lighting speed.
This mass exodus continued for days and the feud was covered across media outlets. Charles posted a teary
apology video and other high-profile figures weighed in, including comments from huge influencers
including Manny MUA in defence of Charles, and Jeffree Star backing Westbrook. Within days the race was
on to see who would hit 10 million subscribers first – Charles, who began at 16 million, or Westbrook, who
just days before was at 6 million.
The story became a global talking point. People who had never watched a make-up tutorial in their lives
were weighing in, and Charles was largely declared “cancelled”.
Herd mentality and social media mob rule
The YouTube community has been mired in scandals for years. Last summer a wave of top-tier influencers
(with Star at the centre of it) were called out for inappropriate content and behaviour; Logan Paul, with 15
million subscribers, vlogged the dead body of a suicide victim for a video; his brother Jake Paul (19 million
subscribers) posted a video in which his YouTube nemesis FaZe Banks was falsely accused of assault; Tana
Mongeau (4.7 million subscribers) hosted a convention so disastrously organised that it left fans waiting
outside for hours in blistering sun with no food or water; creators including Shane Dawson (22 million
subscribers) and Philip DeFranco (6.4 million subscribers) were accused of exploiting their followers’
mental health concerns for money after promoting the controversial BetterHelp app. Yet none of these
situations came close to creating the kind of backlash Charles experienced.
Hollie-Anne Brooks is a journalist and former editor of We The Unicorns, a digital publication that covers
YouTuber news. She thinks that while Westbrook’s video kickstarted the backlash against Charles, it
snowballed into a collective desire to be involved in the drama, which led many to follow in the footsteps of
his first critics without questioning the reasons for doing so.
“There were a lot of people who enjoyed getting caught up in the #JamesCharlesIsCancelled movement and
it felt like you were part of a group,” she says.
Katie Woodland is a psychologist who now works as a business coach, but her background is in child
development. She believes that part of the reason for the extreme response to the scandal is the age of the
subscribers involved.
“When you’re a teenager you’re desperately looking for an identity and a tribe. Initially James Charles spoke
to that need, being an outsider himself,” says Woodland. “The cliques and groups we pick as teenagers are
part of us trying to work out where we belong and as soon as we align with someone, we feel they are an
extension of our identity, but if they say or do something we feel doesn’t align with our world view,
teenagers can feel truly betrayed, and want to hurt them back.”