I’m not proud of this fact, but when I need something to fall asleep to, I turn to YouTube. That exercise often leads me to Tana Mongeau, a freshly 21-year-old YouTuber, and her incredibly messy, completely fabricated and fabulous life.
After breaking up with her boyfriend of at least five-months, Brad Sousa—a Canadian who rose to fame by looking like a bootleg Justin Bieber, and for fooling everyone into thinking he was the real Justin Bieber biting into the middle of a burrito, not unlike a demon eating a small child—Mongeau began shacking up with Jake Paul, brother to Logan Paul (a YouTuber who most recently got into trouble for filming a gratuitous video of a corpse in the Aokigahara Suicide Forest at the foot of Japan’s Mount Fuji. #Content is lyfe, baby.)
According to every celebrity tabloid, Jake proposed to Tana at her 21st birthday party and the pair are now engaged to be married. In the past few months, Tana and Jake’s vlogs have been delightfully innocuous and purposefully vague, teasing a relationship without confirming anything and leaving those following along—namely, me—with two big questions: Is any part of their partnering, #JANA, real? And does it really matter?
After carving myself deep into an internet rabbit hole, I have a few answers.
WHAT?
According to Cosmopolitan, after two months of dating Tana and Jake were betrothed in Las Vegas, while celebrating Mongeau’s first legal drink. It appears the former Disney starlet proposed to his fellow YouTuber at something called “Drai’s Beachclub Nightclub” on Sunday, June 23, which Tana confirmed at 4:30 am the following Monday. That’s called romance, sheeple:
Twelve hours later, the only celebrity who matters, Bella Thorne, (and Mongeau’s ex), tweeted the following:
Thorne “alluded” to the fact that she “may or may not be” crying over it:
It also appears that Jake bought Tana a Geländewagen, my favorite SUV since childhood and a vehicle I’m still salty influencers have decided is cool, therefore inflating the price beyond Mercedes-Benz’s regular bullshit. You’re not reading Jalopnik:
For what it is worth, Tana doesn’t have her license, or a permit. Just three weeks ago she posted a video of Jake teaching her how to drive:
They deserve each other!
WHY GET ENGAGED?
For real, true love.
Just kidding. The clout, obviously. Both Jake and Tana have massive followings, but combining them by posting joint content—with the heightened reality-show arch of a wedding—is an ingenuous biz move. Both have been posting regular vlogs of their escapades together, including pregnancy scares, and the following headlines: “i low key have a secret girlfriend,” “i got matching tattoos with Jake Paul,” “The secret behind our relationship..,” “our first time making out on camera..,” and “The truth about Tana sleeping in my bed..”
Paul is an untrustworthy narrator; his Internet life differs from interview to interview, Disney to YouTube. While Mongeau is often championed for her brazen, messy authenticity, she’s also an expert ironist. The combination makes their relationship, if it is real, hard to believe—and if it’s a sham, a bit too realistic to fully discount. That nebulous mix of life and fiction fits cleanly into the perpetual trend of YouTubers making shit up. A fake proposal isn’t a crazy leap. Or even a real one, taken seemingly for the purposes of content: Compare this news to 22-year-old David Dobrik, leader of the Vlog Squad, who recently and legally wed his 46-year-old best friend Jason Nash’s mother, Lorraine Nash. They separated quickly, but his “I MARRIED MY BEST FRIENDS MOM!! (PROPOSAL)” did 8.2 million views, so maybe they’re onto something.
Which brings us to ring-gate. E! interviewed Ira Weissman, founder of The Diamond Pro, who said Tana’s engagement ring is likely fake.
“You can see the exaggerated sparkling light reflecting off of something in the bottom right of the frame in the beginning of the clip,” Weissman said, “This is exactly what you would want to use to try to enhance the sparkle of a simulated diamond to make it look like the real thing.”
Personally, disrespecting the sanctity of marriage is something I can get behind, but also, all of this is impossibly stupid.
OKAY?
Okay! That’s it.
I fully expect a video detailing their pseudo-engagement in the near future, and I fully expect it to break 10 million views. That, or Mongeau pulled this stunt exclusively for her forthcoming MTV reality show Tana Turns 21. To each their own.
DISCUSSION
You know, sometimes I think about how exciting it is that I get to marry my partner soon, when it would not have been legal at all a handful of years ago. And that I get to legally call her my family, and imagine us growing into sassy weird old ladies together.
And then I read stuff like this and remember any trash bag can get married, and it’s actually nbd.