Isabella "onlyjayus" Avila is one of TikTok's largest creators, amassing over 13.6 million followers during their time on the app. They mainly post "Psychology Tricks" and informational science TikTok's, although they have diversified, branching out onto different platforms. Their Twitch account, on which they mainly stream Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, has 169K followers while their YouTube channel has 1.15 million subscribers. All in all, onlyjayus has a huge following and stands as a massive creator on multiple platforms.
Despite their seemingly uncontroversial brand of informational content, onlyjayus has been no stranger to controversy during their time on TikTok. Recently, this controversy came to light as they have become the subject of a Change.org petition with over 347,000 signatures, calling for them to be banned. As is the case with most petitions of similar nature, the goal may be more so to express disapproval of the creator, rather than actually de-platform them. Whether or not it results in a ban, the petition raises a handful of legitimate concerns that have evidently angered the TikTok community.
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TikTok users are pretty riled up about the onlyjayus petition, but a lot of the complaints levied against them are fairly vague. The springboard for the petition appears to be screenshots of a leaked text conversation, the legitimacy of which has since been confirmed by onlyjayus. The screenshots showed onlyjayus using both homophobic and racial slurs, as well as other toxic insults. In the fallout of those text conversations, onlyjayus was criticized for using black creators before ultimately ghosting them. Onlyjayus did release an apology video, however, this was widely panned by their audience for appearing inauthentic.
The petition does name a number of other complaints, the most pressing of which concerning a now-deleted TikTok that was deemed ableist. The TikTok, which was labeled "Illegal Life Advice" was a satirical life hack video in which onlyjayus describes how the viewer could steal a wallet from a person with a service dog. The intent of this was clearly to be humorous, but the content was mean-spirited and came at the expense of people with disabilities.
As mentioned, onlyjayus has since addressed the leaked texts in an apology which contained a number of promises to collaborate with black creators going forward. These collaborations have not taken place and, in fact, creators @seansvv and @auntkaren0 have shared their experiences of being ignored following the promise of a collaboration or a discussion. Onlyjayus also deleted an initial apology shortly after it was posted, which the Change.org petition claims was ghostwritten.
While it's unclear how the creator of the petition plans to do this, they have the sole goal of a TikTok ban for onlyjayus. A petition update at 300K further clarified the creator Vanellope Von Addams' next steps. The update claims that there are creators planning on coming out with their stories about onlyjayus, as well as stating their own plans to garner more media coverage from their perspective. While the petition originally didn't offer much of a roadmap to its ultimate goal, onlyjayus has since offered a clear target for the petition on one of their TikTok accounts.
Onlyjayus has taken quite a relaxed approach to the petition, openly mocking it since its creation. They took to Twitter, laughing the petition off and wishing the creator luck in receiving 13.5 million signatures, the number of followers onlyjayus has on TikTok. They also posted a TikTok to one of their secondary accounts in which they signed the petition, bought page views, and claimed that they would ban themselves from the app if the petition got 13.5 million signatures. This clearly shows their confidence in the fact that the petition will ultimately go nowhere, but it does provide apt motivation for those who wish to see them removed from TikTok.
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