Dramageddon 2

43 introduced by Star. It began to gain traction when ‘receipts’ (a slang term for ‘proof’) shared by Star began to circulate on Twitter for other members of the community to read and spread further. Circling back to chapter 4.2 of this thesis, users do not have to consent to the spread of information, even if it is personal. The community is allowed to distribute the receipts that were posted by Star. As a result, Gutierrez and the others were treated differently caused by a limited and very fast proliferation of exposure of (mis)information (Hrynshyn 2019; Tucker 2018).

This analysis of Dramageddon 1 has first shown that the audience’s relationship with Zamora, Gutierrez, Lee, and Dragun shifted once they began to appear inauthentic.

In contrast to this, the audience’s relationship with Star became stronger because he appeared transparent and authentic. I have also shown that the foundation of the YouTube audience’s judgement of scandals relies on trust, connectedness, and authenticity. Yet this is an unreliable method to judge, as Star’s authentic narrative is carefully crafted, covering up his controversial past. Second, this analysis proves that the community felt remorse toward Gutierrez, and showed that they were ashamed of jumping on the bandwagon. Moreover, the freedom to distribute any (mis)information contributes to the audience’s subjective perception of the YouTubers, leading the audience to treat them differently.

44 men into sexual relationships with him (Nyman 2019). As a result of Westbrook’s video, Charles lost over three million subscribers within three days. Charles currently holds the record for the most subscribers lost in a single day at 1,261,460 subscribers due to the video. A part of the audience hosted and participated in live subscriber count watch-parties that celebrated Charles’ loss. Star was also quick to involve himself in the situation by posting on Twitter and claiming that Charles is “a predator” and “a danger to society” (see Figure 3). A couple of days later, Charles responded to Westbrook in another video wherein he appeared visibly annoyed with the situation. Unfortunately for Charles, the audience did not receive his obvious disgust well as he seemed to avoid taking accountability by deflecting his anger onto Westbrook, whom the audience considered to be the victim.

Moving forward, I will now analyze the comments on the video “James Charles response to Tati’s “Bye Sister” video (He Lost 2Million subscribers)” by Stasia’s Secrets.

Important to note is that the video was uploaded by this user to avoid further audience engagement with Charles’ original video, which he had posted on his YouTube channel.

These intentions are proven in the video’s description, which reads “In case you didn’t wanna give him more views”. The channel has 740 subscribers, but the video has reached close to 50.000 views, meaning that the video has reached beyond the channel’s own audience. The comments further reflect the audience’s disdain toward Charles.

@Ruth Sheahan: “a lot of people look up to me as a role model” well guess what “sister”

😂 not anymore not feel Charles was being sincere.

@VASCO: “Faaaaakkkkkkkeeeee”

@Jasmine Furguson: ‘This is sooo hard to watch, but yet I watched Tatis 45 minute video with no problem. This is very Insincere! Tbh he looked like he was high.”

@Bryn Carys: “Y’all u can see the reflection of the script he’s reading through his glasses. He’s wearing glasses bc he needs them for reading too lmaooo”

These four comments represent the greater majority of the audience’s reception of Charles’ video. All four comments mention fakeness and inauthenticity coming from

45 Charles. The user Bryn Carys claims that they can see the reflection of a script in Charles’ glasses, meaning that they believe that he scripted the apology which was supposed to be sincere. Ruth Sheahan illustrates in her comment how the community no longer perceives Charles as a role model, due to his insincerity. This inauthentic narrative that the community has put on to Charles resulted in him losing a large amount of audience engagement from his channel. As was discovered in the previous section (see 5.1), the community previously acknowledged having ‘jumped on the bandwagon’. Yet still, there is no current sign of deeper discussion or lessons taken from prior experiences for this scandal. The community has conformed to the same ritual that had taken place a year earlier. However, so far, this scandal involves a different set of YouTubers than before. This demonstrates that the audience does not focus on the issues, but instead has the individual YouTubers as their focal point. This type of behaviour is a result of the audience’s notion of intimacy with the creators on the platform (Marwick 2015). For example, the following comments represent the community’s occupancy with Charles as a person, rather than debating his accusations.

@Zia Everhaert: Wow. I see what Tati was talking about.... This is very sad and he can be better than this

@sophie de maslow: I always knew he was a selfish diva who only cares for him and his money. He never deserved all that he somehow got

@Cris Medina: Not a fan of him at all. But I do remember him when he first started our as a humble, quaint kid. With all that's recently happened it just shows money and power can really change someone

@Klaudia Arriera: I hope people unfollow and unsubscribe from him. There are so many more deserving people in the world.

Here, it shows that the community is concerned with Charles as a person. Zia Everhaert claims that Charles “can be better than this”, signifying they know Charles’

personal capabilities. Moreover, user Cris Medina reminisces on how Charles’ used to be a “humble” and “quaint” person, and how his wealth and fame have changed him.

Again, this comment represents that the community feels as if they have been close

46 friends with Charles since his start on YouTube. Around the same time as Charles’

original video was uploaded, comments were posted that do not mention his actions, the victims, or the consequences of his actions. The word ‘deserve’ is frequently mentioned in the comments by sophie de maslow and Klaudia Arriera, as is a reference to his nature as a human being. Not only do these comments signify connectedness between the audience and the YouTuber, but they also show that the community feels authorized to decide what Charles is deserving of. Moreover, this authorization is primarily based on whom they believe him to truly be. That is to say, the community believes that their perception of Charles is accurate to the extent that they justify being hurtful and mean to him. In section 4.5, Smith states that the IOMC ideology leads to communities on YouTube perceiving YouTubers as more complex than what they show on screen, allowing the community to understand YouTubers beyond their ‘celebrity façade’. However, Smith approaches this ideology from a techno-utopian angle.

According to him, the community becomes more forgiving of YouTubers because they do not limit them to the public image the audience gets to see. As is shown in the comments above, the beauty community judged Charles’ off-screen personality as bad, based on what they have been told by Westbrook. In this case, the community’s opinion is hateful towards him.

Moving on, the second part of this section discusses the comments on the video

“No More Lies” uploaded to Charles’ main channel. First, I look at the views to subscriber ratio on the video. Charles has over 25 million subscribers on his channel, but the video has reached over 55 million views, meaning that the video reached beyond Charles’ fan base. In light of recent developments, set in May of 2021, involving Charles (perhaps the beginnings of Dramageddon 4?), a large portion of the comments that are dated a couple of months ago reflects a different opinion on the YouTuber.

However, for the purposes of this study, I will remain focused on the comments that are dated closest to the original upload date of the video. Before Charles uploaded, Westbrook posted another (now deleted) video titled “Why I did It…” referencing her

“Bye Sister” video. In this video, Westbrook mentioned that she was advised and encouraged to publicly shame Charles by Star and Dawson, which she admitted to doing with the knowledge that Charles may become suicidal. The comments on

47 Charles’ video showcase the shift in the relationship between the audience and the YouTubers.

@Katchela: can't believe that James literally handled this mess better than two mid-thirties people.

@Axel M: Tati's "bye sisters" was basically an ad to her gummies while james didn't even put a damn link in this video's description. I respect him so much.

@Queenaren O: Dude he's taking the whole responsibility for his mistakes and it's so hard to admit your mistakes for the public he's truly honest

@Zoey :3: he’s actually not as problematic as yall make him out to be, yall just leave out KEY facts and screenshots of messages. james rlly is a good person

A part of the community makes note of the age differences between Charles, Westbrook, Star, and Dawson, as is represented in the comment by Katchela. They claim that Charles is handling the scandal more maturely than his older counterparts.

Another part of the community commented on the respect they have gained for Charles based on new insights. This perspective is predominantly shown in the comments by Axel M and Queenaren O. Axel M directly mentions their respect for Charles, whereas Queenaren O makes a point of how hard it is to do what Charles did. The community was exposed to new information when Dawson went live on Instagram to share his reaction to Westbrook’s second video. In the live video, Dawson is seen yelling at the screen that Westbrook appears on, and is heard continuously claiming that she is a liar and a manipulator. This act caused him to lose over 20.000 Twitter followers in the same day (Tenbarge 2020b). However, since the community is already convinced of Charles’ innocence, they now turn against Westbrook, Dawson, and Star. Yet, Dawson still managed to control the damage he had done by posting an explanation to Twitter wherein he denies any direct involvement and instead points the finger at Star (see Figure 4). Moreover, the comments on Charles’ video show the change in dynamic between the audience and the YouTubers.

48

@Archie Success: I feel like Jeffrey star is jealous because you gained more followers than him and you are more talented than him 🙄

@Cyborg Ciderman: And all the people who took jefree and tati's side are quiet...

@lost my mind: Looking back at this time James was really hurt. His reputation was ruined, and he received so much hate. I’m extremely happy for him now, he got rid of the toxic people, and is happy with himself. That’s AMAZING, I personally wouldn’t be able to heal from this if it was me.

He is so strong.

He is a TRUE survivor

@Vanish Stain Remover: Dont mind me, just came back to reminisce on James pulling the biggest uno reverse card of all time…

The comments demonstrate, here, that not only did the audience change their opinion about Charles; they also changed their views on Star, Dawson, and Westbrook.

This is in contrast to the community’s good relationship with Star and Dawson during Dramageddon 1, as was discovered in the previous section (see 5.1). The shift in relationship with Charles becomes enhanced when the comments by lost my mind and sophie de maslow are compared to each other. First, the community perceived Charles as a selfish diva, going as far as sending him hateful and threatening messages that, in their opinion, were justified. Then, they show remorse and label him as a survivor.

Another part of the audience reminisces on the situation by stating that in hindsight Charles’ was the victim all along. Despite being the victim of public shaming by Westbrook, Charles was also a victim of hate and abuse coming from the community.

However, the community does not perceive it this way and puts the responsibility on Westbrook, Star, and Dawson instead. Furthermore, yet again, the content of the accusations and actions carried out by the YouTubers are not being brought into the conversation. Instead, throughout the scandal, the audience’s focus lies heavily on the social interaction between the YouTubers. This observation is an example of Miller’s theory on social media activism, where he claims that it is becoming less dialogic, and

49 more about social interaction. However, this is not solely the audience’s fault. On YouTube, the creators become the commodity, meaning that their relationship with their audience is crucial for their business (Hou 2018; García-Rapp 2017a). In other words, the YouTuber must maintain a notion of intimacy with their audience to generate engagement with their content. Moreover, social media platforms also play an important part in changing the relationship dynamics (Brown 2015). Thus, it would not be right to assign full responsibility for the relationship to the audience. This also explains why VCoPs find passing on information to be more important than the content of the conversation (Miller 2017).

This section exploring the audience’s relationship with the YouTubers during Dramageddon 2 has demonstrated that, once again, the dynamic changed by the end of the scandal. At the start, Charles was cancelled due to Westbrook’s video and his response to it. Following this, Westbrook uploaded a video wherein she apologizes to Charles for the abuse he had endured due to his cancellation and claimed she was manipulated by Dawson and Star. In contrast to Dramageddon 1, Dramageddon 2 showcased how Charles was cancelled, redeemed, and turned the tables on his accusers. Furthermore, this section has illustrated that the beauty community on YouTube is more focused on the individual YouTubers’ personalities and personal life, rather than debating the social issues that sparked the cancellation. The reason behind this is explained through Smith’s IOMC ideology, which theorizes that YouTube communities see the creator as complex and ‘more’ than what is shown online. Yet, in contrast to Smith, the reality of the ideology is that the communities believe to truly know the person on screen as if they were to be best friends. Dawson’s and Star’s response to Westbrook made the community suspicious of their transparency towards them. As the community had already determined that Charles was innocent, they turned against Westbrook, Dawson, and Star. In this case, the community’s behaviour exemplifies Miller’s theory on social media activism, which states that discussions are phatic and less about in-depth discussions on social issues. However, blaming the problems of cancel culture on the audience alone does not make sense; YouTubers are a product that is sold through a notion of intimacy between the audience and the YouTuber. In other words, the YouTuber benefits from the audience feeling connected

50 to them. Moreover, the nature of social media also contributes to the shifting relationship dynamic between the audience and the YouTuber, by allowing the unprecedented sharing of personal data, new situational information, and receipts. This rapid spread of information influences the community’s judgement at such a pace, that the relationship dynamic can change overnight.