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Ashley Cashner
Mrs. Owens
English 1001
26 September 2015
Silver Linings through Shane Dawsons Eyes
If you like curse words, inappropriate jokes, and references only teenagers would
understand, then I Hate Myselfie is the book for you. In the book I Hate Myselfie, Shane Dawson
creates multiple essays describing small stories of issues or problems he had throughout his life.
Within each essay Dawson learns something from the situation and finds out that even the bad
things always have a silver lining. Shane Dawson is credible for the writing of the book because
he himself wrote each essay about something that happened to him personally. He is a YouTube
sensation, actor, comedian, director and he has won awards for his YouTube videos. A lot of
people would want to read a book about him and what he has experienced just because of how
well-known of a person he is and how much he has achieved. Given this, Dawsons essays make
a strong attempt to relate to problems, make references, and use a specific type of
inappropriate/humorous language in order to intrigue a teenage audience.
Dawsons audience is teenagers and you can tell by the references he makes in the book
that only young people would understand. In one of the chapters Dawson is talking about how he
started loving Canada so much and went on to describe the reasons why he might. He says,
Maybe it was the imaginary relationship I had with Avril Lavigne when I was thirteen? Or
maybe it was the moment Jimmy got shot on Degrassi, which made me empathize with the
whole country. (31). Dawson may seem worth listening to and more interesting to his young
audience because of what references he decided to use to describe what he was speaking about.

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He chose things that related to him while also choosing things his audience would see and say,
Oh wow I remember when that happened, that was years ago. When the reader is triggered and
says something like this, they realize that they have shared a similar experience to Dawson and
connect with him. Dawson explains that these goofy events that we may have also experienced
are the logical reason why he may have liked Canada so much. Only a young audience who
understood the reference would understand what he meant. Both popular years ago, Avril
Lavigne was born in Canada and Degrassi was a television show made in Canada but also aired
in the United States.
Many people can relate to some of the things that Dawson spoke about throughout his
book. For example, being shy and trying not to cause any attention towards himself, Dawson
says, As a kid all I wanted was to be invisibleI was never the class clown, and I did
everything I could to make myself blend into the background. (96). Dawson shows his audience
what kind of kid he was in the past and it allows a certain part of the audience that felt the same
way as he did to connect with Dawson personally. This makes the audience feel like Dawson is
interesting and credible for his writing because they can relate to him. They relate to him on an
emotional level because they know how it feels to just want to blend in the background and not
come out of your shell. This makes them feel better about the difficult things they faced
throughout their lives. The reason that Dawson mentioned these awkward periods was to point
out that he did go through times where he felt like he had to hide from everyone surrounding
him, but now he has overcome his fear and feels better about seeing people and interacting. This
lesson he learned ties in with the message he is trying to send to audience that it gets better.
The language Dawson uses is usually harsh and involves a good amount of curse words,
which is similar to the stereotypical teenagers today. In one of the chapters, Dawsons hair

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dresser cuts a little too much of his hair and Dawson responds saying, Am I OK WITH THAT?!
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME, YOU BARELY GED-ACHIEVING, TACKY-DRESSED
SNAGGLE-TOOTHED CUNT?! NO! This was NOT ok! (12). Dawson chose to use language
that is common and accepted in everyday language with teenagers. His audience may have been
more intrigued when they realized that the author of the book speaks in a similar manner to them
and that it was an easy read. Dawson changed the audiences emotions and the way they were
feeling by making them feel more similar to him as the author. The reasoning why he chose to
use these words was so that he could express how upset he was with his haircut. When people
curse, a lot of the time it is because someone is upset about something. By him doing this, it
allowed the audience to get a taste of exactly how he was feeling at that moment.
Body image is a common insecurity with young people and one of Dawsons struggles
that he brings up multiple times are issues with how his body looked. Dawson says, After high
school I lost about 150 pounds, and I still had all the stretched-out, saggy skin. My body looked
like that painting with all those melting clocks. My droopy chest and hangy stomach were like
cartoon frowny faces. (85-86). By Dawson talking about his insecurities with his body, it helped
the audience want to read more because some may have had a similar experience sometime in
their life or may still be experiencing it. They may feel like Dawson is creditable for his writing
and want to read more about how he faced his insecurities. When Dawson spoke about how he
had self-image problems this may have made people feel sentimental. Any insecurity that
someone has is a touchy subject and normally not wanted to be brought up, so it makes the
person feel emotional. Dawsons intentions in doing this may have been to show what he has
gone through and so that people will feel like they are not alone with their problems.

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The different situations that Dawson went through in his essays really correlates to what
teenagers experience in their lives growing up. Teenagers may not be able to relate to exactly
every situation he went through, but the point is that teenagers have gone through similar
situations as Dawson did. Dawsons book is a great read because it does not only allow someone
to relate to one situation, it allows someone to relate to multiple situations within each of the
essays. His purpose when writing this book was to let the reader know that yes, things do happen
where you will be put into difficult and uncomfortable decisions, but it will get better with time.
He sent this message out to the reader with a pattern. Within each essay there was a situation
occurring, but by the end of each story it showed him receiving a learning experience from what
had happened and he did this in an effective, successful manner.