Cameron Dallas may have made his name producing funny videos on Vine, but today, he’s moving onto bigger streaming services. His new show, Chasing Cameron, hit Netflix on Dec. 27 and, as Dallas tells Bustle, it is an opportunity for fans to “see what really happens and what really goes down” in his everyday life. Some of it is fun and games, some is business, and some could be controversial. Take, for instance, Dallas bringing fallen Vine star Carter Reynolds back to MagCon (a popular Vine meet-and-greet convention) and therefore showing him on Chasing Cameron, a decision Dallas defends on the basis of loyalty.
Carter Reynolds is, like Dallas and fellow Vine star Nash Grier, someone who got his start making six-second video clips on the social media platform Vine, which parent company Twitter announced it was shutting down in October. According to Business Insider, as of early 2015, Reynolds was making thousands of dollars and reaching a fan base in the millions with his Vines. Brands were also starting to take notice and major companies all clamored to work with Reynolds.
Reynolds was on the rise until, according to Gawker, a YouTube video was leaked in June 2015 (it has since been taken down) that showed a then-19-year-old Reynolds pushing his then-16-year-old girlfriend (Maggie Lindemann, an internet star and also a singer) into performing oral sex on him on camera. According to Gawker, Lindemann allegedly says in the video, “This makes me so uncomfortable, I’m really uncomfortable,” as Reynolds chants “Do it!” Reynolds apologized via Twitter (you can read his apology below) and about a month later, according to Superfame, Lindemann tweeted that though she's "not excusing any of [Reynolds'] actions," Reynolds never raped her, and asked fans to stop calling him a rapist. By the time the video had been leaked, Reynolds and Lindemann had already broken up and gotten back together multiple times, as teenagers are wont to do.
Post-apology, Business Insider reported, Reynolds trashed Lindemann in a YouTube stream, got into public arguments, and was thrown out of VidCon. Brands dropped Reynolds like a hot potato, and his reputation was soured (it still really hasn’t recovered).
The question then is, why did Dallas decide to bring Reynolds, a controversial figure, to say the least, to MagCon and onto his show after Reynolds' scandal? "MagCon's brand is a family and it shows, so I feel like it's important that no matter what, you're there for people,” Dallas tells Bustle. “You don't just desert them when they have trouble.”
When we asked how he chose who of his MagCon friends would appear on the show, Dallas says, “They were just a part of MagCon at the time. That's how it is.”
Reynolds, however, is no longer a part of MagCon. He left the tour in March 2016, as reported by J-14, following a series of combative tweets in which he attacked the tour and claimed that he never felt like he was being treated like family. In response, Dallas simply tweeted, "Wish people knew the whole situation before they judged."
Though Chasing Cameron offers Dallas and Reynolds’ millions of teens fans a chance to see more of that situation, the only thing they really need to know is that Reynolds’ prior behavior was completely unacceptable.
Additional reporting by Samantha Rullo
