ţ,ŠGOLNHWRFKDOOHQJH*RYHUQRU3HUU\ŤTHOU SHALT NOT KILL » P.48
NEWSWEEK.COM 45
PETER CARBONARA @PeterCarbonaraBY
down, attracted more than 40 million views.been involved in a lot of unique and strange situations that have left people confused or upset. I learned the hard way about ways that I can interact with boys that I’ve put trust in and ones that I shouldn’t be talking to.”vloggers attacked him as a diva and worse; disaffected fans declared him “canceled.” Meanwhile, some in the digital mob accused West-Charles came back with a tearful and makeup-less apology: “I’ve Charles’ YouTube channel shed roughly 3 million followers. Rival
brook of homophobia and exploiting the beef to promote herself.regrets about taking the fight public. Then Charles hit back with damaged at first, things changed quickly. First, Westbrook posted But while Charles and his online brand looked termhad tried to clear with her in advance.a long YouTube video of his own, titled “No Msaid his vitamin endorsement was a one-off that he Lies.” WAs for While repeating his apology to Westbrook, he estbrook’s harassment accusations, inally ore
and branding, tells up. Some bloggers who had gone after him apologized.will have any long-term financial effects. Pam Moore, CEO of Mar-keting Nutz, a consulting agency specializing in digital marketing exchanges. Charles’ YouTube subscriber count started to move back Marketing experts say it is too soon to predict if the kerfuffle “receipts” in the form of screenshots of Instagram anyone who didn’t seemCharles denied them, saying he had never pursued Newsweek, “The short-term [monetary] impact interested. He posted
is going to be less than the longer term. Wbridges within your own industry...that can hurt him.”lasting way. “They’re going to watch his videos if he is the best guy to talk about a product,” she says. “You can’t say no one is ever going to listen to him again, because they probably will.” But she added that she doubts Charles has been “canceled” in any hen you start to burngot ugly fast, generating millions of views on different platforms and dollars—are also as much about the endless competition for eyeballs and endorsement deals as they are about any supposed principal. YouTube is about attracting attention, and nothing attracts attention—mer protégé, James Charles, 19, is arguably the biggest to date. It The fight between beauty vloggers Tati Westbrook, 37, and a for-online feuds between youtube celebrities are vicious, petty, comlike “tea” and drama.plicated, fast-moving and inconclusive. They -^
and the attention of the mainstream media, before an apparent truce between the principals. Still, it may be too soon to call it over—charges continued to fly in the beauty blogosphere after the truce was announced on May 19, with Westbrook’s and Charles’ respec-tive YouTube follower counts rising or falling on each punch and counterpunch.online beauty world, Westbrook and Charles are star influencers with large, intense followings. Westbrook, Relatively little known, until now, outside the
a doyenne of online makeup artists, has been posting almost daily since 2010. Her YouTube channel had soared up to about 10 million subscribers in late May, and her net worth has been estimated at about $1.2 million. Charles started his YouTube channel in 2015. It had about 15 million sub-scribers in late May, but that number has been as high as 16 million. In 2016, he became CoverGirl’s first male endorser. He also has an eyeshadow endorsement deal with cosmetics maker Morphe. His net worth has been estimated at $12 million.
used Instagram to plug a brand of gummy vitamins. Westbrook, however, has her own rival brand. She complained online. Charles apologized. Westbrook responded with the drama, a 43-minute post in which she broke with Charles and called him out for sexually harassing straight men. The video, since taken Westbrook and Charles were friends until April, when Charles Citizen Kane of YouTube
A YouTube feud between beauty bloggers went mainstream. Will it be good for business?Made You LookENTERTAINMENT