The year that gummy viatimins broke the internet

For this blog to make sense, we need to go back to Coachella 2019, when one of the biggest scandals between two of the biggest beauty influencer happened between Tati Westbrook and James Charles.
James and Tati became close after Tati took James under her wing. She helped him with his brand as well as advice on how to become successful on youtube, helping him grow on the platform. Tati even flew in James to attend her wedding when he didn't have enough money to go. They both supported each other through every launch and collaboration.
A few years later, James attended Coachella, a music festival that many influencers attend. When James went, he bought VIP passes. Not realizing it was easy for a lot of people to get, which James didn't know until he was there.
He had asked one of his friends Nikita how she got a backstage pass, which is a more exclusive pass. She told him that a sponsor had given it to her and that she would talk to her connections to get him one.
Informing him that all he had to do to get the pass was post a video of him promoting Sugar Bear hair, and he would get backstage passes. But as soon as James posted the video, Tati posted a video in response to what James posted—expressing how hurt she felt by him as Tati also sells gummy vitamins by her own brand Halo Beauty.
After he posted the video promoting her biggest competitors, she proceeded to post a 40-minute video exposing him and portraying him as a predator. He was accused of going after straight men and trying to use his 'influence' to manipulate them.
Many people came forth telling their side of their story and how they too, were forced to have sexual relationships with James.
After news broke out, James started to lose followers, friends, and sponsors. Jeffree Star was one of the many people that accused him of being a predator, even going as far as calling him a danger to society. He played a significant roll on how people viewed him.
Jeffree stood by everything that Tati had accused James of and fueled the flame of this narrative.
During this time, all you would see was hate comments, death threats, and verbal attacks against anyone who was still associated with him.
He took a two-month hiatus off of all social media platforms because of the backlash. After his break, he expressed how much the hate got to him.
He was then interviewed to discuss the effects that social media had on him. James expressed how much social media has taken a toll on him and his mental health. After this incident, James gained a bad reputation, being recognized as a predator.
And because of how believable this was, straight men would purposely make James think that they were interested in him only to 'expose' him for clout.
James never stopped not receiving hate.
It wasn't until recently that more things were brought into the spotlight, revealing that James wasn't as guilty as people made him out to be.
Jeffree Star was a guest on a podcast; they talked about the incident that took place almost a year ago. It was revealed during the podcast that Jeffree and Tati were no longer friends and that there was no hate between the two.
After this was brought up Jeffree, proceeded to switch his story, now blaming Tati, making her responsible for James's downfall.
Which many people didn't agree with, as he was also the one that accused James of being a predator.
Both Tati and Jeffree played a part in James's downfall. And because of how quick cancel culture works, it was easy for people to hate regardless if there was evidence or not. I even believed this narrative because the majority of people accused James. But all this can be explained because we experience something in psychology known as Groupthink.
This is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people; it is the desire for conformity in the group resulting in an irrational decision-making outcome. It relates to this because people would rather stay quiet than to be associated with the minority opinion. Everyone else is scared of speaking up because the majority will attack anyone who disagrees with their perspective.
This happened to people who protected James during the scandal; they also got dragged into it, making it personal rather than what it actually was about.
I can't help but think that all of this could've been avoided if Tati would've just talked to James about how she felt. Yes, she told him he needed help, but i think like exposing him like this wasn't how she should've gone about it. The only reason why this came to light is that James' friend couldn't support someone how promoted their competition. And even if James being canceled was a bad thing at least, now he knows who his real friends are and who was just there because it benefited them.
It sucks that he had to be canceled for him to realize this. 

Cancel Culture is losing its meaning

Youtube has recently given James Charles an original youtube show that supposes to help small influencers grow.

The show started with six contestants, eliminating one artist each episode. Each episode was supposed to test the makeup artist artistry.

Every episode has a compact challenge, which is a mini-challenge before the elimination round, it is supposed to help the player who won the challenge have an advantage for the next round.
In the most recent episode, James made the contestants film themselves making an apology video with fake scenarios where they are under fire for a made-up sandal.

When the video was posted, people didn't respond to it well as it was supposed to teach contestants how to fake an apology video.  

James responded to the backlash by saying that a lot of the scandal he's gotten into have been situations blown out of portion. Which I understand, but the challenge degrades the whole purpose of an apology video.

Canceling him for making this challenge also degrades the value of cancel culture.

The thing about Cancel Culture

What I've noticed about cancel culture is that when you get canceled, it's easy for people to hate you. It's similar to when you dislike someone, and anything they say or do irritates you.

I say this because anytime I do one of these media diaries, I've noticed a large number of people spreading hate to James Charles. Which was the first person I wrote about, for the effects of cancel culture in today's society.

And it's not like he's being canceled time and time again but rather because he was canceled once anything he does is offensive.

Recently there was a trend going around where people took their mugshot photos. These photos were not actual mugshots, but people were taking pictures of themselves, adding makeup to look beat up.

I saw this trend going around everyone, and anyone was doing it, and James decided to follow the trend, but things didn't go too well for him. Because as soon as he joined, people found the pictures offensive, and he started receiving tons of hate.

But the thing is that he didn't create this trend; he just decided to participate in an activity that everyone was doing. But why is James the one who takes the hit for this?

Yes, I get its offensive to victims of domestic violence, but it's not like domestic violence victims didn't exist before James pictures. I don't how there wasn't any backlash for all the other people who also participated. And I'm not saying that people should go after every single person who joined in on the trend. But how is it right to go after someone because they did one thing that you didn't see right.

And I'm not saying all of this because I'm a James Charles fan, but I do not hate everything he does because of the Gage situation. We need to remember that James is just as much of a human as any of us.

His life is now in the spotlight from the moment he became an influencer; everything about him is going to be public. That sucks having everything out in the open regardless if you want it there or not. 

Has canceling gone too far?

So recently, there has been another confrontation between Jeffree Star and the Kardashian Jenner family. But surprisingly enough, it wasn't with the preeminent sisters but rather one of their kids.

There has been bad blood between them for a long time, but recently Mason Disick, (Kourtney Kardashian ten-year-old son) was also involved in the feud.

Addison Rae, a well known TikToker, started a live stream with the ten-year-old. They answered questions one being about "who's Mason's favorite beauty guru," which Mason replied with "James." 
They started about James Charles collaborating with David Dobrik again, so James can now do David's makeup. When Mason mentioned Jeffree's calling him "spoiled af."

Jeffree is a self-made millionaire as well as a makeup artist, entrepreneur, singer-songwriter, and owner of Jeffree Star cosmetics.

When news got around to Jeffree about the snarky comment Mason made, Jeffree didn't take this lightly as he worked hard to get where he is now.

Jeffree responded by mentioning the fact that everything he has he worked hard to get—suggesting that Mason is confused with his privilege versus him being self-made.

There was a split on what people thought of the situation. Some didn't take Jeffree response lightly, canceling him because he was picking a fight with a ten-year-old. Others were defending Jeffree for being self-made.

Honestly, this whole situation could've been avoided if his parents would've kept a better eye on him. His parents are public figures, whether they like it or not; their son is also in the spotlight. Anything he says can be misconstrued, and him being a minor makes him more vulnerable.

what the thought of being canceled can do

When youtube launched, multiple youtube sensations were born with a platform called YouTubers. The concept of YouTube as a job was a joke, but a job is still a job. Several YouTubers use this platform as a gateway to the big screen.

Recently Tana Mongeau, an internet personality (YouTuber), has been under fire because of the latest episode of her own MTV show: no filter. Her show was supposed to be a series that follows Tana in her day to day life, no holding back, hence the title "no filter."

The episode consists of Tana having tantrums, not want to go to the doctors, and being bratty. The main issue people were having with her was how she belittled health concerns. 

In the video, Tana's manager Jordan took Tana to a pulmonologist to get her lungs checked because of some worrying behavior. During the car ride to the doctor, the fact that Tana was coughing up mucus, sometimes spitting out blood, was brought up.

Although Jordan brought up a severe concern about Tana's health, she seemed to be unfazed as she continued to use her wax pen.

During the doctors' appointment, a nurse was taking Tana's blood pressure while she complained that the pain was too much ripping off the strap. Saying "that hurt so bad I cant I'd rather have a cough I kind of wanna leave."

Which people didn't like as she previously did a lie detector test using the same machine but not complaining. 

During the consultation, the pulmonologist said she had a component of asthma as her manager expressed concern asking if there's a possibility that she'd have tuberculosis. Tana refused to get tested for TB. She was advised to use an inhaler every day and told to come back in 10 days as well as encouraging her not to smoke.

During the car ride, Tana told her manager that she would not be going back for the checkup, as well as refusing to use the inhaler given to her. Both argued about the severity of the situation, as Tana claiming not to care at all. Tana even bought cigarettes after the consultation.

After she met up with a few of her friends, she had told them what happened when she went to the doctors and how it was just asthma. All her friends did was also downplay the fact that she had asthma. Jordan was not okay with given that it was not just asthma. 

When the episode released, many were not happy with Tana's behavior as there were many things wrong with this episode. This whole episode left many people unhappy because people suffer from this and do no take lightly.

People expressed their concern online, and it got too excessive that Tana decided to comment on all the backlash. And it was later stated that she was taking this seriously.

Goes to show that people's image in the public eye does make them second guess their actions. Just the idea of being canceled can make one change to make things right. Even though cancel culture is toxic is does help keep many people in check.

Is there a silver lining?

Since cancel culture has become widely popular, many people take advantage of the clout they gain and do controversial things just to get noticed—people like Trisha Paytas. This social media influencer is known for taking advantage of cancel culture only to gain clout.

There are many incidents of Trisha doing this, but one of her most recent scandals involves her self diagnosing herself to have a multipersonality disorder. She recently posted a youtube video about her claiming to have dissociative identity disorder. Throughout the video, she was explaining how she concluded that she had this disorder, which people didn't take all that well, especially people that suffer from this.

Before her video, Anthony Padilla posted a youtube video regarding this disorder. Has a series where he "spend a day" with different types of people trying to understand more about a group of people. He recently did a segment " I spent a day with multiple personalities..." learning what it means to have multiple personalities, interviewing serval people to gain perspective.

This series became a thing because Anthony himself suffers from depression and axienty,  so he decided to start this segment to educate people on specific topics. Now more than ever, people speak out about these issues, but a lot of times there are missconseptions.
Mental illness has always been a thing, but people never really addressed it in public because of the shame that came with it.

So when Anthony became aware of the situation, he spoke up about how mental illness is not something to joke around about, which Trisha didn't take so lightly. Because of all the backlash she had surrounding this issue, she made a video in response to Anthony, stating how he was insensitive for making her feel crazy about her mental illness. A lot of people came to Anthony's defense, calling out Paytas for diagnosing herself, not having any credibility to do so.

Trisha is the type of person to be obsessed over something and will still drag on the lie despite the copious amount of evidence suggesting otherwise. After this whole situation blew over, she still insists that she suffers from this, "showing" proof of her having episodes.

Paytas has been canceled time and time again and has rarely taken accountability. Cancel Culture doesn't seem to affect her, as it has affected other people, which I'm not sure if that's good or bad. From my point of view, given that i don't know her personally or have had any interaction with her, cancel culture helps her become more aware of her actions. What I mean by that is, she seems to have no filter and doesn't seem to notice when shes crossed the line and being canceled does.

It's all about perspective.

Who gets the short end of the stick?

If there is a group of people that get canceled more than any other group, those would-be influencers, more specifically the beauty community. These people are constantly being judged for any affiliation, collaboration or association they might have to any person or company. Take someone like Jaclyn Hill who has been a part of this community since it first started. Since Jaclyn was considered a beauty guru it only made sense for her to release her own makeup brand.



Hill teased for years that she would be starting her own makeup line, but it never seemed to happen. Instead of releasing her own brand like she said she would just keep collaborating with other big makeup companies instead.



Morphe is known to have huge beauty influencers collaborate with them on makeup projects. Working with big names like Jeffree Star, James Charles, and Jaclyn Hill. Jaclyn’s first collaboration with Morphe was back in 2017 when they released the Jaclyn Hill pallet, which was a huge success and remained successful.



Because of the success of the original pallet, they released their second collaboration in June of 2018 and introduced the “vault collection”, which didn’t receive the same love as the original pallet.  Even though it was said to have the same loved formula, the eyeshadows showed a lot of inconsistencies with the formulation. The launch was a complete flop.

In May of 2019, it was announced that Jaclyn’s makeup line was finally arriving, which reached a lot of backlash from the public. Many people were disappointed with the fact that Hill was said to finally release her OWN makeup brand since 2014, but the day never came. Fans lost interest as they forgot about her wanting to start Jaclyn Cosmetics.
Things got worse for Hill when she released her lipsticks. It all started when a fellow YouTuber: RawBeautyKristi exposed the moldy lipsticks, from there it only got worse. Several other people were also received what the company was calling the defective batch, which I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case as everyone seemed to only receive lipsticks from the defective batch.


While this was all happening, Jaclyn remained quiet on the situation. When she finally broke her silence, people weren’t happy with her response and because of the way she responded to the situation, she became cancel yet again. She was accused of making these lipsticks back in 2015 and was just selling them now, even if they’d been sitting on the shelf for over 5 years.



After the whole lipstick incident, Jaclyn found herself in yet another scandal. Jaclyn announced that she and Morphe were collaborating yet again. She was still collaborating with other companies despite her having her own makeup line. And this launch just like every other launch had problems. Around the time when she released “Jaclyn Hill Pallet Volume II”, there was a video surfacing around calling out the fact that the formula for Jaclyn’s eyeshadows had changed.



Jen a smaller YouTuber became known for a video she posted stating that her sister-in-law's pallet was good but the one that she had was even better, coming up with the theory that something had changed. Jen began to investigate why her pallet and her sister in laws pallet were so different, even though they were supposed to be the same. Jen emailed Morphe about their situation, how her sister-in-law's pallet was different and if that was normal.



Morphe responded saying that nothing has changed, that everything was the same. So, Jen bought another pallet to compare all three, to see if her sister in law really did get some defective pallet. After a copious amount of investigation, she found that all three pallets were different and how her pallet was the best even though it was the oldest. The newer ones weren’t performing as good as the one she bought when it first hit the market.



Later, Jen discovered that the formula had indeed changed. Meaning that not only were the formulas on her pallets different but so was the formula in the new Jaclyn hill pallet. When fans heard this, they became upset with both Jaclyn and Morphe for not making the public aware of this transition.



The pallets were also originally marketed as cruelty-free but were found to have one ingredient that suggested otherwise: Carmine. When the original pallet first premiered, they weren’t using this ingredient, and nobody seemed to question the integrity of this pallet since it had a very good reputation at the moment. But after this was revealed people became furious as Morphe and Jaclyn were, still marketing it as cruelty-free and it hasn’t been for a while.



And even though Jaclyn was said to be unaware of this transition, I find that very difficult to believe. The reason for that is because when she was making a minor adjustment to the design of the pallet, she made everyone aware of it, and why announce that but not something major like the formula changing. All this just doesn’t add up.


As of right now, they are currently canceled for the shady business that has been going on between both parties. And even though I feel cancel culture is very toxic both Morphe and Jaclyn don’t deserve the support they received from people who were affected by this transition. With all that being said, people shouldn’t bash every little thing they do from now on. Yes, they messed up big time and screwed over so many people, but we need to remember that they are also just people. Just because they receive hate all the time doesn't make it okay.