Randy Rainbow

Submission 4,594

About

Randy Rainbow is an American YouTuber and comedian, known for musical parody videos of popular songs with a political message and spoof interviews with political and public figures. Randy Rainbow is his real name.

History

Randy Rainbow launched his YouTube^[1] account on June 23rd, 2006, but did not post his first video three years. Before producing videos, Rainbow ran a blog called Randy Rainbow's "Bloggity Blahg-Blahg," ^[2] a news and gossip website focused on Broadway theater, which he started in 2007

On May 4th, 2009, Rainbow posted his first video, "Miranda Gives Voice Lessons to Randy Rainbow," which features YouTuber and comedian Miranda Sings. Within 12 years, the video received more than 42,000 views (shown below, left).

Two years later, on January 25th, 2011, Rainbow released one of his earliest interview spoofs, "American Idol Audition," which features him singing before clips of reaction from American Idol hosts. The post received more than 815,000 views in less than 10 years (shown below, right).

Rainbow continued to produce video throughout the 2010s. On April 6th, 2017, his video "Randy Rainbow Interviews Ivanka Trump" became his first to reach more than 1 million views (shown below).

In 2019 and 2020, Randy Rainbow's YouTube series The Randy Rainbow Show was nominated for two respective Emmy awards for "Outstanding Short Form Variety Series." ^[3]^[4]

Criticisms

Allegations of Racism and Transphobia

On August 17th, 2020, social media users uncovered and reposted several early tweets made by Randy Rainbow. The tweets feature language, jokes and opinions considered to be racist among many online. That day, Twitter^[5] user @DuckAlertsNOW posted several tweets by Rainbow that joke about and use stereotypes mocking Black people. The tweet received more than 8,000 likes and 845 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, left).

Others shared tweets in which Rainbow uses the word "tranny," a derogatory term for transgender people. Twitter^[6] user @spookperson retweeted a tweet that reads, "That awkward moment when you yell 'What up tranny?!' to Leah Remini as she passes you on the street and it turns out to be an actual tranny." After Rainbow deleted the tweet, @spookperson posted a block of other posts that feature the word (shown below, center). Twitter^[7] user @Lubchansky shared their attempts at contacting Rainbow over the tweets. They wrote, "that's so weird?? i was just asking questions after he deleted some of these. weird. can someone get him to unblock me, a randy superfan? thanks tweeps!" The tweet received more than 3,000 likes and 370 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

Cuomosexual

Cuomosexual is a hashtag created in praise of New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo during the Coronavirus outbreak.

On April 6th, 2020, YouTuber Randy Rainbow posted a musical parody praising Andrew Cuomo, set to the tune of "Sandy" from the musical Grease. In the song, he uses the line "I identify as Cuomosexual." The song gained over 326,000 views on YouTube. Randy Rainbow also tweeted the video, gaining over 13,000 retweets and 49,000 likes.^[1]