About

#ReplaceEllen is a Twitter hashtag that began trending in August 2020 as a campaign to replace talk show host Ellen DeGeneres with someone else following news of alleged sexual misconduct behind the scenes at her show Ellen. The allegations follow a year of other controversies involving DeGeneres, including a photo of DeGeneres Sitting with George W. Bush and many tweets that include the hashtag suggest possible replacements.

Origin

In April 2020, Connor S. started the petition "have ellen page host the ellen show" on Change.org^[1] which has garnered over 11,000 signatures in four months. On July 31st, BuzzFeed News^[2] published the article "Dozens Of Former 'Ellen Show' Employees Say Executive Producers Engaged In Rampant Sexual Misconduct And Harassment." On August 2nd, Twitter user @ocio2040^[3] was the first to use the hashtag in a tweet saying, "I think it would be cool to see @cameronesposito #ReplaceEllen. Her podcast is already interesting, and imagine what she could do with a talk show" (shown below, left). Hours later, Twitter user @truth_stan^[4] suggested Wanda Sykes as a replacement in a viral tweet that garnered over 7,100 likes in a day (shown below, right).

Spread

On August 3rd, 2020, Twitter user @prettybabyy69^[5] suggested to "replace ellen with tiffany pollard" and used the hashtag #ReplaceEllen (shown below, left). The post garnered over 5,700 likes in a day. Some Twitter users used the hashtag to spread an unfounded conspiracy linking DeGeneres to Jeffrey Epstein. Twitter user @DeAnna4Congress tweeted, "Let’s #ReplaceEllen with someone who doesn’t like to fondle children?" to which Twitter user @codemonkey85^[6] responded, "Where is this coming from? I've seen a couple Tweets about it but no actual reporting or evidence besides some rumors started in r/conspiracy (and reported by Fox Business, but no other outlets)" (shown below, right).

That same day, Twitter user @speakeronloud shared a video of a person cartwheeling across a highway captioned, "#ReplaceEllen with this guy" (shown below). The post accumulated over 277,700 views and 3,900 likes in a day. The Daily Dot^[7] published an article on #ReplaceEllen memes.

Apology

On September 21st, 2020, DeGeneres apologized and took responsibility for the allegations made against her and her staff. Following a third-part investigation that resulted in the firing of severl executive and co-executive producers, the apology, which came in the form of her season 21 opening monologue was her first public comment on the controversy.

However, some of the former staff that made the allegations found her apology offensive, according to BuzzFeed News.^[8] One said, "When she said, ‘Oh, my summer was great’ and that was supposed to be funny I thought, ‘It’s funny that you had a rough summer because everyone was calling out all of the allegations of your toxic work environment and now you’re the one suffering?" Another said, "I don’t feel sorry that she’s in a shit load of trouble because she branded herself the ‘be kind’ person. She’s acting like it was something she said in passing that just stuck with her. It’s not something that stuck with her, it’s not an accident. She went forward with this idea and this marketing strategy that was not true behind the scenes."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References