Zoe Sugg's Zoella Dropped From GCSE Syllabus After Publishing "Adult" Content
The influencer’s website recently shared a roundup of sex toys.
Zoe Sugg, known for her YouTube channel and website Zoella, has been on AQA‘s GCSE syllabus since 2017 to teach students on analyzing social media. Recently, the influencer and her platforms were dropped from the curriculum after publishing content for an “adult audience.”
Although AQA didn’t specify what exactly caused the change, the announcement came shortly after a sex toy roundup was posted on the website. “GCSE Media Studies includes the analysis of online and social media and we added Zoella in 2017. At the time, all her content was appropriate for teaching, but some of Zoella’s recent content is aimed specifically at an adult audience and isn’t suitable for GCSE students,” AQA’s Head of Curriculum for Creative Arts shared in a statement. “As a result, we’ve removed the section on Zoella from the course, and we’ve contacted our schools and colleges to let them know.”
Responding to the news, Sugg took to Instagram to share her frustration, mentioning that she didn’t even know that her website was part of the GCSE syllabus, to begin with. “[Zoella is] a passionate team of women (WOMEN) writing about things that women are interested in and we’ve worked hard to include more women’s health, conversational articles and basically just more grown-up content as our main demographic is 25- to 35-year-old females. NOT 16-year-olds.”
In addition, the content creator commented that teens should be encouraged to learn about sex and masturbation. “I actually disagree that teens shouldn’t be learning about this stuff. Maybe not in their bloody [exam curriculum] but how else are teenage girls going to find out more about being a woman?” She continued: “I wish I had a website like Zoella when I was growing up… Are you trying to tell me your 16-year-old daughter doesn’t know what a sex toy is or that she’s not explored her body AT ALL?”
She closed her series of Instagram Stories with an important message: “It’s reasons like this that we feel it’s important to write about these things on the website! And we will continue to do so… And guess what? [The post] was our most clicked-on article, most swiped up and most ordered items through links EVER! BECAUSE WOMEN MASTURBATE!”
