Eugenia Cooney: What Led Her to This State? @Eugenia Cooney

Watch on YouTube · 2023-11-13 · 18 min

0:00 Hey guys, a lot of you want me to review some videos by Eugenio Cooney, especially in the last few months. The reason I hadn't done that yet is because it's so hard to talk about a lot of topics on YouTube because of the heavy censorship. I'm still going to do it today. I'm going to be very respectful. The video we are going to watch is called The Psychology of Eugenio Cooney.

[video] 0:20 Whilst Eugenia is known for her incredibly thin physique, there's something even darker going on beneath the surface. To be able to understand what's really going on, we need to go to May 2013, which is Eugenia's first public video on YouTube, where she shows off some of her fav-

0:37 Back then, which was 10 years ago, she already looked underweight for sure, but she was actually alarmingly underweight. Of course, some people may have believed that she just didn't eat enough in that period, and that it's just a phase. At the start, you may have not been able to tell what's going on.

[video] 0:55 ... outfits, and it is clear that she's very thin. In these early videos, Eugenia comes across as quite a bubbly character, and she's fairly articulate in her speech.

1:06 Right, back then when she was around 19, her speech was more or less normal. The thing that people don't talk about when it comes to her is that when you starve, your organs also starve, which means that your brain also starves. Your brain is made out of fat. When you have no body fat left, it literally means that there's also not enough fat left in your brain. The brain is, of course, the organ which tries to keep the fat the most. You will lose fat everywhere, and you will only lose the fat in your brain at the very end. That's when you actually die. It's the most dangerous fad that you could possibly lose. And what we see nowadays is that her speech is oftentimes even incoherent. She stutters a lot. She can't think of the words she wants to say. And that's a typical sign of somebody who has a starved brain.

[video] 1:58 And at this point, Eugenia's fans can actually be seen in the comments engaging with the content in a meaningful way. As the years go by, Eugenia continues to upload similar content. However, with each video, Eugenia seems to become slimmer and slimmer until her bones...

2:11 and slimmer she was obsessed and still is from what I understand with the Tim Burton movies who portrays these skeleton death-like figures, these animations which are supposed to portray death, which is exactly what she's imitating. She's trying to portray this death-like, pale, skeleton-like figure, which is why people are so shocked by seeing her videos, especially for the first time. But even if you watch her for a while, it never really gets better.

[video] 2:45 be seen when fans begin to flood the comments with their concerns for eugenia's mental state in more recent years fans have noticed that the weight loss has taken a real toll on her physical health some have pointed out that her speech has got higher in pitch and squeakier and that she seems to struggle to articulate what she wants to say some people are really good at finding private info and that's true

[video] 3:05 True too, James. Some have also pointed out that her legs are red in colour. Eugenia, your knees are purple. Don't worry, guys, I think my knees are fine. Sorry if they look a little purple to some people right now. Eugenia has also been observed to be having some sort of seizures whilst on her streams, which she actually denies. I move my arm and then I'm having a seizure to some people. That's another thing people like to say lately is that I'm having a seizure, which I definitely have not made that into seizures on stream. So, what has Eugenia said about all of this? In the early days of her internet career, Eugenia does not really address her slim appearance so much. However, in a YouNow clip from 2016, Eugenia tells fans that she's naturally skinny and she denies being unwell. I'm just kind of naturally like this, I guess. Like, here they are, another MC Horseface thing that is not natural and that I'm sick. No, I'm really not. I don't know what your problem is. She seems really happy when reading out comments from fans telling her she looks very thin. Why am I so skinny? I guess this is just me, something.

3:51 Yes, it's clear that she's creating these videos because she likes the attention that she's getting from people on social media, which is why there was even a petition to get her banned. People are afraid that she's influencing young girls to be like her, which would not only make them infertile, obviously, but it would actually make them sound healthy, that it could potentially cause death. Is it a solution to her problems? to get her banned, of course not she will be even more miserable and try to get attention some other way. It won't help anybody who has problems like her. What you two could of course do is force her to put a warning sign before her videos, under her videos, anywhere to warn girls. But of course the girls who are susceptible to this will still fall for whatever she's saying.

4:42 And it's not as if she's directly, necessarily, arguably promoting the way she looks in the sense that she's not saying that you should look like that. But then again, if you dress like that, you show off her body, it's not like she's covering her body, then... It's very strongly implying that she likes the way she looks and that it's at least okay to look like that.

[video] 5:08 In 2016, fans become increasingly worried for Eugenia, and a Change.org petition, titled Temporarily Ban Eugenia Cooney Off of YouTube, goes viral and receives 18,000 signatures. This prompted Eugenia to upload a video titled, I'm Sorry, in which she describes the comments she receives as hate and anger, and she tells fans she's fine. I've just been like a ton of kind of like hate. Seriously, I'm definitely fine. I'm definitely not dead or gonna die right now or anything like that. So don't worry, I'm alive, I'm okay. Eugenia maintains this narrative over the next few years, despite posting a lot of outfit videos in which she shows off her body, and it's clear she's still losing more weight.

5:41 Yeah, why would you make videos showing off your outfits? You're really not showing off the outfits at all, of course. You're only showing off your body in this case.

[video] 5:52 She tells fans that her doctor thinks she's fine and there's nothing wrong with her. My doctor thinks I'm totally fine and there really is nothing to worry about.

6:00 No actual doctor who cares about human health would ever say that. It's just impossible.

[video] 6:07 Just like a lot of people online like to talk about me for some reason like that. Then, in 2019, Eugenia's online activity becomes more infrequent, raising concerns among her fans.

6:17 Until, on February the 10th, Eugenia announced on her Twitter account that she was- The thing is that she could actually be a pretty girl if she wasn't so severely underweight. If she would actually have some fat, collagen, she would look pretty good.

[video] 6:33 taking a break in order to work with her doctor privately. It then became known that Eugenia was put on a psychiatric hold and sent to a locked medical facility for a month long treatment program. We did an intervention and the mental health professionals showed up. They could have walked away and said everything is fine, but they were they were really concerned. So they ended up deciding that they wanted to take her into care. and they ordered something called a 50-150, and it's mandatory. They take you- Involuntary. Yeah. This chapter of Eugenia's life was documented by successful YouTuber Shane Dawson, who released an hour-long YouTube video in July titled The Return of Eugenia Cooney. In this video, Eugenia confirms the decade-long speculation about her eating problems and admits to being unwell. So yes, I was dealing with an eating disorder. This video was received very well by fans, who expressed their relief that Eugenia had finally got help and had seemed to put on a little weight. Eugenia made some follow-up videos, updating viewers on her progress, including documenting what she ate for breakfast, which seemed promising to her fans. However, since then, fans have noticed that Eugenia seems to have lost weight again. Several clips have emerged from her Twitch streams where she appears to be again in denial about her eating problems.

[video] 7:32 But in Shane's video, you said it was an eating disorder. Was that a mistake, or is that what you thought people wanted to hear? Um, maybe I didn't use correct terms. When I was, like, gone, like, I wasn't told really specifically, like, you have this, you have this problem. But didn't you say in the Shane doc that doctors were surprised you were still... Yeah, because they were doctors that weren't really that familiar with me in the past, guys. Like, they were kind of new doctors to me. Going back to when you came back in 2019 was a Twitter statement about... Yeah, that was all scripted. Like, literally. Um, it was, like, written for me. Yeah, I was, like, literally told exactly what to say. Overall, Eugenia's attitude towards recovery and getting help seems to have done a complete 180.

8:12 It's very clear that she doesn't want any help. If you wanted help, then you would help yourself in the first place. People who want help, as in the people who want to be healthy, usually help themselves. Usually you cannot convince somebody to change their life seeing as it has to come from them and the people who want to be happy and healthy do it themselves. She would start eating and so on by herself, if that's what she wanted. No doctor or some kind of so-called specialist will ever be able to come along and help her, seeing as she's trying to portray death. That's why all of the makeup, the black clothes, all of it is portraying very deep-seated unhappiness.

[video] 8:58 shouldn't have approached the authorities and got her help and holds a very negative view of her time in rehab. Since Shane's video, Eugenia has reverted back to posting outfit videos where she shows off her body and seems to be body checking. Eugenia does swimsuit hauls and models revealing clothing showing off her legs, chest and stomach. Her thumbnails are usually quite shocking, exposing her slim physique and drawing the attention of the viewer. Many people accuse Eugenia of doing this deliberately in order to gain as much attention as possible. But when fans express concern, she accuses them of bullying and hate. Eugenia continues to exhibit physical health problems such as redness in her limbs and coughing episodes on camera. She actually can be seen laughing when fans comment on her Twitch streams worrying that she's going to die.

[video] 9:42 I'll try not to. Thanks for not wanting me to die. Um, yeah. I wish Eugenia could be like this again. Well, too bad, because she's not probably ever going to be like that again. So too bad. Sorry. fans continue to encourage her to seek help and get the right support that she needs. Knowing all of this, let's look at the psychology behind Eugenia's struggles. Although only a medical professional can diagnose Eugenia, it seems that she still struggles with the eating problems that she was treated for back in 2019. To understand what's caused this prolonged and difficult battle, we need to look at her childhood, which was pretty lonely. Eugenia reportedly didn't have many friends and was often the victim of bullying at school, which caused her to switch schools multiple times and later be homeschooled. I had to switch schools a couple of different times when I was in school because

10:23 She was bullied in school and now she's creating videos which will only provoke negative attention, which means that a lot of the people who will watch her videos will bully her. Not necessarily on purpose, but it will seem like it to her. There will be a lot of comments which will talk about her appearance, which will seem like bullying to her. She was bullied and now she's still dealing with the same problems. What I'm trying to say here is there's obviously some very deep psychological problems that are causing her to do this.

[video] 10:59 really bad experiences and sometimes I just really, really felt like I couldn't deal with it. In a video uploaded in 2019, Eugenia revealed that bullying was something I dealt with pretty severely from the time I was six basically all the way through to high school. She speaks of being hit in the head with objects, pushed against the wall...

11:16 This makes you wonder how would she be right now if she was treated well, if people actually loved her, if she had a loving family. I don't know really what the family situation is. I know that she lives with her mother who doesn't seem to help her and even... somewhat encourages her behavior. What I'm saying is that maybe she would have turned out to be okay if people wouldn't have bullied her. Obviously bullying is going to mess you up in one way or another. For some people it's more severe. A lot of times girls that are pretty get bullied a lot in school and that's because the other girls are jealous of the pretty girls. That may have been the case for her, which is very unfortunate.

[video] 11:54 ball and kicked onto the table. People hit me in the head with yo-yos and I got like pushed against a wall a couple of times. Other children would also make fun of what she'd wear and how she would do her makeup. I would just wear like some eyeliner or whatever. Later I would have people like calling me emo which I don't really even think is like a bad thing but people would try to stay in like a really like negative like not so nice way towards me and kind of like be really mean about it I guess you could say. Crucially Eugenia would also have others compare their bodies to hers by pulling up their shirts and saying how they were skinnier and prettier than her. like people also they would kind of make like body comparisons between me and them and be like like kind of like like pull up their shirts and be like look like i'm like so much skinnier than you like i'm like a lot prettier than you oh that could for sure be one of the main reasons she ended up like this as a child

12:36 you're so impressionable, which is why if somebody pulls up their shirt and says that they are prettier than you because they are skinnier, then it's going to impregnate your mind. It's going to make you believe that you need to be skinnier to actually be prettier than the others. And if you already get bullied because of this, then it can only end bad.

[video] 12:56 used Facebook to call her ugly and laugh at how pale she was. Eugenia has said that these comments and comparisons have built up over time and started to affect her, and her body populace was pretty low during this time of her life. Eugenia has said that children would gang up on her in school and turn against her.

[video] 13:17 For this reason, she began to feel like there was something wrong with her. Eugenia pursued modeling for a brief time in New York. However, after being asked to remove her online presence and feeling over-controlled, Eugenia decided to instead focus on her online career. Eugenia has also said that in school, other girls would tell her that- Yes, it does look like she was pretty.

13:31 If she wouldn't have destroyed herself like this, then she could have maybe ended up being a model. Who knows?

[video] 13:37 She would not succeed as a model, and that she was not pretty enough, and did not wear the nicest of clothes. She just kind of randomly told me one day, she was like, so you want to be like a model, right? And I was just kind of like, yeah, I guess. And then she was like, well, you can't do that for two reasons. Number one, you're not pretty. And number two, you don't wear pretty clothes. It's clear that the bullying Eugenia faced from a young age impacted on her self-image, and it's likely to be one of the factors in developing the eating problems. I think like with bullying it really can kind of like lead to like eating disorders and self-harm but not trying to see if people are causing the problems can kind of like contribute to like depression and anxiety and a lot of mental health problems. So now we're going to look at Eugenia's family in order to get a better idea of what her upbringing was like. Fans have expressed their concerns over the years about Eugenia's mum. In a live stream during 2020, Eugenia asks her mum's permission to go upstairs and collect her games console. Is my Switch still upstairs?

[video] 14:20 Can I, like, get it? Some fans have pointed out that Eugenia is an adult who still lives at home, doesn't drive, and seems to have to ask her mum for permission to do simple things like this. I've never really, like, moved out before, so, yeah. During Shane's documentary, fans were also concerned by the large metal bar that's put across the door to look in. It's very heavy. Yeah, there's... Oh, my God. There's, like, a lot one day, and...

[video] 14:43 Someone is far to say that Eugenia is being kept locked up. Eugenia's mum has appeared in quite a few of her videos and has also been known to film and take pictures for Eugenia. By supporting her online activity, in which she flaunts her slim physique in revealing outfits, many fans worry that Eugenia's mum is encouraging Eugenia's behaviours. Some speculate that she takes a percentage of Eugenia's earnings or receives gifts from Eugenia, and this is why she supports what Eugenia does online. But that's so strange to say that as a mother that she takes good care of herself

15:37 It's really strange.

[video] 15:39 Exactly, we're all different. But she does take good care of herself. Exactly. In one video, Eugenia also claims that her mum disapproves of fans worrying about her weight, advising Eugenia that they're bullies. She ignored chat. My mum's not concerned about my weight. No, that was her question. I've known her my whole life. I know her blood work and her

16:01 This whole thing makes me think of the Munchausen syndrome, especially because of the attention. Her mother may be keeping her sick, so to speak, because she wants her to stay home. You have all of those toys around her. It's as if she wants to keep her to herself for the rest of her

[video] 16:21 Fans have thrown around several other accusations, calling her mum creepy, mentally unstable, saying she's abusing alcohol or even using drugs.

[video] 16:36 Oh, what a beautiful day. However, this is all speculation and there's no real evidence to support these claims. No, I mean because of their issues with... Uh, my mom doesn't have issues with alcohol. One thing for sure, though, is that Eugenia really needs a positive support network around her during this difficult time in order to help her have the best shot at recovery.

16:56 It's kind of hard to hope that she will get any help from her family or friends if the closest human being to her, which is her mother, doesn't even see anything wrong with how she looks like. You could believe that she needs an intervention, but like I said, people like this who don't actually want any help, who don't actually see a problem with the way they are, won't ever be helped unless they want to help, and she clearly doesn't, which is why I don't really see any way to actually help her, as in from the outside. If she would have grown up surrounded by loving people, if her family would have loved her, also her peers in school especially, and if she would have ate natural food humans are supposed to eat, then she would have been biochemically a different human being. But when you get bullied and you eat a completely wrong diet,

17:55 which means that you're biochemically already sick and then you are exposed to Tim Burton movies and all of this garbage, then you associate yourself more so with those characters than with natural, happy and healthy human beings, which is why she was drawn to that. And once you are drawn to it and you get into it, then there's hardly really any chance of getting out of it. Thanks for watching.