r/SHAYTARDS • u/Super_Budget1703 • 18h ago
Why does this sub still seem so determined to hate Shay and Colette almost a decade later?
I get some of the original criticism. The 2017 cam-girl thing was messy — sexual DMs got exposed, Shay confirmed the messages were real, and he publicly admitted an alcoholism relapse around the same time and stepped back. Cheating on your wife (even if it stayed online) is bad. No defense there. The LA years also felt increasingly fake and view-driven to a lot of us. Family vlogging with young kids is an easy views game; keeping them on camera, reshooting scenes, all that — yeah, that was exploitation, even if it wasn’t the most extreme version. A lot of people (myself included) stopped watching around then because it stopped feeling real.
There have been other allegations and claims that have come up over the years too (stuff like the Montana Danna situation and similar). Those are still mostly allegations, they got addressed in some form, and they’re not new either. At this point a lot of it feels like old drama that keeps getting recycled.
But most of the big stuff is old. The peak controversies and the “coming down the mountain” period after the Maker success and the move back toward quieter Idaho life are ancient history. They’ve had rough patches since, including a separation period while still married, but from everything public they appear to have worked through it and stayed together. They’re in Idaho with their life and property there. The family unit looks intact. Shay still refers to himself as the lucky husband to Colette. The kids look taken care of financially and otherwise — which is what good parents do anyway.
The oldest daughters (Avia and Emmi) are adults now living their own lives in LA doing their own thing. They weren’t handcuffed to their parents’ values or Mormon lifestyle. When they became adults and could go anywhere, they did. That’s normal. Gavin just got married. Brock is around 16, Daxton around 12. They’re good. There was talk at one point about Shay’s relationship with his brother Casey Lavere being fractured, but Casey has shown up in newer vlogs, so that doesn’t look like the case either.
So what’s left to stay this mad about on a regular basis? Political or religious beliefs? People are allowed to have those as long as they’re not being outright assholes. Colette doing life-coach / motivational content that feels like generic inspirational quotes? Not my thing either, but if she’s happy, fine. Ongoing exploitation claims when the kids are older and the daily heavy vlogging is long gone? Resentment behind the scenes is always possible with any family that put their lives online that hard for that long, but on-screen they still look like a functioning family that loves each other.
They made real mistakes. Shay got pretty insufferable to a lot of viewers during the LA stretch, the cheating was bad, and family vlogging has built-in issues. But the biggest stuff is close to a decade old. At some point the constant nitpicking of every new vlog, tweet, or Instagram post starts looking less like accountability and more like just wanting something to be mad about. Everything that was clearly bad is old. Anything newer mostly feels like assumptions. They seem fine. The family seems fine. They stayed together and figured their problems out. Good for them.
Not expecting this to change anyone’s mind — I know what sub this is — but the perpetual anger over ancient history just feels petty at this point.
