Sounak Sengupta
Investigation Discovery’s ‘Onision: In Real Life: Banana Power’ follows the controversial life of YouTuber Onision and sheds light on the multiple allegations of manipulating women over the years using his internet fame. One of his ex-girlfriends, Shiloh Hoganson, claims to be one of his first victims. The episode chronicles the alleged tale of abuse she suffered over the years. So who is this Shiloh Hoganson? Let’s find out.
Who is Shiloh Hoganson?
Shiloh Hoganson was born in Abbotsford, British Columbia, on April 25, 1993, and grew up in both Saskatchewan and Alberta. Formerly known as only Shiloh, she is a Canadian pop-punk singer/songwriter who found her inspiration in pop legend, singer and dancer Michael Jackson, at a very early age. She started her career by enrolling in several music competitions as a singer and lyricist since she was a child.
Shiloh made signed a major-label recording contract with Universal Music when she was only 15. She recorded her debut with the ska-inflected single ‘Operator (A Girl Like Me),’ released in 2008, and made it to the Top 30 hit on the Canadian singles chart. She followed it up in 2009 with her first full-length album ‘Picture Imperfect’ in which she was a co-writer of most songs. The popular album was a monstrous hit, cementing its place in the Top Ten hit album debut in 2009.
The Canadian performer got nominated for a pair of MuchMusic Video Awards in 2009, with her songs featuring in popular films such as ‘What Happens in Vegas’ (2008) and tv shows like ‘Gossip Girl’ (2007-12). She was a music television favorite on her way to stardom when the unfortunate debacle with popular YouTuber Gregory Daniel Jackson, better known by his Youtube stage name Onision, happened.
In the episode, Shiloh claimed that she chanced upon Onision’s videos while she was only 16 years old, going through issues all teenagers go through. She found the videos weirdly comforting and felt as if Gregory was speaking to her through the videos. Shiloh, 17, decided to get in touch with him through emails and their relationship escalated from that point onwards. Onision, 25, had just divorced Skye Tantaga, his high school sweetheart, in 2010, and he formally introduced Shiloh as his girlfriend in a YouTube video weeks before her 18th birthday.
Shiloh claimed that their relationship followed a very disturbing and toxic course as she was flown to his home in Washington. She alleged that she was so severely tormented emotionally that she suffered from a stress-related episode of memory loss. Shiloh later allegedly discovered that it was a trauma-related seizure due to her abusive relationship with Onision, who posted footage of the seizure episode online. Scenes from that now-deleted YouTube video are featured in the show, as well as other deleted videos where he is seen forcibly shaving her, recording her while she was showering, and mocking her about abusing her.
The episode shows a video that resurfaced in early 2020, where Onision was seen throwing candy corn at a crying Shiloh and saying, “You know this video is never going to be online, right? No one will ever know how much I abuse you.” She further alleged in the show that she had to be hospitalized for suicide ideation, suffered from sepsis after a miscarriage, and was brutally harassed by his fans online. Shiloh ended the relationship before she turned 18 and went back to Canada, never speaking to Onision again.
Shiloh Hoganson is Making Music
Shiloh said in a 2021 interview, “Looking back on it all now, I was a baby, I was a kid, I was naive, I had no idea what I was getting into.” She added, “He found his ways to convince me that everything he was doing was normal. I, unfortunately, followed him blindly.” She credited her mother for her timely escape, stating how her mother hid her passport, which ultimately stopped her from getting “pulled back in when I was 18.”
Shiloh was inspired to create songs again after her father’s demise in 2016 and changed her stage name to Lyldoll in 2017. She appeared in Investigative Reporter Chris Hansen’s YouTube show, ‘Have a Seat With Chris Hansen’ where she opened up about her abusive relationship with Onision. She swore, “I’ll do everything in my power to make sure this doesn’t happen to somebody else.” She continued to release songs and albums and collaborated with Jayniac Jr. (Darron Bailey Jr.) in April 2022 to release their new album.
