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5. MAIN ANALYSIS

5.1 Dramageddon 1

This scandal begins in August of 2018 when YouTuber Gabriel Zamora tweeted a picture showing the caption “Bitch is bitter because without him we’re doing better” (see Figure 1). The picture shows Zamora sitting alongside Manny Gutierrez, Nikita Dragun, and Laura Lee, who are three other popular beauty vloggers on the platform, and they are all holding up their middle fingers. The tweet was allegedly directed at Jeffree Star, with whom they were publically friends for several years prior. Before the scandal began, Star, Zamora, Gutierrez, and Dragun were known to be a tight-knit group of friends within the beauty community on YouTube. Star had been in feuds before with mainstream celebrities such as Kat von D, Kim Kardashian, and Kylie Jenner. However, after each feud Star came out on top, mainly due to his loyal fan-base (Nesvig 2017).

The release of the photograph was a big shock to many as the five YouTubers’ fan bases were interconnected with each other. Zamora and the other three YouTubers started getting backlash from Star’s fans, to which Zamora replied in another tweet

“Imagine stanning a racist? I could never”. Stanning means to be a super-fan. In this tweet, Zamora expresses his disgust for a big part of the community. This tweet referred to an old video of Star using the n-word as an insult to a white woman, who was harassing him before the video. Zamora’s original tweet led a part of the community to dig out a bunch of his and Lee’s old tweets. These tweets contained racist and demeaning comments (see Figure 2), which framed the two as hypocrites for attacking Star. Moreover, the tweets had been posted after the fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin in the United States. This sudden exposure of hypocrisy led to Lee deactivating her Twitter account for a while. She subsequently posted an apology video in an attempt to exert damage control on the situation; however, this apology is still frequently ‘memed’ to this day (Chen 2018). Meanwhile, the other YouTubers were losing subscribers on their YouTube channels at a rapid pace. Zamora realized the danger he was in, and swiftly reconciled with Star by apologizing and putting the blame on Gutierrez. Lee attempted to distance herself from both Zamora and Gutierrez completely, but it did not stop her from losing over 300.000 subscribers, partnerships, and sponsors. As a result of the blame being put on Gutierrez, he lost over 250.000 subscribers. Dragun was trending on Twitter with “#NikitaDragunIsOverParty”.

39 Moving on to the second step of this section, I will now look at the comments under the video. The video titled “GABRIEL ZAMORA SHADES JEFFREE STAR & IT BACKFIRES!⎮PART 1” was uploaded on the 15th of August 2018, which was within days of Zamora’s original tweet. The channel that uploaded the video is called ‘Here for the tea’, which is a popular drama channel with over 400.000 subscribers. The video itself has over 600.000 views, which means that the video has reached outside of its own audience. The time that the comments were posted is close to the upload date of the video, meaning that the comments reflect the actual perception of the community at the time. Although some comments are edited, they are labeled accordingly. Most of the comments discuss Zamora, Lee, Dragun, and Gutierrez’s alleged hypocrisy and dishonesty in the situation. I have chosen four comments which best represent this discourse:

@Obi wan Kenobi: “Laura’s Twitter should’ve just stayed deleted smh”

@rhezia orz: “Gabriel : Can't stand racism. Is friends with Nikita and Laura the leech”

@RIP w/ Jess & E: “You're telling me that this guy went 19 years without knowing that the n word was bad? Did he skip all of middle school and high school or something?”

@Jen_8: “Those 4 losers are CANCELLED”

These comments show that, at the time, the beauty community was easily turned against the YouTubers, because they had proven to be hypocrites. Their apparent display of dishonesty led to their simultaneous dismount in credibility as YouTubers, and thus, also a significant loss in audience engagement (García-Rapp 2017a, p.127).

Moreover, Star was busy working on his redemption arc from previous scandals during this time. He was working with Shane Dawson, another popular YouTuber, on a docuseries documenting Star’s personal life and struggles. This coincides with Alex Abad-Santos’ theory that beauty YouTubers belonging to the beauty community are required to manufacture authenticity to convince buyers to trust them and to buy the products they endorse, including their own brand. On this, Abad-Santos states

“Beautubers’ authority is born out of a perception of authenticity, and many gurus underline this authenticity by opening up about their personal lives onscreen”

(Abad-40 Santos 2018). In other words, the YouTubers themselves have become products, and the feud between the beauty YouTubers is an example of them competing for subscribers’ business and trust. More comments under the video are an example of the audience being subjected to this theory:

@SketchyMary: “People that say “we KNOW him in person, we see when the camera is off” but like ya’ll love fame and attention. Beauty “gurus” all jump at any opportunity to make money/collabs. I rather trust Shane Dawson’s opinion who has been 100%

authentic since day one...just my opinion.”

@Laura: “Interesting how this comes out now when Jeffree did the Shane videos.

Seems like people are just using Jeffree's name in a negative way to get fans.”

@inquisitor: “Honestly, I'm more inclined to believe Shane than the four horsemen.”

@Maria: “I appreciate that you are saying off the bat that you have bias against Jeffree (Obviously seen through the rest of your videos) but I'm a little disappointed you will not be offering your opinion since Jeffree is in the right. If Jeffree started all of this you would have no problem bashing him”

The comments by SketchyMary and inquisitor mention a notion of authenticity when talking about Star. Here, it becomes apparent that another part of the community is more inclined to believe Star and Dawson, as they have appeared transparent and authentic throughout their careers. Other comments, such as the ones made by Laura and Maria, state that they are siding with Star in this scandal. Furthermore, the community approaches the scandal as if they are holding Zamora, Lee, Gutierrez, and Dragun accountable for being racist and lying about it. As discovered in the previous chapter (see 4.1) YouTube is not a techno-utopian platform where the morally pure act as the peacemakers for the impure minds, meaning that the community is too morally corrupt to make an accurate judgement of this scandal. Star has managed to manufacture an authentic narrative that has bullet-proofed him from being cancelled.

Abad-Santos describes Star’s tactics as having “rehabilitated his image by playing up the idea that we can learn from our mistakes, no matter how awful they are.” He also explains the shift in Lee’s relationship with the beauty community, stating:

41 Compared to Lee, who has been dragged for not being genuine in her apology video, Star is fluent in how to speak to his fans and subscribers in a way that feels authentic. […] Or perhaps it’s as simple as feeling that if we’re friends with Jeffree, it’s now impossible to be friends with Lee. (Abad-Santos 2018)

Moving on to the second part of this section, I will now analyze the comments on a video representing the end of Dramageddon 1. A year after the start of the scandal, Gutierrez uploaded a video addressing his cancellation. The video titled “I was

‘"Cancelled" last year, lets finally talk about it” has over 1.3 million views. Most of the comments were made during the happenings of Dramageddon 2, however, they still represent the shift in the relationship between Gutierrez and the audience because many of the comments reflect on this change.

@Elizabeth PG: “I just want to say SORRY for jumping in the STUPID BAND WAGON!!!”

@Virgo M: “When Dramaggeddon happened, I feel sad to say I jumped on the bandwagon. Now with all this new stuff coming out, it made me re-examine a lot of shit.

Coming back and seeing how you've changed and been able to grow from it all is inspiring. I hope you continue to achieve your goals and make a positive impact.”

@Tierny O’Hearn: “I'm ashamed to say I jumped on the bandwagon because I was immature and let the public sway me. It's something I'm working on but I'm so sorry for believing any of it. Looking back on everything and all the controversies that have happened it's so painfully obvious who the real issue was. I'm so glad that you grew from this and that you found the light at the end of the tunnel”

@Maya Yun: “I feel so bad I followed the bandwagon .. I’m sorry manny! :/”

A common phrase used in these comments, which all of the four above also frequently mention, is the word ‘bandwagon’. According to Kendra Cherry (2020), the bandwagon effect occurs when a group of people lets a popular trend or viewpoint influence their behaviour or opinion, simply because others are doing it as well. Hopping on the bandwagon’ is caused by a social pressure that requires one to conform (Cherry

42 2020; Gustafsson and Weinryb 2020; Oravec 2020), meaning that individuals within the community were not only influenced by Star’s crafted narrative but were also subjected to conformity within their VCoP. In this case, the audience’s participation in a VCoP plays an important role. Here, it was not so much a collective of people coming together over shared interests, but as Strangelove points out, it is more about people going down the same path together.

Gutierrez’s video appears to be his redemption, as most comments reflect their renewed acceptance of the YouTuber:

@Aly m: “Rewatching this is giving me a new respect for him. As soon as he said he didn't want to rehash everything because "it was a year ago" and we recently had Tati go into detail rehashing things that literally happened a year ago. Manny will forever be the best most genuine influencer on the platform”

@Victoria Dean: “I'm finally getting caught up on my MUA love and you have me crying!

It's crazy how much I feel like we have in common.”

@Joni’sBeautySpace: “Hold on to this. Even if you become “green” again, and “on top”

again, hold on to what you have now. This is the most real I’ve ever seen you, and nothing is better than authenticity.”

@elizitas: “I am truly sorry for giving up on you Manny. Same goes for Laura. I have literally been brain washed and now I finally woke up. Wishing only the best for you! So sorry that this had to happen to the two of you”

A common theme amongst the comments is the feeling of regret from the audience, as is reflected in the comment by elizitas. Other comments, as portrayed by Joni’sBeautySpace, give Gutierrez personal advice and show their remorse for how their community acted during the scandal. Moreover, it appears as if the same notion of authenticity from the audience that cancelled Gutierrez, now seems to welcome him back into the community. This is represented in the comment Aly m, who claims that

“Manny will forever be the best most genuine influencer on the platform”. Previously, the YouTube beauty community had perpetuated the notion that the four YouTubers involved in this scandal were horrible people. Yet, this was a notion that was first

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.