YouTuber Lillee Jean Keeps Her Eyes on the Future
The 19-year-old Jewish influencer opens up about being bullied, and shares advice for other young victims of cyberharassment
Lillee Jean is an Instagram star and YouTuber who’s produced beauty and makeup-related content for over four years. However, the past year has been rough for the 19-year-old influencer. She says that she is the victim of a targeted campaign of cyberbullying by a group of trolls who seem bizarrely devoted to destroying her life. From accusations of fraud, to body-shaming and antisemitic slurs, the teenager has navigated a veritable battlefield on her path to becoming recognized as an artist and internet celebrity. I had the opportunity to interview Lillee Jean recently, and she had a few things to say about her experiences as a victim of cyberbullying. She also shared her plans for the future, and how she manages to keep pushing for success in the face of such vicious opposition.
Creating art makes Lillee Jean happy
Lillee Jean is a self-taught artist, and her medium of choice is makeup, which she uses to create a variety of looks on her YouTube channel. She also likes to create digital art as a hobby. As a creative young person, she is known to have a variety of interests, which include singing and acting. While her name has yet to grace the small or large screen, she still enjoys being a beauty and lifestyle YouTuber, and she takes joy in interacting with her fans on social media. By the age of just 19-years-old, Lillee has a steady focus on what she wants to do with her life, and (for the most part) she’s having a great time.
When I spoke with Lillee, she expressed to me that her determination to succeed is simply just a part of who she is.
“Aries never give up,” she said, “If I gave up, I’d be disappointing to myself.”
Influencers aren’t immune to bullying
It’s been an uphill battle for Lillee Jean over the past year and a half, after she says that a group of Redditors began a campaign to smear her image and attack her character. However, the abuse supposedly began when Lillee was still underage. The teenager says that a group of men on Reddit were making fun of her and photoshopping her in offensive ways. She was only 15-years-old at the time. Later, on the same site, Lillee was publicly accused of purchasing her 1 Million Instagram followers and falsifying her presence as an influencer. A post made over a year ago on r/BeautyGuruChatter, by a throwaway account, laid out a detailed inventory of reasons why they believed Lillee Jean was fraudulently posing as an influencer. The Redditor also listed every single cosmetic, hair and skincare brand that had collaborated with Lillee up until that point, while accusing her of creating fake fan accounts on social media. Discussion on Reddit and other forums brought attention to the negative speculation, as people took interest in what appeared to be a strange story of a teenage influencer faking her way to success. Meanwhile, the drama channels on YouTube started having a field day with the accusations against Lillee Jean. This created a whirlwind of negative attention for the 19-year-old, who began receiving a slew of hateful messages and comments from countless trolls. One even went as far as to send photos of human corpses to Lillee in DM.
While the drama channels and tabloidesque content creators have lost interest in Lillee Jean, a small group of people remain dedicated to discussing her and producing content about her. Lillee says that this group, along with a series of fake accounts that they maintain, continue to cyberbully her every day. She is constantly deleting hateful comments and blocking an endless stream of instant-made accounts that all repeat the same accusations, gossip and attacks. Lillee did try to defend herself against the onslaught of negative attention in the beginning, but this only seemed to make things worse. When I asked her how this has all impacted her, she summed it up as feeling distraught.
“[It was] Like no hope, like I was being buried. In a nutshell, that’s how I’ve felt for the past 14 months,” Lillee said during our interview.
The 19-year-old influencer shares that the abuse she’s experienced at the hands of her bullies has left her traumatized. She explained that there are days that she will cry for hours, before getting on camera and shooting her content with a smile and a brave face for her fans. The young artist has reason to cry, after all. The group of people she accuses of cyberharassment continues to contact any company that sends her PR with one inflammatory claim after another. Lillee Jean has lost partnerships with an increasing list of companies and brands — something the girl believes to be incredibly unfair. Lillee believes that she has put in a lot of hard work over the years on YouTube, and that she has rightfully earned PR with these companies. She is heartbroken that so many brands have fallen for what she believes to be a fraudulent smear campaign coordinated by a small number of charismatic trolls.
Even though Lillee is considered a public figure — a fact often pointed out by her critics — she is still a teenager who feels like she is being bullied. This Blasting News article highlights the growing problem with both cyberbullying and online sexual harassment affecting American teenagers. While many of Lillee’s detractors do not feel like they are doing anything wrong, it stands to reason that some of the behavior Lillee has accused them of would absolutely traumatize many teens.
Lillee Jean is a work in progress
Some of the ammo that has been used against Lillee by her bullies, is a podcast she recorded when she was 17-years-old. The podcast was focused on the topic of cultural appropriation, and during the program Lillee made a number of tone-deaf comments. Her critics demanded that Lillee apologize for what was said during the podcast, and so she did. Lillee has apologized for the podcast two times so far, and has expressed remorse for unintentionally causing anyone to hurt by her words. She expressed during our interview that she isn’t a racist, transphobe or any kind of bigot that people might think her to be. She also noted that anybody who felt bad as a result of her podcast should never be made to feel that way. It simply was never her intent. Lillee is still growing and evolving as a young woman, and she wants people to know that she is a supporter of Black Lives Matter and the rights of trans people.
“I stand with the Trans and LGBTQ communities, and the BLM Movement. We are stronger united together.”
During her podcast, Lillee Jean did make a comment that she says was taken out of context. Her critics would have the public believe that she specifically told people of color to “shut the [expletive] up,” but Lillee wanted to clarify what she actually said and what she meant. According to Lillee, she wasn’t intending for it to sound like she was specifically telling POC to shuttup about slavery. The teenager explained during our interview that she was talking about people in general. She had intended to convey that she, as a Jewish person, also came from a history of suffering and persecution. When she said the words “shut the [expletive] up,” during the 45-minute show, she was aiming for it to be a casual commentary on dwelling on the negative. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an eloquent comment, and the 19-year-old Jewish teenager has been labeled a racist.
Lillee Jean is a work in progress, and she admits that. At only 19-years-old she continues to grow in her opinions and personal philosophies, but she says that her bullies continue to drag up past comments that she has apologized for many times. When she was younger she had expressed the unpopular opinion that “God” didn’t approve of transgender persons — a comment that couldn’t possibly be further from her stance today. She says that when she realized people were offended by her words, she genuinely felt awful, and began reflecting on her opinions. Lillee Jean has issued apologies, but she says that the handful of people who continue to harass her refuse to leave the past in the past. She says that anytime she wants to share positivity surrounding Black Lives Matter or the current political climate, her bullies are sure to bring up past comments she has apologized for, in order to make her look inconsistent or stupid. It’s been a frustrating and depressing experience for the girl, who says that she truly does care about POC and LGBTQ issues.
Even though Lillee Jean has gone through a metaphorical beating, she still maintains an open heart about things. When I asked her if there was anything that she wished her bullies knew about her, she didn’t hesitate to answer.
“I just with people would stop playing in their heads [with] rumors, and see me for me.”
This has been a learning experience for Lillee
The past 14 months have been extremely tough for the young YouTuber, but she does admit that it’s been a learning experience for her. She’s learned that there will always be some people out there who simply just don’t like her — and that’s okay. She just wants to continue doing what she loves, and hopes that people will see that she is passionate about all of the content she produces.
“You cannot change some people. I tried to ignore and I tried to make amends. I tried to appease [them],” she said, “The only person in the end that I should have appeased was myself. I’m on that path now.”
Lillee also expressed a desire to get involved with anti-bullying advocacy, using her own personal experiences as guidance. She said she doesn’t want other teenagers and young women to go through what she’s endured for over a year. I asked her what kind of advice she’d have to offer to someone who might be the victim of cyberbullying or online harassment.
“My best advice would be to keep yourself sane by reminding yourself of who you are. If I lost myself, [that means] they won. You never get over being bullied, but it’s how you go about it, and what changes you make to continue ruling your life. That change can even be a small step of saying ‘No, you cannot do this to me’. A lot of bullying is mental control and [invading] your space. If you give them [your] space, they win.”
Lillee continues to deal with hateful messages and comments on a daily basis, but her skin has gotten a little thicker over the past year. She now does her best to avoid engaging with her bullies, even when they’re at their nastiest. Most recently, someone sent her a comment lamenting that Hitler should have eliminated her family during the Holocaust, adding a disturbing element of antisemitism to the entire situation, and more than one of her critics have openly bragged about contacting brands in hopes of crashing Lillee’s career and livelihood. These incidents still hurt the teenager’s feelings, but giving up on her dream is simply not an option.
The difference between calling-out and bullying
Cancel-culture is a big thing lately, with many celebs and influencers ending up in the spotlight of negativity. YouTuber Shane Dawson was “canceled” recently because of his past videos parading around in blackface, and Jeffree Star is constantly the object of scrutiny. However, there is a line between calling out celebrities for their misdeeds, and bullying an individual. Jayne Cravens, a nationally recognized women’s empowerment speaker and humanitarian, says that — a lot of the time — calling someone out is more about playing a game of “gotcha” than offering an opportunity of enlightenment to the other person. Writer Asam Ahmad penned an essay in 2015 about this topic, citing that calling people out often does little other than making someone feel like an outsider. He said the following:
“Call-out culture refers to the tendency among progressives, radicals, activists, and community organizers to publicly name instances or patterns of oppressive behaviour and language use by others. People can be called out for statements and actions that are sexist, racist, ableist, and the list goes on… In the context of call-out culture, it is easy to forget that the individual we are calling out is a human being, and that different human beings in different social locations will be receptive to different strategies for learning and growing. For instance, most call-outs I have witnessed immediately render anyone who has committed a perceived wrong as an outsider to the community. One action becomes a reason to pass judgment on someone’s entire being… It isn’t an exaggeration to say that there is a mild totalitarian undercurrent not just in call-out culture but also in how progressive communities police and define the bounds of who’s in and who’s out. More often than not, this boundary is constructed through the use of appropriate language and terminology — a language and terminology that are forever shifting and almost impossible to keep up with. In such a context, it is impossible not to fail at least some of the time.”
It is true that some of Lillee Jean’s critics have taken carte blanche’ in attacking her entire existence, justifying these actions by referring to her as a racist, a transphobe or a fraud. I have personally witnessed multiple Twitter and Instagram accounts make endless hateful comments about Lillee’s appearance, her intelligence and her artistic abilities. I have seen some of these accounts spend every single day, for a span of six months, Tweeting and commenting horribly mean things about Lillee that have zero to do with any of the things that she has been called-out for saying or doing. While there is still a very small number of people who are only focused on accusations of fraud and bigotry, the more trollish accounts have become far louder, meaner and — at times — totally absurd. If there truly ever was a reason to “cancel” Lillee Jean, it’s becoming lost and buried under piles of crudely photoshopped images, conspiracy theories and dramatic in-fighting between the few call-out accounts that don’t appear to be fake identities.
At one time, I was among those who demanded that Lillee hold herself accountable for comments that I perceived as racially hurtful. I am admittedly easily triggered over racial issues — not only because I am a mixed-race woman in America, but because I abhor racism. As stated earlier in this article, Lillee did issue more than one public apology for the things she has said — and I personally can’t expect anything further from her in regards to this. When someone apologizes for a mistake, you have the personal choice of either accepting the apology or rejecting it. However, that doesn’t make it reasonable to repeatedly demand that someone apologize over-and-over for the same past mistakes.
If you’re the victim of cyberbullying or harassment, you don’t have to feel alone. There are options available, even if it’s something as small as reaching out for support through a support group or through counseling. An app called ReThink is taking aim at cyberbullying, and it offers resources for victims.
