On ‘Ellen’ in 2016, he discussed fame,
coming out, make-up and social media
(James Charles/Instagram)it was unfolding. On her blog, Pretty Normal Me, she wrote that
James Charles was “a victim of his own success”.
“For months and years he has been treated like a god, been made allowances for, had his bad behaviour
excused because of his celebrity status. In turn, he got swept up in himself and his life and his wealth and his
fame. He lost his sense of everything important and he fucked up. And now he’s paying the price. He is a
victim of his own success, of an industry that builds people to extraordinary levels. And one that tears them
down at a moment’s notice too,” she said at the time.
It’s impossible not to see the parallels between Charles – someone who achieved giddy heights of
recognition at such a young age – and the schadenfreude with which society has always consumed stories of
young celebrities falling from grace.
Kardashian unfollowed Charles during the
Westbrook feud, but they have since made up
(James Charles/Instagram)In an article examining the fallout from Britney Spears’s notorious breakdown in 2007, author Kate Leaver
writes: “It was us, after all, who destroyed her. She didn’t crumble in isolation or simply of her own volition;
she overdosed on fame and we were complicit in that. We made her the single most watched human being
on the planet and then, gleefully, watched as she nearly died from overexposure. We celebrated her ascent
to celebrity and then punished her for attaining the very perfection we demand.”
We can see this unflattering trait of society in the way we’ve revelled in the demise of countless other young
celebrities – Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes and Aaron Carter to name just a few. While Charles’s fame may
be slightly more niche than his mainstream counterparts, he was by no means insulated from the cruel
delight with which the people who built him up rushed to take him down.
The redemption
Charles made a fatal error in his handling of the situation – one which it seemed might cost him any chance
of overcoming the mass exodus of his followers: he uploaded an apology video.
YouTube has seen so many apology videos that the concept has become a meme in and of itself. Earlier this
year, images of a child who attended VidCon – the world’s biggest YouTuber convention – dressed as an
apology video went viral. These videos are generally portrayed as unscripted and teary, with the influencer
in question usually make-up free and wearing the strangely ubiquitous grey hoodie.