Renaldo Gouws took his twar with Sibu Mpanza too far

Correction: The Daily Vox has issued an apology to Renaldo Gouws. You can read it here.

Well-known South African YouTubers Renaldo Gouws and Sibu Mpanza had a pretty intense Twitter feud this week. Gouws apparently sub-tweeted Mpanza in a video, calling him a fame chaser and a liar, among other things. Mpanza took offence and called Gouws out on Twitter. Gouws claims the video was not about Mpanza and was touched at being called a “salty white male”. And so the feud began.

So, here’s the lowdown. There’s Renaldo Gouws: mediocre white YouTube vlogger with 30 000-odd subscribers and also a DA councillor in PE. Gouws is one of the top 100 YouTubers in South Africa in terms of subscribers, comments, likes and watch time.

Then there’s Sibu Mpanza: a lesser-known YouTube vlogger with under 4 000 subscribers; young, black, vocal and doing the things. Despite Gouws being a higher ranking vlogger, he isn’t endorsed by any brands whereas Mpanza is working with Takealot and Standard Bank. He also previously worked with Jameson. Shame, neh?

Social media marketer, Aasia Fredericks, told The Daily Vox that brands assess the content vloggers produce, the markets they appeal to as well as the level of interaction their videos garner. Fredericks said preference is given to young, black South Africans because most brands are aiming at a young black target market. If that’s not your audience, you lose out.

On Monday, Gouws made a video titled “Being a South African YouTuber…” where, among other things, he threw shade on smaller South African vloggers who claim to have quit their jobs and studies because they are “rolling in the dough”. He said small SA vloggers are blatantly lying about how much they earn, “when in actual fact they can’t even afford to buy Oros at the end of the month” – which is low-key racist by the way.

Gouws claims they are wannabe celebrities who are “pretentious” and would “say or do anything” to be famous. As a “top YouTuber”, Gouws claims to know the realities of vlogging in South Africa where it is impossible to make a living solely off YouTube and just wishes “these fame-chasers with 4 000 subscribers or less in South Africa would also realise that”. For Gouws, it is disingenuous to claim otherwise because it creates a false sense of security among local vloggers.

It was obvious for Mpanza and everyone else that Gouws had just subtweeted him.

That’s when things got lit.

Mpanza tweeted about the ‘salty white male’ who subbed him in a video.

And the Twitterverse responded. Mpanza’s followers and subscribers jumped to his defence, calling Gouws out on his white male privilege.

Gouws defended himself, sticking to his original position that he just made a video to support up-and-coming vloggers.

As with most twars, we can never be sure who blocked who first.

But then Gouws took it to a whole new level. He tweeted Mpanza’s sponsors asking if they want to be associated with someone who has a problem with white people.

Jameson denied that Mpanza was their brand ambassador, and said Mpanza only worked with them once-off.

Of course, Gouws rode on that one saying that Mpanza is a liar who faked being Jameson’s brand ambassador.

Takealot responded to Gouws saying that Mpanza’s views are his own and that they do not support any form of racial discrimination.

Mpanza responded that he has always been vocal about race and class; surely his sponsors knew who they were getting involved with when they decided to work with him?

Fredericks said she looked into the social media spat and it didn’t implicate Mpanza in any way because all he did was speak about “a white boy that doesn’t know how to use his privilege.” It would be different if he tweeted a picture with an disreputable person who was publicly known as discriminatory.

Now whether Mpanza was subbed or not, there’s an issue here. A white male vlogger, encased in his privilege, is publicly destroying the image of a smaller black vlogger. Twarring with, shading and dragging each other is one thing, but when you alert the sponsors and brand ambassadors of another vlogger, you’re interfering with their bread.

For Gouws, YouTube is all fun and games: he said it himself – he gives his YouTube money to charity. Hey, he has his white privilege and a job as a DA councillor to fall back on. It’s all good. But, and he mentioned in his video, other vloggers rely on YouTube for their livelihoods. (Vloggers, like, say Sibu Mpanza?) If Gouws is as concerned with the growth of young SA vloggers, as he claims to be, why is he trying to drag Mpanza – who he himself says is a small vlogger – through the mud?

Featured image via YouTube