liked shane dawson
If you’re fucking defending Shane Dawson then idc unfollow me block me whatever. What he said is so fucking disgust… https://t.co/PgPe86w5Zo
me watching shane dawson get exposed after knowing about his problematic side for years
But others rushed to defend the YouTube star.
shane dawson is one of the only youtubers currently making actual good content and he gets all this shit for making jokes. its 2018. grow up
Some people said that Dawson was only joking and should not be conflated with pedophiles.
Shane Dawson is now being accused of being a pedophile because of clips taking him out of context where he tries to… https://t.co/Jiljx5cab1
Another person called him "an angel."
shane dawson has the darkest sense of human dont come for him jesus christ literally everything that comes out of h… https://t.co/JSVHIwMbNj
Dawson, who has over 11 million subscribers on YouTube, did not immediately return BuzzFeed News' request for comment about his discussion of pedophilia or the responses from fans. However, in apparent response to the outage, he did tweet the joke was "taken out of context."
@MrMoeOthman no. that video is all jokes taken out of context and has all the punchlines removed. it also is illega… https://t.co/tYYVUrKph8
Later on Wednesday, Dawson posted a 14-minute YouTube video on Twitter. "I am not a fucking pedophile," he said, before apologizing for his jokes.
i’m not a pedophile. i can’t believe i even have to say that. it literally feels like i’m in a nightmare. https://t.co/i0mo11xNg3
"I am sorry that I used to make really shitty fucking jokes," Dawson said.
"I am sorry that I was was so fucking insecure and playing this character of this guy who's crazy and will say anything and tries to make people laugh by shocking them."
Dawson also said that he has been molested and that he's "passionate about shedding light" on child abuse.
He said that "having [his] name put next to the word pedophile is actually the most triggering and the most heartbreaking thing I've literally ever seen."
Dawson also wrote on Twitter than he had grown up since the podcast was recorded and changed the nature of his content.
I grew up. I changed my content. I apologized countless times for my shitty offensive jokes. instead of dragging me… https://t.co/5FKAHpV1tc