Nick Galvin

Professor Owens
English 1001
30 September 2015
An Analysis of the Writing Style of I Hate Myselfie
Shane Dawson wrote I Hate Myselfie in essay form in order to appeal to his audience and
convey his message. Shane Dawson has experience as a YouTube vlogger, actor, podcaster, and
director. In his collection of essays I Hate Myselfie, he delves into embarrassing and meaningful
subjects and events from his past, including growing up obese and being bullied, as well as his
experience of overcoming his insecurities and becoming an adult. He writes about his memories
from his on point of view, so his trustworthiness as an author can be called into question at times,
such as during exchanges between him and other people that seem extremely outlandish. This is
due to his skewed and biased vision of the world, as well as his tendency to make jokes about the
people and situations that he encounters. The essays are written from his own introspective point
of view as he comments about how the events have had an impact on his life. As an essayist,
Dawson tries to achieve his overall message that an introverted, invisible, and obese teenager can
become anything, by approaching each essay as an independent piece of writing, as well as
appeal to his target audience of young adults and teenagers who may have a relatively short
attention span.
In his book, Dawson includes eighteen essays that give his point of view on events that
happened in his past. Each essay is independent and has no relation to the others. One example
of this is the first time he introduces his brother to the reader in Dennys and Death. His words

are, it was a night of me and my brother Jerid constantly checking our phones to see if we had a
text from our mom saying Shes gone and then some kind of terribly conceived sad-face
emoticon (73). Prior to this chapter, Dawson had made no mention of any siblings,
grandparents, aunts, uncles or even a father. This makes it difficult to relate to him emotionally
because it makes the reader wonder how much they actually know about him, and how much he
does not tell. This is one of the drawbacks of this writing style. When each chapter is an
individual writing, introducing people in chapters that they do not feature prominently becomes
very difficult. Questions of his credibility are also validated in My Girl (Space) Friends when
he comments about himself and his friend that, Im pretty sure she was schizophrenic and Im
pretty sure I was a pathological liar (136). This all but confirms suspicions that he has not been
entirely truthful in his recounting of these stories. It does not help his message if his readers
think that he is lying to them. Whether it is just embellished dialogue or entirely made up
stories, as a reader, one is much less likely to fully grasp the message or keep interest if they
know they are not being told the complete truth. Another example is in The Original Catfish
where the essays are clearly out of chronological order. The previous chapter takes place when
Dawson is twenty-one, probably around 2010, but just on the next page, he writes I ran over to
my old Dell laptop and pried it open. This was 2002 (43). Placing the essays out of order is a
logical flaw as it becomes harder for the reader to understand the book as a whole. Another
effect is that his essayist style breaks up the flow of the writing. The logic behind this could
partially be to parallel how his past was not a smooth story, but instead rough.
Dawson has a target audience of high school aged kids to young adults in their early to
mid-twenties. People in this age range generally have a shorter attention span than older people.
Dawson uses this to his advantage as an essayist. In order to appeal to his audience, each of his

essays can be read separately without any context missing. An example of this is the essay The
Original Catfish. In this chapter, even though he has already established that he was unpopular
in high school, Dawson tells the reader, I wasnt the cool kid. I wasnt even the nerdy kid, I was
the invisible kid (43). As a reader of the previous essays, Dawson is already portrayed as a shy,
awkward, unpopular kid. Repeating this in another chapter would be redundant in any other
style of writing, but as an essayist, it becomes necessary. This style of short individual essays
caters to how his audience of young adults and teens are used to and prefer to obtain information
that has been made popular by technology and the innovations in communication that it has
brought, such as text messaging, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. His technique is
demonstrated in the introduction after he points out that his online persona is drastically different
from the person he actually is. He writes, If you go through my Instagram feed, its like a flip
book of me thinking Im WAY more attractive than I am. Its nauseating. But feel free to follow
me at @SHANEDAWSON! You can also follow me on Twitter (3). This excerpt shows that
Dawson intends to appeal to his target audience by using social references that they would
understand and relate to. Logically, this makes a lot of sense. It is very common for writers to
use this tactic, especially essayists.
As an essayist, Dawson tries to achieve his overall message that an introverted, invisible,
obese teenager can become anything, by approaching each essay as an independent piece of
writing, as well as appeal to his target audience of young adults and teenagers who may have a
relatively short attention span. In I Hate Myselfie, Dawsons use of essays is an effective attempt
at appealing to a young audience and drawing their interest. However, the use of essays was not
as successful at conveying his overall message as a style that would connect the chapters more,

like that of an autobiography, would be. The issues of his reliability also negatively affect how
he is perceived by his readers.

Works Cited
Dawson, Shane. I Hate Myselfie: A Collection of Essays. New York: First Keywords, 2015. Print.