Speaker 1: We want to jump in before the episode starts to
Speaker 1: point out that this isn't part of our regular Friday programming.
Speaker 1: We are having a couple of Fridays off to spend
Speaker 1: with our new nephew Jack, So in the meantime we
Speaker 1: have put together a deep dive series on Shany Grimman.
Speaker 1: This is episode two. Shannie Grimmond was living out her dream.
Speaker 1: The eighteen year old was working full time as a
Speaker 1: YouTuber and signing lucrative deals with the world's biggest makeup brands.
Speaker 2: Pretty much only been using this threat right here. It
Speaker 2: is the Morphy Arshadow Pale. In three five zero.
Speaker 1: She'd fallen head over hills with twenty three year old
Speaker 1: accountant Jonathan Sower and things were moving fast. A new
Speaker 1: friendship with fellow beauty blogger Michael Finch was blossoming and
Speaker 1: she was just about to head up one of Australia's
Speaker 1: hottest influencer clicks. But it wasn't long before the downfalls
Speaker 1: of fame struck, with Shanny facing her first online controversy
Speaker 1: and personal dramas after her home was targeted by thieves.
Speaker 1: In this series, we explore the phenomenon of Shanni Grimmond,
Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to Outspoken. I'm so excited to get
Speaker 1: into part two of our Shany Grimmin deep dive. We
Speaker 1: had such a great reaction to the first episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of messages from people saying they
Speaker 1: felt so nostalgic listening and that they really miss SHARNI. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that seemed to be an overwhelming response, and it is
Speaker 1: testament to the fact that Shanny really felt like a
Speaker 1: friend to so many people growing up watching her YouTube videos. Now,
Speaker 1: when we left you, Sharny had just gotten into a
Speaker 1: very new relationship with Jonathan Sour and after four months
Speaker 1: of dating, Shanny and Jonathan officially moved in together. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that things moved that quickly. So Sharny had
Speaker 1: just moved out of her family's house and into a
Speaker 1: townhouse when Jonathan thought, well, I'm sick of traveling forty
Speaker 1: five minutes to see you, let's just move in. Here's
Speaker 1: how Shany broke the news to her YouTube audience.
Speaker 3: Have something very serious to talk about.
Speaker 4: This little bug full fact little lunchkins moved into my
Speaker 4: house about when I moved in pretty much because you
Speaker 4: haven't been living in your own place. Now that he
Speaker 4: like officially moved in like last week for me. Bought
Speaker 4: all his stuff there except his golf clubs because they're
Speaker 4: not going to fit in my house.
Speaker 3: They can set his old house.
Speaker 1: With the young couple now living together, Jonathan became a
Speaker 1: permanent fixture on Shanni's channel, and viewers loved seeing them
Speaker 1: navigating living together for the first time.
Speaker 2: I was so scared to fight in front of you,
Speaker 2: Like I would literally get cramps in my stomach because
Speaker 2: I was holding your fart in for that long.
Speaker 1: Shani also admitted to occasionally needing space from Jonathan and
Speaker 1: getting fed up from being together too often. She said
Speaker 1: that she values having me time and likes to chill
Speaker 1: by herself or with her friends. And this made me
Speaker 1: remember that she was only eighteen at the time. She
Speaker 1: just moved out of home for the first time, and
Speaker 1: she was in this serious relationship that went from one
Speaker 1: to one hundred in the space of just four months.
Speaker 1: And at the time, Jonathan was working full time as
Speaker 1: an account and in a video, he admitted to being
Speaker 1: jealous of Shanes's YouTube channel. Here's what he said.
Speaker 3: I'm jealous. I'm kind of jealous about the whole YouTube thing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because I can work from home. Yeah, I like you.
Speaker 3: I never knew anything about YouTube until I met Shani,
Speaker 3: and I still don't know a lot of things. That's literally,
Speaker 3: it's like a whole other world. Hey it is, It
Speaker 3: really is, and you can meet so many people.
Speaker 5: I think everyone should starty YouTube channel.
Speaker 1: Ironically, after this admission, it wasn't long until Jonathan left
Speaker 1: his full time job to become Shanese manager and also
Speaker 1: launch his own social media career. And it did make
Speaker 1: sense because he did attract a large following just from
Speaker 1: appearing in a couple of Shanese vlogs. At the height
Speaker 1: of his fame, he had close to two hundred thousand followers,
Speaker 1: and as Shannes's manager, one would assume that he took
Speaker 1: a lucrative cut from her deals. Do you think they
Speaker 1: would have been together as long as they were if
Speaker 1: he hadn't made the move to a career in social media, Well, potentially,
Speaker 1: I actually think the opposite. Maybe they could have been
Speaker 1: together for longer because you know, early on, Shany was
Speaker 1: already talking about feeling that she needed time to herself,
Speaker 1: So with him quitting his job, presumably they saw even
Speaker 1: more of each other and potentially got on each other's nerves. Now,
Speaker 1: if you think back to this time, one of Shanny's
Speaker 1: most famous catchphrases, and I think Michael Finch also had
Speaker 1: a lot to do with his catchphrase becoming so popular,
Speaker 1: was Bindy.
Speaker 2: Ah fucker dark Bindi.
Speaker 1: Bindi is the name of the puppy that Shanny got
Speaker 1: in twenty fifteen, and she is still a regular fixture
Speaker 1: on Shiny Grimman's social media accounts. But ironically, the catchphrase
Speaker 1: almost didn't happen because when I was scrolling through the archives,
Speaker 1: I was shocked to discover the Bindi's first name was
Speaker 1: actually Audrey.
Speaker 3: You guys are gonna love her. Look how little she is.
Speaker 3: This is Audrey. She's so beautiful.
Speaker 2: She's a toy poodle across Shipsy, across maltees, and she's
Speaker 2: just so little.
Speaker 1: I was so confused at first, thinking is this a
Speaker 1: different dog? But I can and confirm this is in
Speaker 1: fact Bindi. Underneath the YouTube video, one follower wrote, your
Speaker 1: puppy is adorable, and I personally think Bindy would suit
Speaker 1: her more. It's not clear if this comment inspired the
Speaker 1: name change, but I like to think that it did.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Shani purchased Bindy right as she moved into her new
Speaker 1: home with Jonathan, so they were immediately this cute little family.
Speaker 2: Good morning, guys, I'm going to be logging today, and.
Speaker 3: Bindy says, good warning, Binny. Hey, Oh, she's so cute.
Speaker 3: I let her sleep with me every night and she
Speaker 3: like cuddles up into my chest. It's so cute. Look
Speaker 3: at her.
Speaker 4: Oh, Louie, baby, when is your one over there?
Speaker 1: After a couple of months of Jonathan and Shanny living together,
Speaker 1: without warning, Shanny disappeared from YouTube over too, and this
Speaker 1: was a huge shock to her followers. This absence led
Speaker 1: to a lot of confusion and speculation from her followers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Shanny did eventually make an anticipated return to YouTube
Speaker 1: with a dramatic tell or video revealing that she had
Speaker 1: been robbed. Here's what she said.
Speaker 3: So my house was broken into one month ago.
Speaker 2: So I was in New Zealand with my boyfriend on
Speaker 2: a holiday. I honestly, never, ever, ever would have thought
Speaker 2: something like this would have happened.
Speaker 1: This incident really rocked Shanny. She no longer felt safe
Speaker 1: being on her own or being in this house. The
Speaker 1: robbers had actually stolen her house keys and car keys.
Speaker 1: Luckily they didn't end up taking the car, but it
Speaker 1: did lead to a lot of anxiety that the robbers
Speaker 1: could be back at any moment, so Shany and Jonathan
Speaker 1: only lasted a few days in the rental before moving
Speaker 1: back in with Shanni's family. Positive to come out of
Speaker 1: the ordeal was that it brought Shanni and her family
Speaker 1: a lot closer together. The downside for her followers was
Speaker 1: that at her mom's house she could film, so her
Speaker 1: camera and makeup had been stolen and her mom had
Speaker 1: no backdrops to film in front of. Shannie did preface
Speaker 1: that she also wasn't emotionally stable during that time to film.
Speaker 2: I remember asking mom how much did they take? And
Speaker 2: she said everything? And at this point I didn't really
Speaker 2: know how it happened. I didn't know anything about it.
Speaker 2: All I knew is that they took absolutely everything I had,
Speaker 2: like no idea who it could have been, because no one,
Speaker 2: or not many people at all, knew where I lived.
Speaker 2: I never told anyone where I lived after the break in.
Speaker 2: I have trust issues. I can't trust anyone. I honestly
Speaker 2: question the littlest things, like if someone wants to be
Speaker 2: my friend, and I'm like, do they really want to
Speaker 2: be my friend or are they using me like for
Speaker 2: followers or something like. I honestly just I can't trust
Speaker 2: anyone and I have trust issues now, which really sucks.
Speaker 1: This ordeal really shaped Shanny as a person going forward,
Speaker 1: and it made her question a lot of her interactions
Speaker 1: with people. She has spoken a lot about suffering from anxiety,
Speaker 1: and this incident really exacerbated that. What also led to
Speaker 1: a lot of debates about influencer privacy. So months earlier,
Speaker 1: Sharni had shared an extensive house tour, showing her followers
Speaker 1: through every room of the house, even the garage where
Speaker 1: her car was parked, and the different entry points into
Speaker 1: her house.
Speaker 3: Let's start with my landroom.
Speaker 2: So my front door is right here, and this is
Speaker 2: the first thing that you see when you walk into
Speaker 2: my house.
Speaker 3: It's all black and plain. I need to add some
Speaker 3: color and staff the laundroom.
Speaker 2: We have a staircase that goes all the way up
Speaker 2: to my three rooms and my bathrooms and staff by I'll.
Speaker 3: Show that later.
Speaker 1: The public began questioning whether influencers were putting themselves in
Speaker 1: danger by oversharing. Now. Following the incident, Sharni released another
Speaker 1: vlog urging her followers for privacy, and it came to
Speaker 1: her new rental.
Speaker 2: So on a serious note, a few people have been
Speaker 2: commenting on my Instagram photos so for everyone to see
Speaker 2: and saying I.
Speaker 5: Know where you live.
Speaker 3: I saw you drive into a new place there.
Speaker 2: It's honestly so disrespectful and so frustrating.
Speaker 3: How would you like if I went around telling people
Speaker 3: where you lived?
Speaker 2: Like this is probably how I got broken into people
Speaker 2: seeing me drive into my house and telling their friends,
Speaker 2: and then it gets around to other people, like it's
Speaker 2: so annoying, Like you have to let.
Speaker 3: Someone have their privacy once in a while.
Speaker 2: Just because I have followers on Instagram or YouTube, it
Speaker 2: doesn't make me any difference for you guys.
Speaker 1: Even eight years on, influencers are still facing the same
Speaker 1: issues when it comes to their privacy. Johnnie's best friend
Speaker 1: Chloe Zepp had the same issue when she and her
Speaker 1: now fiance Mitch brought a property on the Gold Coast
Speaker 1: because as soon as they posted a photo in front
Speaker 1: of the Soul sign, which I want to preface did
Speaker 1: actually have the address blurred out, it didn't take long
Speaker 1: for followers to track down the address on real estate
Speaker 1: dot Com, and Mitch said that he even had followers
Speaker 1: messaging him the address saying we know where you live.
Speaker 1: A year on and the couple were also dramatically robbed
Speaker 1: in a home invasion. So we're still at a point
Speaker 1: where influencers have to be so careful about their safety.
Speaker 1: It's a hard one because obviously Molly May as well
Speaker 1: in the UK, she got robbed, and I know that
Speaker 1: stopped her from posting a lot, but then suddenly she
Speaker 1: was just sort of like, well, fuck it, I'm going
Speaker 1: to share my home account. Like it sort of restricts
Speaker 1: a lot of influencers from being able to do their
Speaker 1: job when they do have to really consider, you know,
Speaker 1: parts of their life that they're sharing online. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: five months on from the robbery, Shannie ended up posting
Speaker 1: a YouTube video revealing she knew who broke into her house.
Speaker 1: So she explained that straight after the robbery, she received
Speaker 1: a message from a random girl saying she does to
Speaker 1: note the truth now. The girl was fearful that the
Speaker 1: robbers would come after her if they found out she
Speaker 1: told Shanny. Shanny ended up convincing her to confess, and
Speaker 1: she revealed that a group of eighteenagers had committed the robbery. Now,
Speaker 1: the kids were aged sixteen to seventeen, with half of
Speaker 1: them guys and half of them girls. Now, Shanny took
Speaker 1: this message to the police, who said the message wasn't
Speaker 1: enough proof to convict them. So Shanny started doing some
Speaker 1: investigating of her own. So she and Jonathan jumped online
Speaker 1: and at this stage they knew the names of the robbers,
Speaker 1: so they trolled through their social media accounts and found
Speaker 1: photos of the robbers wearing their clothes. One of the
Speaker 1: robbers even brazenly captioned his post, I robbed you Now.
Speaker 1: After that, Shanny started receiving an influx of messages from
Speaker 1: followers saying the group had been bragging at underage house
Speaker 1: parties that they stole Shany Grimmin's makeup. Now, Sharny chose
Speaker 1: not to reveal the robbers' names in her videos. She
Speaker 1: said it was clear they were after airtime and attention.
Speaker 1: Now that she had photos of the robbers, though wearing
Speaker 1: her clothes, she took that information to the police, who
Speaker 1: again said they couldn't do anything about it. They said
Speaker 1: they needed a confession. Isn't this just so ridiculous? Like
Speaker 1: I understand that this is how the justice system works,
Speaker 1: but you almost got to catch people in the act
Speaker 1: robbing your house or have CCTVD vision of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, shortly after the robbery, the gang ended up breaking
Speaker 1: into her house for a second time. Luckily, Shanny and
Speaker 1: Jonathan had moved out of the townhouse and they were
Speaker 1: staying at her mum's house. Sharnie arrived at the townhouse
Speaker 1: to discover a note on the door from police saying,
Speaker 1: your door was left wide open. This street has been
Speaker 1: broken into. So again, this group had targeted Shanny and
Speaker 1: it was easy for them to do so because they
Speaker 1: still had her house keys and car keys, so they
Speaker 1: were coming and going as they pleased. Now, months after
Speaker 1: the incident, when Sharni posted her video revealing that she'd
Speaker 1: been robbed that night, she received a Facebook message from
Speaker 1: one of the female robbers. Here's what she said.
Speaker 2: Love your new video without emoji. Hope you look after
Speaker 2: your makeup a bit better next time. Splantyr face emoji
Speaker 2: if you want to drag me into it deep the
Speaker 2: person that the main person that did it is going
Speaker 2: to be more than happy to continue the drama.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, is.
Speaker 2: She literally threatening me that she's going to like break
Speaker 2: into my house again? She literally just dobbed that person
Speaker 2: in and said that he's the one that did it
Speaker 2: and I've got it in writing.
Speaker 1: It quickly became apparent that the girl was incredibly jealous
Speaker 1: of Shanni's success and lifestyle, so she had been following
Speaker 1: Shanni for some time and was training to become a
Speaker 1: makeup artist herself, so in a follow up message, she
Speaker 1: told Shanni to get a real job and stop bumming
Speaker 1: around home making YouTube video like it's an actual job.
Speaker 1: She then asked Shani why she doesn't do a makeup
Speaker 1: course and said she wasn't smart enough and that it's
Speaker 1: harder than it looks now. These robbers kept popping up
Speaker 1: in random places, with Shany confronting one of the robbers
Speaker 1: brothers at a music festival. The robber's friends also continued
Speaker 1: to dob them into Shanny, confirming they used Shany's car
Speaker 1: during the robbery to take car loads of her belongings
Speaker 1: to a house and it had been planned for a
Speaker 1: very long time. To me, this just confirms that they
Speaker 1: were scouting out her house through her YouTube videos, and
Speaker 1: they also knew that it was a good time to
Speaker 1: strike because they could see on her Instagram that she
Speaker 1: was away in New Zealand with Jonathan. It's just so
Speaker 1: messed up that the police couldn't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just some random robbery. These people were clearly
Speaker 1: targeting her, as we said, because they were jealous. I mean,
Speaker 1: imagine if it had escalated further.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: I think because the role or the job of an
Speaker 1: influencer was perceived so differently at the time, I don't
Speaker 1: think that the police took her level of fame seriously enough,
Speaker 1: and if anything, they probably blamed her for putting that
Speaker 1: information readily out there.
Speaker 2: The first question is did you do it to fit
Speaker 2: into the Kylie Jeda trend?
Speaker 1: In this series, we touched on the shiny grimm and effect,
Speaker 1: but what about the Kylie Jenna effect that was simultaneously
Speaker 1: happening In twenty fifteen, at seventeen years old, Kylie started
Speaker 1: setting the beauty standards when she went public with her
Speaker 1: lip fillers. At the time, she denied getting the procedure done,
Speaker 1: but after intense public scrutiny and backlash, she was forced
Speaker 1: to reveal the truth on an episode of Keeping Up
Speaker 1: with the Kardashians Now. The day she revealed the news
Speaker 1: to the world, the number of Google searchers for the
Speaker 1: procedure shot up by seventy percent. I remember at the
Speaker 1: time she just kept saying, Oh, no, I've just been
Speaker 1: overlining my lips and I was like, no, Well. It
Speaker 1: really did spark an obsession with her lips, and she
Speaker 1: used that to her advantage because she launched her Kylie
Speaker 1: lip kits six months later. I remember those as at
Speaker 1: the time, Snapchat was just massive, and Kylie would always
Speaker 1: be posting about the lip kits like she was such
Speaker 1: a genius. It's easy to see why she became a
Speaker 1: billionaire so quickly, because she really utilized social media marketing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because she was younger, she really seemed to understand the
Speaker 1: power of social media more so than her other sisters. Now,
Speaker 1: two weeks before Kylie admitted to getting lip filler, a
Speaker 1: trend called the Kylie Jenner lip Challenge went viral. Do
Speaker 1: you remember this, Oh well, I feel like this was
Speaker 1: the year of There was always some kind of challenge
Speaker 1: style scenario, but I remember the name, but I can't
Speaker 1: remember what people were actually doing. So basically, people tried
Speaker 1: to emulate her lips by inserting their lips into a
Speaker 1: shot glass and then sucking the air to create a vacuum,
Speaker 1: so it created so much pressure that people's lips would
Speaker 1: temporarily swell. Now, Kylie's admission also led to normalization of
Speaker 1: lip fillers, with young women heading into clinics in their
Speaker 1: droves to have the procedure done. A bit of a
Speaker 1: fun fact, I was working at Channel seven at the time,
Speaker 1: and I did this investigation into the rise in young
Speaker 1: women getting lip fillers. Yeah, and we did use Kylie
Speaker 1: Jennet in the story as as a key motivator, because
Speaker 1: you've got to remember that in twenty seventeen, it was
Speaker 1: really new. Like I remember it being quite shocking when
Speaker 1: Kylie admitted she'd had lip fillers. Now no one cares well.
Speaker 1: Shany Grimman was one of those teenagers who ended up
Speaker 1: heading in to visit her local injector.
Speaker 3: Yes, I got my lips done. They are extremely, extremely
Speaker 3: swollen at the moment, so they're not going to be
Speaker 3: this big in a few days. Don't worry people like
Speaker 3: freaking out, Oh my god, what did you do to
Speaker 3: your lips? Don't worry. The swelling will go down.
Speaker 2: I would never make my lips look fake except right now,
Speaker 2: because there's nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that Shany is prefacing in this grab that
Speaker 1: don't worry, my lips aren't going to look fake, They're
Speaker 1: going to look natural. Because this really, as you touched
Speaker 1: on Amy, was the first time we were openly hearing
Speaker 1: women speak about the cosmetic procedures they were choosing to
Speaker 1: get done, because in the past, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of shame and secrecy around it, and women in the
Speaker 1: public eye would often deflect and just have to pretend
Speaker 1: that they hadn't had anything done. It's also the age
Speaker 1: factor as well. I think we're surprising hearing someone who's
Speaker 1: a teenager talking about cosmetic surgery. Yeah, that's very true,
Speaker 1: because it was something that we just sort of thought
Speaker 1: that older women did. Also because most teens probably didn't
Speaker 1: have the money to actually do it. But because of
Speaker 1: the rise of YouTubers and influencers, I think young women
Speaker 1: were getting more and more money and they were able
Speaker 1: to make these decisions for themselves, and that was the
Speaker 1: real issue because teenagers couldn't afford it. Unfortunately, they were
Speaker 1: going to places where people weren't experienced in using lip fillers,
Speaker 1: which ended in a lot of people having their lips
Speaker 1: overfilled or botched. There was very fierce debate raging at
Speaker 1: the time whether this openness was a good or bad thing,
Speaker 1: because some people felt it was unethical for influences to
Speaker 1: normalize the practice to impressionable teenagers because at the time,
Speaker 1: many influencers would vlog their procedure in the chair and
Speaker 1: they do q and as about the experience, and there
Speaker 1: was this fear that by normalizing a procedure like lip injections,
Speaker 1: it would create unrealistic beauty standards and cause people to
Speaker 1: develop an obsession with perceived flaws. Well, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: there were others who believed that the openness helped break
Speaker 1: down stigma and also empowered women to make decisions about
Speaker 1: their body without judgment. And unsurprisingly, Shani was incredibly open
Speaker 1: about her lip filler journey. She wasn't new to the
Speaker 1: world of cosmetic work because she previously had created a
Speaker 1: series of YouTube videos about getting veneers, and she was
Speaker 1: just so open about her life, so this wasn't something
Speaker 1: that she was going to try and conceal and hide.
Speaker 1: I also think that she was so open about it because,
Speaker 1: as we say, at the time, because of Kylie Jennet,
Speaker 1: there was so much interest in the procedure, and I
Speaker 1: think she probably knew it was a clever way to
Speaker 1: get extra views and engagement on her videos, so she
Speaker 1: did do a sit down Q and A answering followers questions,
Speaker 1: and many were intrigued to find out if the procedure
Speaker 1: was painful and how much it cost, and whether she
Speaker 1: was happy with the results. She was also asked if
Speaker 1: she was motivated by Kylie Jennet to get it done.
Speaker 1: Here's what she said.
Speaker 3: I would never.
Speaker 2: Change the look of my face, or body or anything
Speaker 2: just to fit into a trend. I don't necessarily follow trends.
Speaker 2: I just do what makes me happy. I know that's
Speaker 2: so cliche to say, but basically, one side of my
Speaker 2: lip was really big and the other side was really thin,
Speaker 2: so I just wanted to even out give them a
Speaker 2: natural plump and make them look naturally juicy.
Speaker 1: I feel for Shanny because after watching a lot of
Speaker 1: her early vlogs back, it's clear that she received a
Speaker 1: lot of hate comments about the size of her lips,
Speaker 1: and it would be really hard not to be impacted
Speaker 1: by those comments and feel like you had to change yourself,
Speaker 1: particularly when you're being built up as this it girl
Speaker 1: of YouTube and you have to live up to these
Speaker 1: very high beauty standards that are coming out because it
Speaker 1: was the it thing to have full lips. And that's
Speaker 1: the funny thing that there will be all these people
Speaker 1: online that will hate on an influencer for the way
Speaker 1: that they look, and then when they go and change
Speaker 1: something about themselves, it'll be like, oh my god, they
Speaker 1: used to look so much better before. They really can't
Speaker 1: win sometimes.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: A couple of other burning questions that she received were
Speaker 1: about whether it felt different for her to kiss and
Speaker 1: what Jonathan thought of them, and she tactfully explained that
Speaker 1: Jonathan didn't really have an opinion because he didn't know
Speaker 1: what to expect, but she did admit that when she
Speaker 1: got home and she was all swollen from the procedure,
Speaker 1: his first reaction was, holy shit, what have you done?
Speaker 1: But she prefaced that he really likes them. Now. It's
Speaker 1: really interesting to watch the Q and A back with hindsight,
Speaker 1: because at the time she was quite adamant that she
Speaker 1: wanted to keep her lips looking very natural, and she
Speaker 1: talked glowingly about her injector. However, as the years went on,
Speaker 1: Sharni suffered quite badly with filler migration, and she ended
Speaker 1: up having to get them dissolved and subsequently filled again
Speaker 1: by a new injector who she trusted. So she explained
Speaker 1: that in her teenage years she would visit random injectors,
Speaker 1: which she regretted and advised others not to do now.
Speaker 1: Shortly after going public with her lip filler, Shanny was
Speaker 1: rocked by her first controversy. So before heading to a festival,
Speaker 1: Sharni uploaded a snapchat story of her brother and an
Speaker 1: acquaintance playing with nerf guns, which sounds pretty innocent. The
Speaker 1: only catch was in the background of the shot was
Speaker 1: a Nazi flag hanging on the wall. Now, the backlash
Speaker 1: was swift, with followers accusing Shanny of being racist and
Speaker 1: calling for her to be canceled. Now, I don't think
Speaker 1: the word canceled was actually used at the time, but
Speaker 1: this post did deeply affect a section of Shanny's followers
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of anger and feeling like
Speaker 1: she shouldn't be able to continue sharing YouTube videos. She
Speaker 1: was on the front foot, though. She released a YouTube
Speaker 1: video entitled The Truth Behind the Rumors so she could
Speaker 1: explain her side of the story. So she started the
Speaker 1: video saying this.
Speaker 2: So firstly, I just want to say I would never
Speaker 2: support or have any sort of association with any group
Speaker 2: like the Nazi. I am not racist in any way,
Speaker 2: shape or form. I do not discriminate against any nationality
Speaker 2: or race.
Speaker 3: I'm not that kind of person.
Speaker 1: She went on to explain that she was at a
Speaker 1: friend of a friend's apartment and they went there to
Speaker 1: hang out before the festival. She confirmed that she was
Speaker 1: only there for ten minutes and in that time snapchated
Speaker 1: her brother and friend playing with the nerf guns. She
Speaker 1: explained that when she uses Snapchat, she doesn't look back
Speaker 1: at the videos, she just posts in real time anyway.
Speaker 1: Shanny says that they then ended up leaving the apartment
Speaker 1: to go to the festival, and two hours later, her
Speaker 1: brother text her saying, there's a Nazi flag in your background.
Speaker 1: Shani immediately removed the posts and explained that she never
Speaker 1: intentionally posted the flag. In fact, she had no idea
Speaker 1: it was even in the background, and it was quite
Speaker 1: clear listening to the video that Shanny didn't have much
Speaker 1: knowledge of the flag's meaning at the point.
Speaker 2: I didn't one hundred percent know the meaning of this flag.
Speaker 2: I did know that it was not a good flag, obviously, but.
Speaker 3: I do know the meaning now.
Speaker 2: But I still feel like that the fact that I
Speaker 2: didn't know the true one hundred percent meaning behind this
Speaker 2: flag isn't really necessary to the reason why it was up.
Speaker 3: I just generally did not see the flag.
Speaker 1: She confirmed that she had since educated herself on its
Speaker 1: meaning and was very apologetic to the followers she had upset.
Speaker 1: She also reiterated that she had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: the person who hung the flag and had no idea
Speaker 1: why it was up in the person's house, and that
Speaker 1: she's not friends with this particular person. Shanni got really
Speaker 1: teary in this video, and it was clear that she
Speaker 1: was very apologetic. She sounded very genuine, and to me,
Speaker 1: this is a teenage girl who made a mistake. I
Speaker 1: believe what she said in this video. I think that
Speaker 1: she had no idea that the flag was there and
Speaker 1: clearly wasn't aware of the flag's history. It is interesting
Speaker 1: to take a look at this video from a PR
Speaker 1: perspective because in twenty twenty four we're so used to
Speaker 1: seeing influencer apology videos, but this was one of the
Speaker 1: first of its kind in twenty fifteen. I think she
Speaker 1: handled herself really well because she didn't try and shy
Speaker 1: away from the controversy. She tackled her head on, and
Speaker 1: she acknowledged where she went wrong and that she'd educated
Speaker 1: herself and apologized. And this is why this incident really
Speaker 1: didn't affect her sponsorship deals going forward, because it was
Speaker 1: clearly a case of her being in the wrong place
Speaker 1: at the wrong time. Now, Shanni's newfound fame led to
Speaker 1: a lot of jealousy within her school friendship group and
Speaker 1: bubbled over on a trip to Splendor when she discovered
Speaker 1: she was being mocked on snapchat.
Speaker 5: So basically what happened is something really bad made me
Speaker 5: feel like shit, So I ended up going home really early.
Speaker 5: So someone that I was really really really close friends
Speaker 5: with put up snapchats of her friend mocking me, so like, hey, guys,
Speaker 5: welcome back to my channel, like I'm YouTube famous. Here's
Speaker 5: my coupon code for the bus because I'm getting a
Speaker 5: bus to Slender and just being.
Speaker 3: The biggest asshole.
Speaker 2: And this person that I was really close friends with
Speaker 2: was like laughing at her and everything, like condoning her,
Speaker 2: like putting it on her own snapchat. It made me
Speaker 2: so angry because I don't think you should be friends
Speaker 2: with people that make you feel like shit about yourself
Speaker 2: or about what you do. I was just like so shocked,
Speaker 2: and like, I know, I just couldn't get my mood
Speaker 2: back up again.
Speaker 3: But that's done.
Speaker 5: I don't have time for that in my life anymore.
Speaker 1: It's clear that this reaction stemmed from jealousy. Shanny was
Speaker 1: being offered so many amazing opportunities and allso being gifted
Speaker 1: free products, and this whole influencing thing was a completely
Speaker 1: new phenomenon. So I can kind of see both sides.
Speaker 1: I can see why her friends probably had their noses
Speaker 1: out of joint, and I can see also why it
Speaker 1: would have been incredibly difficult for Sharni to navigate this
Speaker 1: new found fame on her own.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: At that stage as well, it was probably seen as
Speaker 1: being a bit embarrassing talking to a camera in public.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still think that there is a lot
Speaker 1: of judgment. It depends where you are in the world.
Speaker 1: Like if you're in the US filming, I think, or
Speaker 1: even in Sydney, no one really cares what you're doing.
Speaker 1: But if you were to walk down the street in Adelaide,
Speaker 1: I feel like you'd get a similar reaction. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is no surprise that at nineteen Shanne started befriending fellow
Speaker 1: YouTubers who were going through the same experiences as her,
Speaker 1: because clearly her friends weren't able to relate to what
Speaker 1: was going on. This is where Michael Finch entered the scene.
Speaker 1: So Shanni and Michael, they were such an unbeatable jew way.
Speaker 1: They instantly had this chemistry when they'd film together. They
Speaker 1: sparked up a friendship online and it's pretty cute because
Speaker 1: they both used to watch each other's YouTube videos and
Speaker 1: they started messaging each other from there. And at the time,
Speaker 1: Michael was living in Regional Victoria and Shanny was in
Speaker 1: Brisbane and they met in person for the first time
Speaker 1: when Sharney was visiting Melbourne. So Michael ended up doing
Speaker 1: her makeup and they ended up going out clubbing together
Speaker 1: and really hit it off. Funnily enough, this is also
Speaker 1: the night that Shannie and Michael met Lily Brown, so
Speaker 1: shortly after, Michael visited Sharnie in Brisbane for a sleepover.
Speaker 1: And a bit of a fun fact, the first video
Speaker 1: of Sharnee on Michael's channel is from this sleepover, and
Speaker 1: it was only the second time they had met, and
Speaker 1: you couldn't tell because they had this instant chemistry on
Speaker 1: camera and it was like they'd known each other their
Speaker 1: whole lives. They razzed each other up and they were
Speaker 1: playfully rude to one another, and Michael literally at one
Speaker 1: stage burped in Charny's face, and he also dropped that
Speaker 1: Sharny had been farting around him for their entire stay,
Speaker 1: So it's clear that they were comfortable around each other
Speaker 1: from day dot and it wasn't long before Michael moved
Speaker 1: to Brisbane to be closer to Shanni and his other
Speaker 1: YouTube friends, and by this stage they had formed a
Speaker 1: formidable influencer click Teenagers were absolutely obsessed with this friendship group,
Speaker 1: which consisted of Lily Brown, Rannie Brands, Beat Sky, Wheatley,
Speaker 1: and of course Michael and Shanni. And at the time,
Speaker 1: Shanni and Michael's growth was enormous, so people saw it
Speaker 1: as almost opportunistic for Lily Sky and Rannie to be
Speaker 1: in their videos. It kind of grew their following instantaneously,
Speaker 1: and it was at a time when beauty influencers could
Speaker 1: really make or break brands, and brands were paying out
Speaker 1: enormous paychecks for their endorsements. It's crazy to think that
Speaker 1: the biggest brands at the time were Anastagia, Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: and Morphy. It was the days when everyone was using
Speaker 1: tart shaped tape and Becker highlighter, and because there was
Speaker 1: so much money to be made, some followers did speculate
Speaker 1: on the genuineness of this friendship and whether these three
Speaker 1: girls were in fact using Michael and Shanny to grow
Speaker 1: their careers.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Earlier in this episode, we touched on Shari's catchphrase bindy,
Speaker 1: and it really was Michael who made the catchphrase what
Speaker 1: it was. He was obsessed with Shannie's little dog. Let's
Speaker 1: throw to some of their most iconic catchphrases, Get in.
Speaker 3: There, bindy, way back on the butler.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying ells fucking serious.
Speaker 3: That's a problem that like I kind of stop.
Speaker 1: These catchphrases were so big the Beginning Boutique jumped on
Speaker 1: the opportunity and they offered Shanni and Michael a collaboration
Speaker 1: which would see their catchphrases emblazoned on merchandise. So they
Speaker 1: were that said thank you, not a problem and see you,
Speaker 1: and Shani originally had her own label SG the label,
Speaker 1: but she then rebranded when she and Mike started making
Speaker 1: their joint merchandise. I actually have a pair of socks.
Speaker 1: I don't actually think they were from beginning boutique. I
Speaker 1: think Michael also released his own merch just by himself
Speaker 1: that say, c what if they'd be worth anything now?
Speaker 1: I doubt it. But one thing that I really loved
Speaker 1: about Shanny and Michael was that they had such a
Speaker 1: wholesome friendship. They traveled quite a lot together and it
Speaker 1: wasn't just for brand trips. They actually genuinely enjoyed traveling
Speaker 1: the world together. And one of my ultimate favorite YouTube
Speaker 1: videos to this day is Shanni and Michael in Bali,
Speaker 1: and it was the first time that Michael had ever
Speaker 1: traveled overseas, and you can tell he is just so
Speaker 1: young in this video because he knew nothing about Ballei
Speaker 1: or the rest of the world, and Shani kept quizzing
Speaker 1: him on what barley belly was, and he was very
Speaker 1: confused about whether you could get barley belly from the
Speaker 1: water from the tap or whether it was the water
Speaker 1: in the pool or the water in the ocean. I
Speaker 1: need to remember that Michael Finched was a boy from
Speaker 1: Country Victorious, and he also dropped out of school very early.
Speaker 1: Now Shiny really highlighted Michael's lack of understanding when it
Speaker 1: came to geography.
Speaker 4: In this clip, Michael literally just asked the best question,
Speaker 4: you know how He's like really good with geography and
Speaker 4: all of that good stuff. He's like, don't film this,
Speaker 4: but can I ask your question?
Speaker 3: He said, are we like still in the world like
Speaker 3: that little blue ball? Are we like there?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, well, yeah, Bali is in Earth.
Speaker 3: So he learned something you know every day, can't you.
Speaker 2: I just thought, no, honest to god, I honestly thought
Speaker 2: like it was just another island.
Speaker 3: We are in another island.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but like did we leave the blue ball?
Speaker 1: Obviously not no.
Speaker 4: Because only humans live on Earth. They don't live in
Speaker 4: any other planets maybe like Aliens.
Speaker 5: This is why I don't fly anywhere, because it just
Speaker 5: confuses me.
Speaker 3: And I saw, literally this is how you learn you fly.
Speaker 4: I still don't know where I am. We're in a
Speaker 4: country near Australia that we're in an island.
Speaker 3: Well, same thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, Hey, this is iconic. I love this so much,
Speaker 1: like it never gets old. He comes across as someone
Speaker 1: that you would just love to travel with. I mean
Speaker 1: maybe someone that you would have to kind of help
Speaker 1: along the way. Though Yeah, I feel like you want
Speaker 1: him in a group situation, like you definitely want to
Speaker 1: travel with him, Shani and maybe another person maybe not
Speaker 1: Sky Oh as in that US trip they went on
Speaker 1: looked pretty horrendous because they were all competing to be heard.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: While Shanny's friendships were flourishing, the same couldn't be said
Speaker 1: about her relationship with Jonathan, and while they look like
Speaker 1: the definition of couple goals online, behind closed doors it
Speaker 1: was a very different story. So Sharani broke the Internet
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen when she posted a YouTube video entitled
Speaker 1: we Broke Up. This is where We'll leave you for
Speaker 1: today's episode. In next week's final installment, we explored the
Speaker 1: chaos that erupted when Shanni pulled the pin on her
Speaker 1: three year relationship with Jonathan Soer. We also discussed the
Speaker 1: demise of the Hottest Influencer Click, Shanny's moved to Melbourne
Speaker 1: for footballer Tommy Bug, and her entrance into the business world.
Speaker 1: If you did enjoy today's episode, we would love if
Speaker 1: you could leave us a five star review, as it
Speaker 1: really does help the podcast out. Also, if you'd like
Speaker 1: to follow Outspoken on Instagram and TikTok, we're at Outspoken
Speaker 1: Underscore the Underscore podcast. You can also follow Kate, Sophie
Speaker 1: and I on Instagram. This episode was recorded on the
Speaker 1: traditional land of the Ghana people of the Adelaide Planes.
Speaker 1: We pay respect to elders past and present,