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When James Charles became the first male face of CoverGirl, following in the footsteps of supermodels and celebrities such as Tyra Banks, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, he was only a high school student in Bethlehem, in the US. State of New York. He charged his friends between $ 5 and $ 10. their makeup for special occasions and had amassed a few hundred thousand Instagram followers by publishing her eye-catching eye-catching beauty.
A few months later, he introduced a line of merchandise called Sisters Apparel (Mr. Charles calls his fans "sisters") and, last November, he collaborated with Morphe, a retailer of beauty products, on a palette of $ 39 eyeshadows and a set $ 149 makeup brushes. according to Mr. Charles, the first collection is exhausted in one day.
As he made agreements, the number of Mr. Charles's fans grew richer. On Friday, he had more than 16 million YouTube subscribers and almost as many followers on Instagram, and had published an article about his participation in the Met Gala, the biggest fashion party.
But in a few days, everything has changed. Mr. Charles is now the subject of a debate in progress about betrayal among a passionate group of beauty vloggers and their followers.
It's a world where interpersonal conflicts often manifest themselves in videos posted on YouTube channels, influencers making accusations or excusing themselves in the form of 15-minute monologues intended for their fans. The rumor they create is reinforced by the coverage of "theater channels", YouTube accounts that follow gossip and "denounce" the misdeeds of various local celebrities.
What does a cancellation look like? Mr. Charles is learning.
On Friday, Tati Westbrook, 37, a beauty blogger from YouTube and former mentor to Mr. Charles, posted a video in which she told Mr. Charles, as well as several million of his closest subscribers, that She did not want to do anything anymore. with him. Ms. Westbrook, who owns a vitamin business, described in detail the advertisement on Instagram posted by Mr. Charles on behalf of a competing complement company was a betrayal of their friendship. The summary of the video also refers to its product site, Halo Beauty.
She said she was also upset by Mr. Charles' attempt to "trick a man of race into believing he was still gay," an incident she spoke about occurred during the celebration of his last birthday.
"He's 19 and I'm scared of him," said Westbrook at the end of the video, which has been viewed more than 40 million times.
Since then, despite the publication of a message According to Charles Blade, who compiles data on social media, Mr. Charles has recorded a rapid drop in the number of YouTube subscribers, from 16.5 million to 13.5 million.
His social networks were flooded with negative comments and former fans posted short videos on TikTok, in which they find a myriad of ways to vandalize the palette of Mr. Charles Morphe. One of them dropped the paddle into a bathtub filled with water. Another painted a snake on the logo of the compact. Yet another paints, in what appears to be Wite-Out, the words "Bye Sister" – a reference to the title of Ms. Westbrook's video.
Other members of the "influencer community" have joined the fight to defend Mr. Charles or to complete Ms. Westbrook's accusations. Jeffree Star, who was canceled in the past for making racist remarks that he later called "disgusting, vile and mean", said in a statement. tweet that Mr. Charles "is a danger to society. All that Tati said is 100% true. (He then deleted the tweet.)
Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, a YouTube celebrity with more subscribers than Mr. Charles, Mr. Star and Ms. Westbrook combined, answered the question of questioning Ms. Westbrook's actions on her channel. "Tati is 37 years old," said Kjellberg. "James Charles is still a teenager." He added, "For a mother figure to be able to drag this kid completely – no one has a problem with that?"
The website that sells Mr. Charles's branded items, Sisters Apparel, disappeared on Tuesday; fans speculated that Mr. Star had played a role in the shutdown. (Mr. Star is the owner of Killer Merch, a company that designs, manufactures and ships merchandise for brands, including, until recently, Sisters Apparel.)
This is not the first time that a storm of controversy is raging around Mr. Charles. In 2017, Mr. Charles tweeted, "I can not believe we are going to Africa today, but if we are contracting the Ebola virus?" He followed the tweet with a message. Notes application apology in which he referred to Africa as a country.
The incident turned out to be a shock in Mr. Charles's ascent. For a few months, his subscriptions to YouTube slowed down, but by May of the same year, he had returned to hundreds of thousands of people a month and was growing steadily thereafter. Even in the past few days, even though Mr. Charles's subscriber numbers have dropped, his video views are on the rise and number in the millions. His apology video of 8 minutes, for example, has been viewed more than 40 million times.
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