It began with a video — or was it an Instagram Story promoting vitamins?
James Charles and Tati Westbrook — and Jeffree Star, who inserted himself into the fray somewhere along the way in which — have publicly put an end to the virtual maelstrom that moved thousands and thousands. The highly publicized back-and-forth between 20-year-old Charles, who shot to Web stardom in 2016 when CoverGirl named him its first male spokesmodel, and 37-year-old Westbrook, Charles’ mentor who’s credited as one in all the primary beauty influencers, centered around a social media post promoting vitamins and mushroomed over allegations of sexual harassment.
The exchange took off on May 10 with Westbrook’s “Bye Sister” video and snowballed online for a full nine days until Charles declared a truce on his Twitter account. The drama initially cost Charles about 3 million subscribers — he ultimately gained back about 2 million — while Westbrook gained nearly 4 million subscribers. YouTuber Tea4Real even posted a video supposedly showing Charles’ and Westbrook’s subscriber counts changing in real time, and YouTube has since announced it would change the way in which it displays subscriber counts.
Cancel culture is nothing latest to the web world. It’s like a virtual boycott, but potentially more dangerous due to uncontrollable nature of social media. It normally happens like this: a star or personality is accused of doing or saying something deemed so egregious by social media users, they collectively “cancel” the person in query, posting “receipts” in attempts to wreck his or her profession. The canceling sometimes features a Twitter hashtag party — on this case, #JamesCharlesIsOverParty — which is apt to go viral, jettisoning the canceled person to the Web’s abyss, temporarily or permanently.
“Cancel culture is a byproduct of our ability to advocate for ourselves on social media,” said Angelica Nwandu, founding father of popular Instagram account The Shade Room. “It comes from an incredible place, but what I’ve suggested is that we cancel the behavior and never the person since it’s becoming a toxic movement. It’s not allowing anyone to make a mistake.”
YouTube’s beauty community is well acquainted with cancel culture — latest feuds emerge as often as latest makeup palettes. However the Charles-Westbrook fiasco is the biggest drama up to now. That’s owing, partially, to the sloppiness of the accusations hurled and receipts pulled, in addition to the speed with which those watching ran off with unconfirmed facts. The feud quickly became an example of what to not do on the Web (i.e., spread false or unsubstantiated information) and an embodiment of cancel culture at its worst.
And whereas traditional celebrities can often get better from a “scandal” through talk shows, a critically acclaimed album or a latest movie role, for influencers, it’s harder: their product is their platform.
“It’s a live by the sword, die by the sword world,” said Erik Gordon, professor at The University of Michigan Ross School of Business. “In case your biggest asset is the eye you attract on social media, then being canceled cancels your price. It cuts your power as an influencer and it cuts your value as an influencer. It cuts your value to marketers, which might occur with Charles. It also cuts your value to your remaining followers, who wish to see the social proof that they’re following the appropriate person.”
Cancel culture has the potential to significantly harm one’s business, as Charles noted in his “No More Lies” YouTube video, uploaded on May 18. It’s unclear if and the way Westbrook’s business was impacted — the site for her ingestibles brand, Halo Beauty, stays intact — though the drama did impact Charles’. In his video, Charles said he took down the site for his Sisters Apparel brand — named after Charles’ fanbase, the Sisters — in light of Star’s participation within the drama. Star, who has a track record of public falling-outs with other beauty YouTubers, owns Killer Merch, the distribution company for Sisters Apparel.
“Unfortunately, I needed to sever ties with Killer Merch,” said Charles in his video. “I just don’t see a job that exists where I could ever be in business with a team run by someone like Jeffree Star.”
Charles has also canceled his Sisters Tour, prices for which ranged from $22 to $336 on SeatGeek. Killer Merch and SeatGeek couldn’t be reached for comment. YouTube declined to comment.
“The net social media world is a large, self-amplifying echo chamber,” said Gordon. “If that’s where you reside, and any person drops a paper clip, 90 minutes later, it appears like a thunderstorm.”
“With James Charles, all that they had to do was say he was a sexual predator that preyed on straight men and that’s all people needed to listen to,” said Nwandu. “It’s demonizing people to the purpose where we’re saying you possibly can’t make a mistake and are available back from it.”
The potential for cancelation causes anxiety amongst celebrities and influencers — Nwandu often speaks with celebrities about this. Additionally it is “spooking” brands, said Brian Freeman, chief executive officer and cofounder of Heartbeat, a technology platform and app that connects brands with Millennial and Gen Z audiences.
“We’ve seen that there’s lots of concern with brand safety on the influencer level,” said Freeman. “It’s impacting why brands are more fascinated with working downstream with individuals who have smaller audiences.”
Freeman suggests that brands working with influencers “be upfront” about their influencer process with most people and give you a “code of ethics that you just expect our partners to abide by — and make that public.” That way, if an influencer goes off the rails, the brand can refer its audience to its ethical code and reevaluate its influencer relationship accordingly.
Cancel culture becomes dangerous when it’s amplified to the purpose of no return. As YouTubers, Charles and Westbrook have a responsibility to make use of their platforms to foster nontoxic environments. The benefits to this — positive content, a less problematic channel, higher brand relationships, less possibility of cancelation — outweigh the disadvantages. But beyond platform creators, most people, who is basically answerable for perpetuating cancel culture, has a responsibility, too. And it starts with the media.
“When James Charles was called a sexual predator, the entire top websites were reporting on that,” said Nwandu. “Media must have a responsibility to say these are unconfirmed reports, that there isn’t any evidence.”
But while media outlets must be held accountable for the role they play in cancel culture, said Nwandu and Gordon, social media platforms shouldn’t.
“Social media platforms are only utilities,” said Nwandu. “Unless any person’s life is in peril, they shouldn’t intervene within the people’s conversation.”
“On the one hand, you’re feeling [social media platforms] should control serious misinformation, seriously harmful things,” said Gordon. “And alternatively, should social media platforms be focusing their efforts on the misinformation problems of politics and national policy and sexism and racism, without diverting resources to spats between Charles and Westbrook?”
Finally, there’s a definite responsibility on the a part of viewers to not play into cancel culture — something each Westbrook and Charles requested of their followers of their final feud-related uploads.
“Please don’t name-call in my name,” said Westbrook in her “Why I Did It” video. “I feel like a really public conversation was had between myself and James Charles and I’m sad that it needed to get to that, but he did publicly apologize and I’m just hoping that we will leave it at that and shut this up and that folks can drop this and move forward and let some actual healing occur.”
“Joining in on bandwagon hate and cancel culture is incredibly, incredibly toxic,” said Charles in his “No More Lies” video. “It’s very concerning to me that, as a society, we’re becoming OK with guilty until proven innocent as an alternative of the opposite way around. I really hope that everybody who participated on this, whether or not it’s fans, influencers, drama channels or ‘credible news sources’ take the time to take into consideration your words and the impact that they might have on others because I assure you and I promise you, it’s lots stronger than what it’s possible you’ll think.”
More from WWD.com:
Are Influencers Now A part of Fashion’s Elite?
The Biggest Influencer News of 2018
James Charles: Beauty’s Next Consultant?
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