Who is Emma Blackery?
Emma is a former youtube fan turned popular youtuber [YouTube] [Twitter]. To the phandom she is one of those extremely polarizing persons, that some people like a lot and others utterly despise, and all the opinions inbetween. However most people who know the first thing about Emma's history with Dan and Phil will agree that the relationship's been problematic at best, and even Emma herself has admitted to being out of line and apologised multiple times. Let's take a look at why.
Dan & Phil interacting with Emma
For starters, it's worth noting that everything of interest that's ever actually happened (publicly) between these three happened in 2013. Dan and Phil didn't interact with Emma before that and have largely ignored her since (publicly).
March and May 2013 Dan mentioned Emma twice in his liveshows:
Chat: Do a video with Emma Blackery!
Dan: ....probably not.
Chat: Do you know Emma Blackery?
Dan: Of course I do! I met her once, at the creator space in London and she was really nice, with a fantastically bright hair colour like Hayley Williams.
June-July 2013 was when most of the charlieskies twitter bullying happened but Dan never acknowledged Emma's part of it or interacted with her in any way about it, he didn't even follow her on Twitter yet.
July 2013 D&P were made to collab with Emma during YouTube Geek Week, filming this video:
September 2013 Emma and Dan both got to meet Placebo at the same time [picture]. According to Emma she now apologised to Dan in person for the way she'd acted and persuaded him to follow her on Twitter [source].
Dan unfollowed Emma again 11 Nov 2013, on her birthday.
Phil unfollowed Emma on Twitter 15 Jan 2014.
[picture]
After that they both ignored Emma for three years.
22 Nov 2016 Dan liked one of Emma's tweets to him and so the tension was broken.
(anyone got a picture showing the like plz pm me and I'll add it)
12 Dec 2016 Phil and Emma posed together on Snapchat.
Ok but what did Emma do? A brief history
Emma used to be a huge fan of Dan and when she first started out as a youtuber she used to tweet Dan a lot and try to get his attention (2012-2013). It didn't work out. With time (2013) she grew frustrated and resentful and started being mean instead - talking shit about Dan on Twitter and for example taking an active part in charlieskies' twitter bullying of Dan in 2013. (Which was in June-July, so good thing Dan didn't follow her on Twitter until September I guess.) In comparison 2014 was a calm year, but still with its incidents. 2015 was a strange year with Emma throwing around A LOT of shade that seemed directed at D&P, then apologising for it and saying she's a changed woman who's seen the error of her ways, just to keep throwing more shade right after, apologising again, throwing more shade, apologising... and so on and so forth for the better part of the year. In 2016 she kept talking about being a changed woman and mostly managed to live up to it too, so that's nice. 2017 has been uneventful.
In Emma's own words (Teneighty mag, Guru Gossip, YouTube)
Now, all of this is no secret - Emma herself has acknowledged this behaviour many, many times and expressed regret for acting this way. So instead of just showing you all a bunch of screenshots of Emma being a twat, I thought I'd start by giving you Emma's own version of what happened, as told by her in 2015-2016:
Here's Emma talking about Dan in an interview for Teneighty Magazine in 2015:
In fact, it’s this moment we begin to talk about some of her outbursts on Twitter, which she believes has done damage to many of her relationships within the YouTube community. “Speaking my mind is easy. Dealing with the consequences is the difficult part,” Emma states.
One example of this, is how things went down with Dan Howell. “He was one of the first YouTubers I watched, and naturally I really looked up to him,” says Emma. “I had this silly idea that one day I would collab with him, and as I was getting bigger and bigger, I kept messaging him and he never replied.”
This led to Emma becoming resentful and eventually badmouthing him on social media. “I was hurt,” she says, “but I know now that it all came from a rather silly and somewhat selfish place.”
However, that wasn’t the end of it. The pair crossed paths when Emma had the opportunity to interview Placebo – her favourite band – and she admits feeling a whirlwind of emotions. “I felt nervous, angry and excited all at once,” she says, “but overall I felt embarrassed for the things I said online. I went over and apologised profusely, and then my inner fangirl kicked in and I, sort of, cornered him into following me on Twitter.”
There was a moment in particular that helped her to see how she sometimes comes across on social media. When Dan eventually unfollowed her, he DM’ed her explaining that he had no hard feelings but would prefer to avoid seeing drama on his Twitter feed. “I get it. I sometimes feel that way too, and in the past I haven’t been able to stop myself getting involved,” says Emma.
“I still really respect Dan. He was a massive influence on my channel,” she says. “It’s only now that I realised how irritating I’ve been along the way. I acted out of hurt when he did nothing intentionally.”
Emma hopes that one day he may look past how she acted, but also gets why he – and others – may want to keep her at arm’s length. “ I don’t know if I’ll ever have the opportunity to make it right, but all I care about is for him to know I’m sorry,” she reflects.
Here's a post Emma made on her own Guru Gossip thread in 2015: [Full post]
In 2016 she talked about her support of the charlieskies twitter bullying on her main channel (11:49):
Edit: Darn, she deleted it. If anybody got the clip please pm me.
"I used to laugh along with a friend who was really nasty to Dan and Phil. I used to think it was fun to sort of show tweets of support to that and, and feed off that drama, that's what I used to do, I used to be like that. And looking at it now I'm not even that person now, it's weird that that's me I don't, I don't think in those negative ways anymore."
In July 2016 (the 26th) she was invited to speak in Shane Dawson's podcast and mentioned Dan & Phil + charlieskies again, although without mentioning any names:
Shane: I love your shady comments. You have so much drama with people all the time.
Emma: Shit. Not anymore! I've got better. Shane: So who have you had beef with?
Emma: This is the thing, I don't like saying because every time I even say their names, their massive group of fans-- massive group of fans-- of these two Youtubers-- Shane: Ohhh-- OHHH!
Emma: They hate me, they don't like me, their fans. At all. Shane: Ok, I won't say their names.
Emma: Some of them do. It's a vocal minority that really don't like me. I was a massive fangirl of these two Youtubers who were very big in the UK, a massive fangirl back in 2012-13. They're one of the reasons that I started, I think they're great people. Um. But I was very over-the-top with my fangirliness; I had the shirts, I'd make all the references, I was basically cringe-worthy. It was cringetastic. And I really wanted to be friends with them, and I was trying to talk to them, I'd email them to collab, I had like 10K subscribers, right. I was very naive and stuff, and like obviously they would get so many emails, they didn't reply or anything. But I took it personally, and this was years ago. I took it personally, like "Wow, they're shading me. They don't like me." And I was friends with someone who-- uhh... was... friends with them a long time ago who they now hate so then lots of drama started with that. And ever since--
Shane: Have you ever--
Emma: I've met them and like whenever we hang out, well not hang out, but you know, whenever we meet each other in the corridors at Vidcon or something, everything is civil. Everything's fine. Like I don't know how they personally feel about me, I just know that a lot of their fans remember the stuff I used to do years ago, which I don't do anymore, and they still see me as that person. And that's something I'm going to have for the rest of my YT career, people are going to be like 'Oh yeah, we don't talk about her, she's horrible.'
Shane: Interesting.
Emma: Yeah. It sucks. Shane: Well. Welcome to my life.
transcribing creds to fancybum!
And in November 2016 (29th) she made this self-reflective video:
"I like to think I've got better."
(I won't quote more than that because the video is best in its entirety and summarizes everything quite well.)
In the words of screenshots
A short timeline of relevant screenshots (not all of them obviously).
2012
just your typical phandom tweets tbh, y'all know how it is
2013
angry post-fangirl stage
Supporting charlieskies
(see Charlie's own FAQ for full context, all of his tweets are not included)
2014
whiny post-post-fangirl stage
^D&P playing Troye Sivan on the radio
Timecode drama (D&P play FNAF):
2015
regrets, apologies and shade about books and tours
In 2015 Emma threw around A LOT of shade about youtubers writing books and going on tours. Some of it sounded suspiciously like it was about Dan & Phil specifically - firstly because of her timing (often right after they announced something new) and secondly because of the details (mentioning specific prices that just so happened to be the exact price D&P took for the same thing). Though obviously she could have been talking about someone else or no one in specific, too ( ).
Did this happen right after D&P announced their tour? Answer: Yes.
Did Dan & Phil's book go for that price? Answer: Yes.
"I don't like when youtubers plug it as if to say like, you know - 'you must buy this book because there's stuff in here you've never seen.' ... That kind of blackmail like, you know... 'What really happened on this holiday' or 'How I really feel about this stuff', and if you haven't got that book you feel like less of a fan and that bugs me. If you've got something to say about yourself - put it in a fucking video, alright?"
"What really happened on this holiday", you didn't by any chance mean "What really happened in Vegas"?
Buuut I'm sure all of that is just coincidence.
Here are some tweets that were definitely about Dan and Phil or the phandom:
Including these two for the lulz:
End of screenshots.
It should be noted that Emma is like this in general. She calls people out and starts drama, it's what she does - not just the phandom and Dan and Phil, but other youtubers as well.
Copying Dan?
This is a topic that comes up a lot, so I thought I'd touch briefly upon it. Pretty much since the moment Emma started Youtube there have been people accusing her of copying Dan. They do share a similar sense of humour, similar interests and a similar style, and I'm sure Emma's been inspired by Dan in many ways (as we are by other people), but in my own humble opinion Emma pulls her own weight on Youtube at least these days.
For the most part anyway. There was a recent example at the start of 2016 where Emma made a meme video that was suspiciously similar to the meme video Dan made not long before. Personally I don't feel like I'm in any position to judge what counts as plagiarism or not but I've put all the info under this spoiler for those who want to make up their own mind.
Dan made his video "The Top Dan Howell Memes of 2015" from pictures his fans had already created and spread around of their own free will.
Emma made her video "I AM A MEME" after asking her fans on Tumblr to edit a specific picture she provided, then deleting the post where she asked for this help before uploading the video, and in the video pretending like this all happened spontaneously because she's such a meme.
"I became a meme. Oh I am not kidding. I was asked to do a photo shoot for an event that I'm hosting and I was told to stand by these giant metal letters that spelt the word YES. And I was like, 'Nothing can go wrong with this, this is... this is a great idea'. That photo makes it online, you guys take it deep into your hearts, and truly shit it back out. Thank you."
GOOD NEWS THOUGH!
As of 2016, Emma is no longer cringe af.
No but really, we should chill and she should chill, all is good, peace.
).
![Confirmation it was really her posting.]](http://i67.tinypic.com/2unwsuo.png){kind=link}