Anthony Fantano the music critic behind the YouTube channel, The Needle Drop. The channel has amassed over 3 million subscribers and each review of a popular artist sparks plenty of online discourse.
In the mid-2010s, Fantano ran a side channel called thatistheplan. There, he made surrealist, meme humor videos in a similar vein to other popular creators of the time. Those videos became the subject of an article by The Fader. In 2018, they published an article attempting to paint Fantano as a member of the alt-right in a defamatory manner, leading to Fantano pursuing legal action against the publication.
After, the two parties reached a settlement, and The Fader deleted the article. Now, clips from that era of Anthony Fantano's career are once again resurfacing. He addressed them in a new video uploaded to his self-titled second channel and X.
In the new video, Anthony Fantano mainly addresses two clips. The first is of him using the N-word and the F-slur. Fantano stated that he did not use the phrase to be offensive, and that he was quoting a different creator.
"Early on in my YouTube career, I had some pretty lax views when it came to quoting the language of others," he said in the video. "My point of view was 'what does it matter? It's not me saying it. I'm relaying a lyric or sentiment or point of view expressed by someone else.'" He admitted that quoting the other creator was "in bad form and unnecessary."
"All I can do is take ownership of having quoted these words in this way. And obviously say that I'm sorry. Which, I am, in fact, sorry about this," he said.
Anthony Fantano The Needle Drop
The second clip circulating was one that caused people to suggest that he was laughing at the death of Trayvon Martin, the Black teenager who George Zimmerman fatally in 2012.
"The way this clip has been presented is a lie," he said. He also conceded that the clip did look bad. "It's been heavily edited, too. In this clip that you saw, I am reading a super chat that was sent by a viewer, and the reason I'm jumping into reading it, is partially it is a dig at me. It's not exactly a secret that I'm an openly liberal vegan." He then presented the clip without alterations, where Fantano calls one of the hosts a moron for mixing up Trayvon Martin with YouTuber Tre Melvin.
To conclude the video, he took a shot at DJ Akademiks. His AkademiksTV page (which fans operate but still falls under his umbrella) helped spread the clips. He said that he would not appear on platforms that present ideas he does not agree with.
"People might understandably think I endorse the idea of sexual conversations with underage boys, and I don't," he said, presenting a clip of the controversial personality verbally sexually harassing a young boy. "I'm gonna continue to do my best to make sure that I'm not sending across the wrong idea. Especially considering a lot of the music I review and endorse on a regular basis deals in some heavy and serious topics. Topics I would be completely in opposition to were I a bigoted weirdo."
