Insider poll shows some of the most disliked influencers on the internet, from Jake Paul to Jeffree Star

• Insider surveyed 1,000 people to figure out how well certain influencers are known and liked.
• Data revealed which personalities had high unfavorability rankings.
• Controversial YouTuber-cum-boxer Jake Paul topped the list, with his brother Logan in second.

In the digital influencer world, courting controversy can be an effective business strategy. Some of YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram's biggest names have risen to fame by building their platforms on scandal; in the case of some online personalities like Jake Paul (more on him later) cancelation actually serves to prolong their career.

Insider polled 1,040 people to survey their feelings and level of familiarity with over 60 of social media's biggest names, with participants marking whether or not they knew a particular influencer or celebrity and whether their opinion of them was favorable or unfavorable. This included household names like Jake and Logan Paul, YouTube "supervillains" like Onision, and personalities who incorporated controversy into their brand like Instagram influencer and writer Caroline Calloway. We then looked at what percentage of people who knew about an influencer had an unfavorable opinion of them.

The data reveals influencers who, while known to the general public at varying levels, ranked highest among those whom survey participants had a negative opinion.

10. Tana Mongeau

Tana Mongeau had become one of YouTube's biggest stars by the time she hit 21 years old, mixing work online with traditional celebrity. Insider's Kat Tenbarge called her "Gen Z's Paris Hilton," and amid reality shows and vlogs, she's well-known in online circles. Still, she's been dogged by her fair share of controversy, from her disastrous 2018 TanaCon, to a brief marriage to controversial Youtuber Jake Paul, to racist comments that she made in the past.

Out of those surveyed, 12.1% knew Tana Mongeau. 46% had an unfavorable opinion of her and 18.3% had a positive one.

9. Keemstar

Daniel "Keemstar" Keem, was a pioneer of the YouTube drama channel, breaking down influencer shenanigans with the tabloid scrutiny afforded to mainstream celebrities. Since launching his famous DramaAlert channel in 2014, he's become a controversial figure in the community with a brand that, as he told reporter Steven Asarch at Newsweek in 2020, leaves him "half-loved and half-hated by design." In 2020, his sponsorship with energy drink company G Fuel ended (with Keem saying that he "walked away") following a video from h3h3Productions' Ethan Klein that raised claims that Keem had exploited Etika, a YouTuber who died by suicide in 2019.

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Out of those surveyed, 9.3% were aware of who Keemstar was and 47.4% had an unfavorable opinion of him, with 24.7% skewing favorable.

8. Caroline Calloway

Caroline Calloway rose as a controversial influencer figure in 2019, garnering mainstream media coverage across the board. An Instagram influencer who currently has 678,000 followers on the platform, has turned the accusations that she's a scam artist into a personal brand after a workshop she planned went awry in 2019. Later, her former ghostwriter authored a story for The Cut about how she used to help Calloway write the stories that appeared on her Instagram. Out of those surveyed, 3.2% knew Calloway, a surprise given the widespread mainstream media attention that she's received in the past. 48.5% had an unfavorable opinion of her, while 36.4% had a favorable opinion.

7. Zoe LaVerne

19-year-old Zoe LaVerne, a TikToker with over 17.5 million followers, has been embroiled in controversy for much of her career. In late 2020, a leaked video appeared to show her kissing a 13-year-old fan that LaVerne said she had "caught feelings" for. Prior to that, she had indefinitely split from her ex-boyfriend Cody Orlove amid abuse allegations and also been called out for making disparaging comments about Charli D'Amelio, TikTok's most-followed creator. In November 2020, she said that she was seeking mental health treatment and took a brief hiatus online, but has since resumed posting.

Out of those surveyed, 5.8% knew LaVerne, with 55.7% responding that they had an unfavorable opinion of her and 27.9% skewing favorable.

6. Jeffree Star

Jeffree Star is one of the oldest - and biggest - figures in the beauty YouTube community, building a beauty empire with his company Jeffree Star Cosmetics. He's also one of its most contentious. In 2020, Insider's Kat Tenbarge investigated claims of sexual assault against Star, with documents appearing to show that a Jeffree Star Cosmetics executive had paid one of Star's accusers $45,000 in a hush-money payment.

Star's tenure as an influencer was reflected in his numbers, with 22.5% of survey respondents knowing who he was. However, his controversies also shone through: 55.7% had an unfavorable opinion of him, while 19.6% had a favorable one.

5. Jacob Sartorius

It's a bit baffling that Jacob Sartorius, the 18-year-old star who rose to fame on Musical.ly in the latter half of the 2010s, is on this list in between Jeffree Star and Onision. Still, even back in 2016 when Sartorius was 13 years old, one teen told Insider that "everybody either loves him or hates him." Since then, Sartorius has continued making music and was in an on-again, off-again relationship with "Stranger Things" star Millie Bobby Brown.

Out of those surveyed, 10.1% knew who Jacob Sartorius was. 57.1% had an unfavorable opinion of him while 11.4% had a favorable one.

4. Onision

Onision, a YouTuber who got his start in 2007 and whose real name is James "Greg" Jackson, was a popular creator who went viral for his "Banana Song" in 2009. However, his fall from grace, as Insider's Lindsay Dodgson reported, was one of the most intense in YouTube history. In 2019, six women accused him of harassment and emotional abuse and he was banned from Patreon; most recently, he was removed from YouTube's partner program, meaning that his videos will no longer be monetized. He's previously disputed abuse allegations.

While only 6.8% of survey respondents knew who Onision was, he was in the top five of most unfavorable influencers for which Insider surveyed opinion. 59.2% had an unfavorable opinion of him, and 23.9% found him to be favorable.

3. Trisha Paytas

Trisha Paytas has been an internet mainstay since the late 2000s, when she got her start on YouTube and furthered her fame through appearances on programs like "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "America's Got Talent." A big name on both YouTube and TikTok, she's been involved in numerous public feuds over the course of her career and is known for sharing details about her personal life on YouTube.

An undeniable fixture of the influencer landscape, 11.3% of survey respondents knew who Paytas was. 66.1% had an unfavorable opinion of her, with 15.3% saying that they held her in a favorable light.

2. Logan Paul

Logan Paul ascended to online fame in 2013 when he and his brother Jake Paul began posting to short-form video app Vine, later moving onto YouTube after Vine shut down. Known for wild stunt videos, he's a controversial online personality, due in large part to a January 2018 video that showed Paul filming what appeared to be a dead body in Japan's Aokigahara forest. That video drew widespread backlash, but as Insider's Lindsay Dodgson reported, he's managed to orchestrate a redemption arc of sorts over the past several years and is generally considered to have a better reputation than his brother, Jake, a notion also reflected in Insider's data. Logan Paul is the most well-known influencer on this list, with 30.6% of respondents saying that they knew who he was and putting him close to other big-name internet personalities like Joe Rogan, who was known by 37.2% of those surveyed. However, 68% had an unfavorable opinion of him, with 13.5% still holding a favorable one.

1. Jake Paul

Controversy has propelled the younger Paul brother, Jake, to greater and greater heights of fame since he and his brother became internet famous in the 2010s. Booted from the Disney Channel show "Bizaardvark" in 2017 after his West Hollywood neighbors said that he had turned the street into a "war zone." He's been accused of scamming his young followers more than once, come under fire for using slurs, and posting videos some said were inappropriate for his young audience.

Most recently, he was charged with trespassing in Arizona after footage of him at a mall where looting and vandalism were occurring circulated online; he's also thrown parties at his home in Calabasas, CA during the COVID-19 pandemic and law enforcement seized what seemed to be large guns from his home during an August FBI raid. Later in 2020, he told The Daily Beast's Marlow Stern that he thought that COVD-19 was a "hoax." He's currently pursuing a boxing career.

Paul was the most-disliked influencer that Insider polled opinions of and was known by 29.5% of respondents. 71.4% had an unfavorable opinion of him, while 12.7% had a favorable one.

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Polling data collected 1,040 respondents December 24, 2020 with a 3 percentage point margin of error.