I’m nowhere close to being a beauty influencer or someone who participates in the darkness of the internet other than trying to be supportive of the YouTubers when they are undergoing the consequences of their mistakes.
As of this morning, Tati uploaded a response video to the internet’s dark twists of her message out to James Charles that he needs to clean up his inappropriate behaviors as of late. The world seemed to take this under the internet’s wing and blew this way out of proportion (seemingly 100x worse than Laura Lee and Manny MUA with Jeffree Star last August). We seem to forget that we are all human and imperfect. James Charles is not even out of his teens being 19 years old and is at the age of a freshman in college. If you’re over 21 years old, you would definitely recall that you yourself more than likely made inappropriate comments and actions just because you were 19 (young and stupid). You did things that you may regret or laugh about today and shake your head wondering how on earth you even thought or felt that way years ago. When I was 20, I discovered partying in college and probably did things under the influence of alcohol that I will never remember.
It is rather unfortunate that James Charles chose the famous life and does a really good job at what he does. His meticulous skills with the art of makeup is truly remarkable and I believe he deserves the global fame that he’s built for himself. However, James did not consider the fact of being famous, you are no longer able to act like a normal person that no one else knows and make impactful mistakes such as what he has done such as chasing straight men in public. This kind of game is not new since I came from growing up in the bay area of California. You go to San Francisco, walk in an event like the How Weird Festival or Bay To Breakers and “unique” experiences will come to you should you dare to wear anything ostentatious or just anything close to revealing your birthday suit. My own boyfriend was being flirted with by many men since we chose to party in the Castro District. Being an immature 29 year old handsome man in SF with his shirt off will certainly attract those who are into the same gender as they are even IF they are aware you are straight. At the end of the night, one man put a questionable bright colored candy into my boyfriend’s mouth and then shut the door of the bar. Of course, my boyfriend spat it out and laughed it off. There were other times the boyfriend wore bright tight colored pants to a SF event and many men tried to talk to him . So, perhaps if James Charles went to San Francisco, his actions would not be considered anything news worthy.
With that said, James shouldn’t really change who he is as a person, but certainly be more careful of what he does or what he says since he is always in the light given he originally reached a peak of 16M global followers. I believe that this is the message Tati was trying to convey was to not created sides between her or James, but to have her message be heard and be made clear that James needs to calm down, lower his ego, and know it’s necessary for him to be more mature than the average 19 year old out there because he is famous. Everyone is always watching him. Most of his followers are children close to becoming teenagers or are teenagers who aspire to be like to him (the new Justin Bieber or the 90’s Backstreet Boys). Young teenagers are malleable and easily influenced by what they are exposed to and it seems that now it’s beyond violent cartoons like Naruto or blocking adult channels on our televisions. I agree with Tati that James should not be proudly communicating in his videos of how he takes on the challenge of chasing straight men and trying to get them to “hook up” with him while they try to figure out their sexuality or are just aware they are 100% straight. I myself already struggle with aggressive women out in the bars (no matter where we are) that my boyfriend gets chased and flirted with even upon my presence. I certainly would not appreciate it if gay men were added to this frustration and disrespect.
I can only hope that Tati’s message is a huge lesson for James and leave it to be separate of their followers and “created online war” by the subscribers. I personally did not unsubscribe from any YouTube guru because I understand that people (famous or not) will make mistakes. I would not want to be famous just because everyone is always watching. What if I decided to eat a heavily buttered popcorn and some paparazzi saw it, photographed it, filmed it, and then blew it out of proportion to the world that I ate an unhealthy piece of food? No one else “not famous” would care if I sat next to them in a movie theatre and ate a huge bucket of it.
To close, my heart is with both James and Tati. It’s unfortunate that Tati felt the need to publicize it, but I get she found it necessary because her private conversations were being ignored or scoffed at. Like any drama, this will blow over in time. I mean, has everyone forgotten that Justin Bieber bought a monkey and abandoned it some years ago?
everything blended 