Alexa Dumas
Drama-seeking and narcissistic are two of the best words to describe internet personality Gabbie Hanna. Recently, Hanna has been harassing internet personalities online for seemingly no reason. As the month of April came with a bang, so did the downfall of Gabbie Hanna.
After making her debut on Vine in 2013, Hanna moved her platform to YouTube in 2014 after her popularity declined on the app. Her spunky and blunt personality drew a younger audience to her videos. Since then, Hanna has pursued a career in storytelling videos, music, art and most recently, poetry.
Hanna’s music career is mediocre at best, but she has released two EPs and various singles. Her 2018 song, “Monster,” became a meme after an interview with the popular Genius channel on YouTube. Genius conducts “behind the lyrics” style videos with music artists to hear the background of their most popular songs. Hanna, unfortunately, sang the word “monster” so loud it blew out a microphone, distorting the sound. The meme rose in popularity in summer 2019. Unfortunately for her, that wasn’t the last of the memes — it was just the beginning.
Hanna’s first art and poetry book, “Adultolescence,” debuted in 2017 with mixed reviews. While her poem, “Anxiety,” was relatable to her audience, poems like “Link in Bio,” “Filler,” “Concealer” and “Relative” were a laughing stock to the internet.
Twitter user @moanbarkfart tweeted on April 20, “i just wanna ask gabbie hanna what the hell is THIS???” Pictures of the poems were attached to the tweet to explain how truly outlandish the poems were.
Hanna responded to the backlash with a tweet stating, “i still can’t believe i wrote a funny, engaging, thematic poetry book about sexual assault, mortality, childhood abuse, mental illness & suicidal ideation as my first release — and all people cared to share was ‘link in bio’ and ‘family is relatives.’”
If Hanna took a step back to review her own work, she’d see how terrible it truly is.
YouTube book reviewer, Rachel Oates made a three-part video series to review “Adultolescence” in 2019, where she pointed out obvious flaws with structure, style and voice. Oates stated that “poetry is subjective” at the beginning of the video, and explained how she disliked the book, but did not attack Hanna personally. Oates’ biggest problems with the book were based on Hanna’s lack of knowledge in writing free verse poetry.
Hanna released a second poetry book in late 2020 titled, “Dandelion.” This book featured new poems and art, as well as exclusive bonus pages. Hanna even went out of her way to send a copy to Oates to review on her channel, which was a surprise to her.
“She told me she wanted the book in the hands of people who loved poetry and she included me with those kinds of people,” Oates stated in her Oct. 26, 2020 video. “Thank you to her for recognizing me.”
The video titled, “Gabbie Hanna Sent Me Her New Poetry Book,” Oates states how Hanna has grown to face criticism of her work. However, the rest of the video shows how Hanna’s poetry has declined in value, but her talents could be redirected to works of fiction or even her artwork featured in the books, Oates said.
“I have to give Gabbie a lot of credit for reaching out to me and for sending me her book, even though I critiqued her last book pretty harshly,” Oates continued. “I think it shows growth and maturity, and a willingness to take criticism.”
Almost six months after the video was released, Hanna recently started harassing Oates on Instagram and Twitter. The videos attacking Oates are harsh and paint Hanna as the victim, even though she was the one who started the drama.
“She’s not a f*cking artist. I don’t care about her f*cking opinion because she has no accomplishments in the arts, or has proven to me that she is actually intellectual enough to understand art,” Hanna stated on her Instagram April 19. “I accept my criticism from talented, smart people, not abusive, toxic, exploitative bullies on YouTube.”
The statement Hanna made was hypocritical. How can you willingly send someone a book to review, then call them abusive when they don’t like your poetry?
It is safe to say that Hanna is not in the best mental headspace to be dealing with the internet currently, especially after calling out various other YouTube personalities for seemingly minor incidents. The biggest of the drama has to do with internet personality, Trisha Paytas.
Hanna invited Paytas on her video podcast, “Burnout,” in February. Paytas was an unlikely guest since Hanna spread a rumor in 2018 that Paytas has an STD to their ex-partner. In the episode, Paytas is noticeably uncomfortable with Hanna as she hashes out her mental problems. Paytas then urges Hanna to seek professional help for these issues.
“There is no excuse,” Hanna claims in the episodes. “Mental health is not an excuse to barrate people online.”
If only Hanna took her own advice.
Following the release of the video, Hanna blasted Paytas and spread false information yet again. Paytas, who has been recently diagnosed with mild schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, posted various TikTok and YouTube videos begging Hanna to leave them alone due to their mental health. Ultimately, Paytas blocked Hanna on all social media.
“I’m not sure what I even did to Gabbie in the first place,” Paytas pleaded to Hanna in her April 27 video. “I can’t take on anyone’s mental health crisis right now because I’ve been going through it. I just want no communication with you. I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to be friends and I don’t want you talking about me. I’m done talking about you.”
It can be stated that the internet is tired of Hanna’s manic and toxic behavior. Her attacks come out of nowhere and only pose the question: where is Hanna’s support system?
With that question in mind, it will take only a matter of time before the internet finds the true answer behind Hanna’s behavior. Her attention seeking behavior will only be her downfall.
