James Charles and How His Life Is Now Over: An Analysis of YouTube

-

The title is a bit dramatic, but recently the 19 year old beauty guru has been put under a lot of heat from Tati and some other Youtubers in the YouTube community. He has lost nearly 3 million subscribers in the past 3 days, and the numbers are dropping every second. This all started when Tati, a beauty guru, came out with a video stating he sponsored her rival despite them being good friends, and further went on to share his manipulative tendencies and immoral actions. He released an apology video saying he is always trying to learn and grow, and that he had made many mistakes in the past (for the record that video is obviously bad acting). It is crazy to me how this young celebrity who seemed to be constantly gaining more and more fame has lost so much so quickly.  
I have found this phenomena especially present on YouTube. One day you are extremely popular and famous, and the next day you are either hated or no one remembers who you are. With YouTube, it has become progressively easier to gain fame and views as the popularity of the app has risen. But, the ability to lose this fame has also become a lot easier in recent years. Viral videos are constantly circling on the internet, but for these people who created them, it will usually be their only real hit. This is mainly due to the way social media, and those on it, latch onto certain videos, but immediately move onto the next thing they find funnier or better. This consequently makes the words "fame" lighter, with less importance behind it. People can get famous for videos so easily now, and it doesn't take a long career or real profession to obtain. 
"Cancellation" of celebrities, or just stopping support of and following of celebrities, has become very common as the role of social media in our lives has increased. For many celebrities, past tweets from before fame, or comments on old Instagram posts have been uncovered and used against them on the internet. Take for example Kevin Hart. 8 years ago, he tweeted many homophobic comments that recently surfaced when he was chosen to host the 91st Oscars Ceremony, which ultimately led him to step down from that position. He gained a lot of (deserved) backlash on social media, along with getting a lot of media coverage.
The recovery of these old tweets demonstrates the permanence of the internet- what gets on the internet stays on the internet no matter how many times you press delete or erase. This leads me to believe James' career will never get to where is was again, because this feud will remain on the internet and in the minds of everyone aware of it. No matter what he does in an attempt to make up for it, it will be nearly impossible for it to escape the shadow of this feud and the impact it had on the internet.
I wonder if the way we constantly are moving from celebrity to celebrity is causing our distractedness, or if it is a product from our already distracted brains. YouTube is a great example of the ease at which celebrities can lose fame: Ryan Higa, Lily Singh, Wolfie Vlogs, and so many other channels used to be extremely popular just a year or two ago, but now we rarely see their videos or hear about them anymore.

Comments

  1. Anonymous15 May 2019 at 00:15

    I love this post. As I never had any interest in James Charles, I’m so happy to see that everyone is finally realizing how this person really is. RIP his career

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MissRepresentation

-
Image
The moments that stood out most to me during this documentary were the comments made by male newscasters. I was absolutely appalled by their fundamental perception of women. They truly believe women are nothing more than their faces, their bodies, their boobs. They take any little thing a woman does and completely belittles them, despite the fact that not even themselves are perfect. Women in media have to be literally perfect to escape the undeserved and unreasonable criticism from men in the news. There can't be too much leg, but she can't be wearing pants. There can't be too much cleavage, but if there isn't enough she is a prude. She can't be too dumb, but if she is too smart she will be seen as a threat. If she shows passion and emotion for an issue, she is delusional and unfit for a leadership role. But, if a man shows passion and emotion, he is driven and truly cares about his work. The amount of hypocrisy and sexism in this is infuriating. I cannot expres
Read more

Spy Kids

-
Image
Recently, I noticed many things about the original Spy Kids movie, and the Spy Kids series in general. With MissRepresentation on my mind, I have been paying closer attention to the portrayal of women in the media. So, I began contemplating this while watching Spy Kids two days ago. This movie series was pretty prominent in my childhood, and I am sure it has influenced my perception of the world in one way or another.  The first thing I noticed was that the 2 main female characters are both dominant in their character relations, and take charge of situations. The mother is shown having a great amount of control over her husband, and she is able to convince him to make many decisions. She is also the one who figured out how to escape the first time, while her husband didn't know what to do. I feel their relationship is equal overall, which contrasts many other movies of this time. Carmen, the daughter of the family, is very intelligent and creative. She is pretty stubborn and r
Read more