Anthony Fantano issues apology over racial slurs and controversial comments
Anthony Fantano, the music critic behind the YouTube channel ‘The Needle Drop, has issued an apology after footage resurfaced depicting his usage of racial slurs.
In the early days of his career, Fantano ran a side channel called ‘Thatistheplan’. Footage from this channel from the mid-2010s has resurfaced online. “The discourse has reached a fever pitch,” Fantano has remarked of the online reaction, leading to fans believing Fantano is a “racist, bigoted person.” However, he stressed he has nothing to hide and he knows the claims “are not true.”
In reaction to fans’ outrage, Fantano released a seven-minute apology video. In it, he discussed that this clip has been going viral online, which included audio of the critic using the N-word and the F-slur when repeating the lyricism of a hip-hop rapper. Fantano confirmed that this was a real video and explained, “Early on in my YouTube career, I had some pretty lax views when it came to quoting the language of others.”
“What does it matter? It’s not me saying it,” he said of his thought process back then. However, he admits that “Explicitly quoting the words was in bad form and just unnecessary. I would have still got my point across and done so without upsetting anybody should I have taken that approach.”
Three minutes into the video, he apologises for upsetting any of his viewers. He insists he is “taking ownership” by staring deeply into the camera, sharing, “I am, in fact, sorry about this.”
Fantano, who now has over 3 million YouTube subscribers, then addresses another resurfaced clip. The second clip led to claims that Fantano was laughing at the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old African-American who was shot and killed in 2012.
He denied the accusation, declaring, “The way this clip has been presented is a lie. It’s been heavily edited.” Fantano explained that, instead, he was reading a viewer’s super chat, which confused Trayvon Martin with YouTuber Tre Melvin. His laughter was directed at the mistake, not the tragic murder.
He added near the end of the seven-minute clip, “With all that being said, I realised a long time ago that I really do need to be careful about who I talk to and what platform I appear on,” he said. “Because in the eyes of the wrong person, any association or appearance can be read as a deep tie or an endorsement of an idea I don’t fucking agree with.”
He concluded that, for example, he wouldn’t appear on a stream with someone like Akademiks, presenting a clip of the controversial streamer, which depicts him allegedly verbally harassing a young boy. “People might understandably think I endorse the idea of sexual conversations with underage boys, and I don’t,” Fantano commented. Akademiks, who helped circulate the videos he addresses in his apology, has since slammed this video as “a 7-minute yap.”
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