With 168,000 subscribers and over 170 videos, Hot Tea is one of YouTube's most plentiful sources of drama, news, and commentary. I sat down with Rey Rahimi, the narrator and main force behind this growing channel, to discuss the ethics of holding influencers accountable, as well as her process for making videos.
TOTALIZER: What made you want to start a drama channel?
REY: To be honest, I didn't even start off as a drama channel, it was kind of like a compilation clip channel. I am just like a huge editing nerd, so as a kid I always just wanted to go on Moviemaker and compile clips together and add little funny edits to them. That's what I did with my first video, it was a Big Brother clip with Trisha Paytas and I just put that up and maybe did that type of video five times and suddenly it just blew up. And gradually, over the years, it's kind of converged into more of a drama channel- I never intended it to be one.
TOTALIZER: What’s the process of making a video like?
REY: Right now, I'm a little bit more hands-off than I used to be. I definitely used to write the script myself, record it and edit it all myself, but for the past couple of months, I've been working with a couple of editors and journalists as well. I have people doing the research, writing the scripts, I’ll send in the voiceover and then they'll do the editing.
TOTALIZER: Is this your full-time job?
REY: It provides a full-time income for me, but it's not what I do full-time. For the majority of the time that I've been working on this, I was a full-time student, so I was just able to support myself on the side, but this is not what I want to do for my life. I'm trying to get into law school for next year so that's why I've been trying to get a little bit more hands-off with the process as well. I'm trying to free up as much time for myself as possible so I can focus on other things.
TOTALIZER: Have you ever had to delete a video because the response to it was really negative?
REY: I've never deleted because of negative responses, but I will sometimes write a little bit of commentary here and there that might not be the most popular opinion and a lot of people are very expressive about that, so a lot of times I go back and I either expand on my opinion or I apologise if I realise that I was in the wrong. I've never deleted videos because of the negative feedback.
Trisha Paytas on the Frenemies podcast
TOTALIZER: Do you ever feel as though you’re too harsh on the people you make videos about?
REY: Honestly? No. Not at all. I am definitely not harsh at all. People get mad at me for being a little on the other side, like “you should be more harsh on people”. There's no reason for me to have this sort of god complex or this holier than thou complex because people are put in tough situations all the time. Just because they're on social media doesn't mean that they should be scrutinised so closely for it, so a lot of the time I'm like “okay, this person did something terrible, but that's because they were put in a tough situation and anyone would respond terribly to it”. I definitely could go a little bit tougher. Now that I have other people writing the scripts, sometimes the opinions might be a little closer to what the viewers might expect.
TOTALIZER: Has anyone who you’ve made a video on ever seen it?
REY: Yeah definitely. I know Trisha Paytas is a big fan of my channel! We had a little feud, actually, a couple years back in 2019. She copyright struck multiple videos of mine - probably like 30 to 40 of my videos - because she was mad at me for some other thing, when I subscribed to her Patreon. I wasn't too patient with the actual response so I made a video being like “okay, I paid $500 to Trisha Paytas and I never got a response”, but that was on me. I wasn't patient with it, but she got mad at me for making a video so she decided to copyright strike my channel 30 times. if you get three copyright strikes your channel gets deleted. They were false copyright strikes so that was resolved, but I know she's still watching the videos. I've seen her provide screenshots on Twitter of her feed and I'll see my own video and it has the red bar on it showing that she's watched it all the way through.
TOTALIZER: Does it feel weird knowing that Trisha still watches your videos?
REY: I wouldn't feel weird, honestly maybe a little bit angry because she's very well aware of what she's doing wrong. The person I’m probably the harshest on is Trisha Paytas because she's- man, I don't even know how to describe Trisha Paytas. She's very interesting. I know that she knows what the general opinion is on her actions, and she still keeps going forward with it. She came out with her transgender video and got negative backlash from it, but she kept on perpetuating the same thing. She still to this day has never apologised for it, she still keeps going and saying “I think I'm still transgender” because she knows that it gets a response, but she keeps going forward with it because she's getting the views and getting the money. So it's not like I feel weird about it, but it's more like girl... you know what you’re doing, you know people are mad so stop going forward with what you’re doing.
TOTALIZER: Has anyone aside from Trisha Paytas seen a video you’ve made about them?
REY: So she’s the one I got negative responses from but I have gotten positive responses from a lot of people. I’ve reported on Nina Unrated, she's commented on my videos. I reacted to Nick Snider’s Only Fans and he loved it, he tweeted about it.
James Charles from his comeback video titled "An Open Conversation"
TOTALIZER: Do you consider your channel to be ethical?
REY: I don't see it to be any different from any news channels or podcasts that provide commentary, because this is a combination of news plus commentary and that's essentially what tea channels are, but because the name “tea” is attached to it, people don’t like that- then they associate it with drama channels. Essentially what it is, is just news. It's just recording news. So I wouldn't understand why anyone would say it's unethical because everyone has a right to speak their mind.
TOTALIZER: Do you feel like the rise of commentary, drama and tea channels has lead to influencers being held more accountable for their actions than before?
REY: I couldn't say it has because there’s scandals more than ever right now, but they [influencers] say it has because when you listen to like podcasts they always talk about how they're not trying to get cancelled by tea channels, but then they still do whatever anyway.
TOTALIZER: What’s your view on cancel culture?
REY: Cancel culture honestly doesn't even exist. Who's gotten cancelled and not been able to come back? Right now we have people who were cancelled like Shane Dawson, he's making a comeback. James Charles just made a comeback. I think it's good for people to be held accountable, but I don't believe in cancelled culture. It's not even a thing.
TOTALIZER: When YouTubers and influencers get “cancelled” and take time away from their platform, do you think they’re genuinely taking that time to reflect on their actions?
REY: I think it depends on the individual. Every situation is different. Some people are just trying to let people forget and are waiting for the new scandal of someone else to cloud everyone's opinions. But I'm sure that there definitely are people who are actually taking the time to really get their shit together.
TOTALIZER: Do you have any predictions for Shane Dawson’s comeback?
REY: I think he’s gonna be fine. His peak of popularity was when he was coming out with all the 12-part series that were like an hour long each. I don't think he's ever going to become that popular again. Also, comedy has changed, people's interests have changed and I feel like people's attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter so I think generally, he's going to be okay, but he's just not going to be as popular. Time honestly heals everything, people are going to forget this.
Shane Dawson in his apology video from 2020, titled "Taking Accountability"
TOTALIZER: Do you find it frustrating seeing creators getting “cancelled” and then returning without really being held accountable or facing any real repercussions?
REY: It's slightly annoying I guess, especially with people who have this habit of going back to their old ways. Like Trisha Paytas, when are you gonna learn your lesson? It's also partially good, though, because some people are getting “cancelled" for ridiculous things. With that, it's great that people are moving on to more serious topics. People are very nitpicky on the internet so it's nice for those people to move on.
TOTALIZER: Do you think any influencers you’ve spoken about on your channel are just unforgivable?
REY: I think people can change. I don't think anyone's just flat out unforgivable unless they commit murder or something, or you commit sexual assault like Dirty Dom - so many people have spoken out about him - I don’t think there's anything you can do to come back from that. You’ve changed someone's entire life forever, legally if a victim went forward with this, you would be in jail for like 25 years. If you go and do something that intense then it's unforgivable, but if you're making stupid jokes that are insensitive, you deserve to be held accountable for it but why would you have to give away your life for it?
TOTALIZER: Do you think influencers under the age of 18 should be exempt from cancel culture?
REY: Depends on your definition of cancel culture. I think they should still be held accountable and I think their wrongdoings should still be acknowledged but maybe not to as grave an extent as adults. Just exactly how the justice system works, minors still go to juvie but the length of time is so much shorter. Your brain is still evolving up until the age of 25.
TOTALIZER: With an audience of 168k subscribers, are you ever concerned you might accidentally spread misinformation or an unfair narrative considering that a lot of the drama you report on is ongoing?
REY: Yeah, every day, oh my god. It's kind of like a catch 22 because you try to be really quick with your responses when you are doing anything news-related. If I'm a day late to a video people will comment “cold tea”, but then if you jump too quick into a video, they'll be like “you still haven't waited for this person's response”, “you jumped too quick into making a video” so it's like I can't win. When do I make a video? Do I wait for everyone in a situation to comment? What I'm currently doing right now is I'll post a video, and then I'll keep doing update videos. It kinda looks bad on my channel right now because I have like 20 videos on Gabbie Hannah in a row.
TOTALIZER: It seems especially tricky considering people like Gabbie Hanna and Trisha Paytas make video after video after video on any given situation, you must have to watch a lot of content just to get to the actual news-worthy comments/info.
REY: Yeah, I made a video the other week which was a summary of a three hour phone call between Gabbie Hanna and Jessi Smiles. It took me like seven hours because you have to sit down, you watch, and then you write. It just takes so much longer than the actual length of the video even though I watch the content on double speed. It took ages.
TOTALIZER: Do you feel pressure to quickly form an opinion on a situation in order to get a video out?
REY: Definitely, yeah. There's such a time pressure with these videos yes, because people will lose interest in 24 hours time, but then there's also other channels that are reporting on the same topic, so if you're not the first one to report on something then you might miss out on views, so there's definitely a time pressure. I hate it because I feel like I'm being a bitch to my team cause I’m like “are you available for the next seven hours of your life to get this video up now?” But it's just the nature of the job.
Gabbie Hanna from her current series on addressing past drama
TOTALIZER: What do you think of Gabbie Hanna’s current series?
REY: Oh my god, it backfired terribly. I don't know why she's doing this. I see her perspective on like two of the videos that she made, the other seven or so videos just backfired terribly. I don't know why she's rehashing old drama. She could have definitely handled this so much better. We don't know what's going on in her head though, she might just want to post these for the views because she's earning money from it, but if she's actually trying to get redemption from these, then she's not doing it very well.
TOTALIZER: Gabbie Hanna has previously gone after smaller creators before quite viciously, such as Rachel Oates, considering you’ve made multiple videos about her, are you ever worried she (or anyone else) will go after you?
REY: Oh yeah. People who've been watching my videos for a while now all know my past with Trisha Paytas, so now every time I post a video on her they'll be like “be careful, Trisha’s gonna come for you!” Even with Gabbie, they’ll comment “be careful, don't post this about her.” It's definitely really scary. I have to be really careful now. I don't mind if people talk about me, Trisha Paytas has definitely talked about me and spread false narratives about me and said I was stealing her content. I don’t mind that. What I do mind is copyright strikes that can literally get my channel deleted. So now what I'm really careful about is the clip usage to make sure what I'm doing is fair use, so if it does ever reach a point where I have to defend myself legally, I could.
TOTALIZER: Finally, is it mentally draining for you and your team to have to keep up with so much drama and confrontation all the time?
REY: Yeah definitely, it's a lot, and that's why I've been cutting back on my own hours as well because it takes a mental toll on you, but there's also benefits to it as well because - and this might sound fucked up - but I see myself in a lot of these people that are currently getting backlash online. I've said multiple times that I relate to Gabbie a lot, personality-wise, so when I see the backlash, people saying certain things and reacting in certain ways, I take a mental note of that. That’s the benefit side, that I get to work on myself a little bit more. But yeah, there's definitely pros and cons to it.
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