Dramageddon 3

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.

51 David. According to Social Blade (a website that hosts statistics of social media accounts), Kennedy has close to a quarter of a million subscribers, and the video has 100.000 more views than that. That is to say that the video has managed to go beyond Kennedys’ fan base. Moving on, a large part of the audience commented on Star’s repeated involvement in so-called drama. Again, the audience comments as if they know Star personally while believing they have the authority to judge his person.

Furthermore, the community has noticed a pattern: it does not matter how many times Star gets cancelled, he will not learn from his mistake and therefore he must be held accountable.

@Laura Karin: The only way everyone can make a difference is to STOP purchasing his products. He is laughing all the way to The bank as it echoes in his large mansion that he rubs in everyone's faces.

@Ophelia_is_Falling: JS is vile, always has been. I've always avoided any product with his name or logo on it. I refuse to support this person.

@Tricia Isha: I’m not spending money on Jeffery stars makeup, and definitely won’t be in the future. He’s as vile as his hair people.

@cnp53: We are at a point where no one gets a free pass. If you’re racist you need to be called out. Enough with the “keeping everything private” or “starting drama” bullshit.

He’s a horrible person after all these years

Three of the four comments demonstrate that the audience approaches holding Star accountable by boycotting his products. The fourth comment by cnp53 mentions that racists need to be ‘exposed’ on the platform. Although exposure of racism to bring awareness is a good thing, this perception by cnp53 can be translated to the community asking for Star to be punished by employing public shaming. As the theory by Posner explains in section 4.1, shaming is a form of social control that takes place once someone goes against the norms established within the community. That is also what is currently occurring in the beauty community. In this case, the beauty community is responding specifically to Star’s behaviour by “criticizing, avoiding, [and] ostracizing”

him. In other words, the community is trying to control the presence of racism on

52 YouTube by singling out the individual, Star, who goes against their values. Although Goldman claims public shaming online can be effective, Oravec justifiably argues that effective public shaming can only be done by ones who are not morally corrupt. In other words, this means that the beauty community has not fixed the issue of racism on YouTube, and as long as they avoid conducting meaningful discussions about it, they have not achieved more than silencing it further.

Moreover, the comments on David’s video are no exception to expressing notions of intimacy between the audience and the YouTubers. However, in this case, the notion is split. On the one hand, the audience believes that David is an honest person who appears hurt by Star, and on the other hand, they believe that Star is truly a bad person who hides behind his wealth and fame.

@Melissa Benson: [about David] Wow!! For the first time ever i feel like finally someone is being a hundred percent honest and real about something and just the way you talked i could tell it really bothered you and you didn't want to say it but felt like you needed too 💖😍 this world needs more people like you in it.

@Nanc Nicole: [about Star] He’s never going to change. His bad behavior and secretive negative actions have gotten him to where he is. All he has ever wanted is fame and money. I don’t understand why people can’t see through the facade. His apology videos have never been sincere. If people still think that man hasn’t already sold his soul a long time ago; they are fools.

@Ai Enma: this guy seems like a good person, you can just tell. Unfortunately, Jeffree is a lost soul. I hope he finds his peace one day

@Mandy Monroe: I was literally just wearing js merch and had been a fan of him for many years. But man, I’m hella disappointed. He really had me believing that he cleaned up his act. He never changed. Needless to say, I took off my js hoodie. I will not support this. Enough is enough.

Here, the comments illustrate how the beauty community is already convinced that they have seen Star’s true colours, due to his consistent track record of bigotry on the platform. This is reflected in the comments made by Nanc Nicole, Ai Enma, and

53 Mandy Monroe. Ai Enma believes that Star is “a lost soul”, while Nanc Nicole and Mandy Monroe reference Star’s inability to change by stating “He’s never going to change” and “He really had me believing that he cleaned up his act. He never changed”.

This perception of Star makes it easier for the audience to believe David’s claims. The community’s fondness for David is represented in the comment by Melissa Benson, who appears to be relieved to have found a YouTuber who is “a hundred percent honest and real”. Furthermore, Star’s fan base is beginning to realize that their continuous support allows him to grow his platform and avoid responsibility by still receiving business from his audience. This is primarily reflected in Mandy Monroe’s comment, which states that they have been a fan of him for many years, but will no longer support him based on the information that David has given them. In truth, circumventing Star’s merchandise and video content may have an impact on his presence on the platform. To circle back to Abad-Santos’ argument, the YouTubers in the beauty community have become the product they are selling. That is to say, not engaging with them means that they will lose their platform. In this sense, cancel culture is effective; however, taking away Jeffree Star’s influence does not fix the actual problem of racism on YouTube. On the contrary:

in this sense, cancel culture acts as a label that describes the audience’s power and authority over the YouTuber they collectively chose to dislike.

The second part of this analysis discusses the video titled “I just want to move on” uploaded by Trisha Paytas. This video was uploaded a half year after sanders kennedy reuploaded David’s video. First I establish the context of the video. After David addressed Star’s bigoted behaviour in his video, the community turned to Star’s “best friend” at the time, Shane Dawson. The community brought up evidence of Dawson’s past behaviour, which showed him regularly performing in blackface, making racist jokes, and being sexually explicit towards children. One resurfaced video showed him pretending to masturbate over a (then) 11-year-old Willow Smith, and it went viral (Murray 2020). Willow’s brother and mother, mainstream celebrities Jaden Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, posted about how horrified they were with Dawson (see Figure 5) on Twitter to their millions of followers. Since the community valued Dawson as less famous than the Smith family, their disapproval of him boosted his cancellation. For the beauty community, the nail in Dawson’s coffin was the publication of Paytas’ video.

54 Paytas’ YouTube channel blndsundoll4mj has 5.1 million subscribers, but the video only has 1.2 million views. Based on previous analysis, this would mean that Paytas did not reach outside her usual fan base. However, Paytas’ video usually gets around 200.000 views, which is significantly lower than 1.2 million. The only videos that have over a million views are the ones that have gone viral, meaning that they do reach outside of her usual audience. Thus, the comments on this video will nevertheless provide an accurate representation of the beauty community’s relationship dynamic with the involved YouTubers. Important to note beforehand is that relationship between the community and Paytas has been an unsteady one at best. In multiple attempts to become famous, Paytas has been on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2010, America’s Got Talent in 2012, appeared on over 30 reality-tv shows, written eleven self-help books, and has recorded ten albums, none of which took off (Jennings 2021). However, none of these attempts made her as successful as aggravating people by being controversial on social media. In the past, she often used the n-word and was accused of mocking mental disorders, sexualities, gender identities, and ethnicities on multiple occasions. That is to say, her track record does not encourage the community to like her, but it does not seem to affect their trust. This trust in Paytas is reflected in the feelings of connectedness and authenticity stated in the comments under the video.

@Samantha Marie: For as much shit as people talk about Trish, she’s real as fuck deep down. Mad respect, you beautiful soul. So happy you’re parting ways with Shame. I mean Shane**

@C F: i think everyone can agree that shane lost a REAL ONE. ive seen trisha defend him more than she defends herself.

@Emily Loza: It's weird. As much as people say she's a problem. She's telling the truth

�🏼 ♀️

@Cassie B: You are seriously the most real person on this app. Even when you're trolling it's really easy to tell when you're being sincere. I feel for you trish. Always remember to follow your heart. When you get those feelings always follow your heart. ❤

55 Once again, the comments frequently mention a sense of authenticity, this time coming from Paytas. Despite acknowledging her turbulent reputation within the community, the audience maintains the proposition that Paytas is being her true self.

Samantha Marie, C F, and Cassie B demonstrate the community’s premonition of Paytas by calling her ‘real’. Yet, this notion is justified by nothing more than their current perception of her, whilst conveniently forgiving her past tribulations. The comment by Emily Loza represents this by stating “As much as people say she's a problem. She's telling the truth”. This unquestionably proves the true importance of authenticity in the relationship between the audience and the YouTuber, as it surpasses the value of being cancelled. In other words, a YouTuber who is perceived as authentic by their audience is essentially immune to cancellation. Then, it does not matter if they have acted racist, sexist, or bigoted in any other sense. That is to say, cancel culture is truly about the drama and YouTuber’s relationship dynamic with the audience, and not about tackling deep-rooted social issues. Moreover, a majority of the comments on Paytas’ video discuss her relationship, or lack thereof, with Dawson - many of which express their sorrow for Paytas’ apparent dejection in the video.

@Michael Hamilton: Shane hates himself so much that he's willing to turn his back on everyone who's been there for him to be at the cool kids table. Besides all the other terrible shit he's done, he's not a good friend and doesn't deserve your energy.

@Lauren: This is so sad. When will Shane realise that the money he has been chasing won’t make him happy? Trish. You are loved. Your loyalty shines so bright. You will win in the end.

@Randa Bazzi: Shane just lost the one person that truly had his back. Trisha just focus on your future you're getting married yayyyy couldn't be happier for you. Xx

@Samantha: You outgrew Shane, Trisha. He’s toxic. You’re moving into a good place in your life, leave him behind.

These comments, especially when compared to the comments in section 5.1, demonstrate the rapid shift in the relationship between Dawson and the audience, and how considerably being dishonest impacts this relationship. Lauren makes a point of, in

56 their opinion, Dawson’s dead-end pursuit of happiness and wealth. Michael Hamilton also makes a note of Dawson’s desperation for fame. This is to say, the audience sees through Dawson’s crafted authentic narrative that he had maintained on the platform for so long because he lied about his involvement in cancelling James Charles and he publically betrayed a friend of 12 years. Dawson’s cancellation is so remarkably potent, more so than others, because his authentic narrative seemed impenetrable just a short time prior to this scandal. Yet, Dawson proved to be a true YouTuber when his collaboration with Jeffree Star on a 9-part docuseries turned out to be a promotional stunt for the launch of their eyeshadow palette because the series contained product placement (Goggin 2019). Despite the audience believing this series was to showcase Star’s true self behind the scenes, sponsorships, brand deals, and promotions are at the heart of a YouTubers revenue model (Tornetta 2019), and Dawson is no exception.

Over the past few years, YouTube has become institutionalized due to the monetization of content (Hou 2018). Dawson, who has been a creator on YouTube for almost 13 years, showed that he has been catching up with his competitors and growing alongside the platform by monetizing his content, endorsing products, and crafting an authentic narrative to maintain a connectedness with his audience, despite being a “business”.

However, the community experiences this common YouTube marketing strategy as a betrayal because they believed Dawson to still be the amateur creator he started out to be (Hou 2018; Cunningham and Craig 2017). This can be seen as an example of Carpenter’s and Amaravadoi’s theory on social norms. The community expected Dawson to behave according to their accepted social norms, which are known as the injunctive norms, while Dawson actually behaved according to the descriptive social norms that most successful YouTubers follow nowadays. It seems that cancel culture is more of a power battle between the audience and the YouTuber, rather than the audience being the authority: the audience holds the power to disconnect the YouTuber, and the YouTuber holds the power to “fool” the audience into an authentic and intimate narrative.

This section has illustrated the final phase of Dramageddon. In contrast to the prior two phases, in this phase, no YouTubers were vindicated. Instead, two of the community’s previously most loved YouTubers were cancelled and cut off from

57 engagement as punishment for their inauthenticity and bigotry. First, Star was exposed in a video by his former friend David for making racist and derogatory comments towards mutual friends. The community aimed to hold Star accountable for his actions by cutting off their engagement and support. Although the community is bringing awareness to racism, silencing a powerful individual’s platform does not contribute to fixing the issue. Instead, the community runs the risk of censoring it because they want to erase the YouTuber and their actions from their group. Moreover, Star’s case has shown that cancelling a YouTuber does not necessarily mean that they are gone for good. Before his redeeming collaboration with Dawson on the docuseries, Star had been involved in multiple other feuds and scandals. Similar to Star, Paytas has also proven to be immune to cancellation. Although the community acknowledges Paytas’

past controversies, they forgive her because she is ‘real’. In turn, proving the crucial role authenticity plays in the relationship between the audience and the YouTuber. Arguably, a YouTuber’s authentic narrative is cancel culture’s kryptonite. On the other hand, Dawson has proven that cancel culture can cause bigger repercussions if this narrative unexpectedly collapses, showing that cancel culture causes a battle of authority and power between the YouTuber and their audience.