Dramageddon 2.0

If you haven’t checked out part one of all this internet drama then go check that out before reading this.

It took less than a year for another YouTuber to be dramatically canceled based at least in part on a rift with a friend.

Tati Westbrook is a 37-year-old makeup YouTuber who also owns Halo Beauty, a supplement company that sells gummy vitamins for strengthening hair and nails. Her direct competitor is Sugar Bear Hair, a similar company whose products have been endorsed by a variety of influencers, including the Kardashian-Jenner clan. 

Tati has been “like a mother” to James, according to James himself. She took the budding star under her wing when his career was just kicking off — and he even did her wedding makeup. 

Keeping up? Good, because this is where it gets messy. 

On April 22, James posted an endorsement for Sugar Bear Hair on his Instagram story after the company supposedly helped him with a security issue during Coachella. Without naming names, Tati said she felt “lost” and “betrayed” on her Instagram story.

On May 10, 2019, a bitter war broke out when beauty YouTuber Tati Westbrook released an explosive video accusing her former friend and YouTube star James Charles of being backstabbing and manipulative. She also made several accusations about his alleged inappropriate behavior around straight men.

“When you do so much for people in your life and they not only don’t return the favor, but they just don’t even see you,” Tati said in her tearful video. “I feel really used.” 

James publicly apologized in similarly teary Instagram story the next day, and told his followers that he “did not think about the competition.”

“She has been like a mother to me since my first days in this industry,” he said in his public apology, adding that he didn’t accept any money for the post and that he uses Tati’s vitamin brand daily. “And has given me more love, support, resources, and advice than I could ever ask for.”

Fellow makeup YouTuber Gabriel Zamora who you might remember from Dramageddon 1 weighed in on the situation. In a video posted on May 4, he chided Tati for her immature reaction.

“All these videos are being made where James is being made out to be this horrible human being and I’m just confused as to what happened,” Gabriel said.

In response, Tati posted a video on Friday titled “BYE SISTER,” a play on James’ signature vlog intro, “Hi sisters!” The lengthy video dives into why Tati felt unappreciated by James, from his hesitation to promote her brand to his reluctance to collaborate with her. She publicly severed ties with him, concluding that it was “painful to lose someone you care about, that you thought would be in your life forever, but the chapter’s closed.”

Fans started unsubscribing from Charles immediately, and he lost over 3 million subscribers in a matter of days. Followers, having already witnessed the downfall of three influencers, turned unfollowing Charles into an internet-wide sport, with livestreams on YouTube tracking his follower loss. 

The whole saga was dubbed “Dramageddon 2.0” for its similarities to the previous feud: both featured incredibly high-profile friendships which had suddenly broken down in front of an audience.

Charles released a video telling his own side of the story a week later and gained back all of his lost subscribers. Soon afterward,YouTube changed how it would be displaying followers, meaning livestreaming drops in popularity was no longer possible. Since dropping the video, Tati has been rapidly gaining followers as James loses them. Twitter users and other influencers paid attention. James has lost more than 2.5 million subscribers in three days.

But the backlash isn’t just over snubbing a friend it’s over a much more concerning issue. Although the majority of the video was about her personal relationship with James, it also shed light on his toxic habit of allegedly sexually harassing straight men. “Oh my god, you tried to trick a straight man into thinking he’s gay yet again,” Tati ranted in her video, recalling a phone conversation she recently had with James. “And somehow, you’re the victim.”

James has also publicly hit on Shawn Mendes, leaving suggestive comments on the singer’s Instagram live videos and tweets. 

He later apologized in a tweet and said he was “sorry if he [Shawn] felt sexually harassed.” After Tati’s video, others came forward. Someone who claimed to be a former classmate tweeted that James allegedly sexually assaulted her friend. Singer Zara Larsson also tweeted that James repeatedly hit on her boyfriend, despite knowing that he’s straight. And in a supercut of James’ vlogs, a Twitter user showed the numerous times the beauty guru admitted he enjoyed pursuing heterosexual men because “it’s easier than you think.” It’s about time James Charles stopped getting a pass for his repeatedly toxic behavior. But why did it take a video from Tati for the internet to finally cancel him?

People started to questioning why Tati protected James for years, despite public knowledge that he harassed men both in person and on social media. And others pointed out how hypocritical it was for Jeffree Star, another member of the YouTube beauty community, to speak out against James despite his own problematic past. Star has since deleted his tweet. Is James Charles being canceled because of his actions, or because the internet loves drama? It’s been nearly a year since Dramageddon tore Beautube apart, exposing multiple YouTubers for their racist tweets.

Somehow, James’ own racist remarks weren’t pulled into the whirlwind of cancellation. When he made a transphobic comment earlier in 2019 about how he wasn’t “full gay” because he had been attracted to trans men, he received some backlash but got away relatively unscathed. Why is it Tati’s video that’s tanking his career?

Maybe it’s because the internet is willing to give a pass to its faves, until it’s time to grab some popcorn and watch a feud go down. It’s goodthat the internet is finally done with James — the face of the beauty community absolutely should not be a predator. But nobody paid attention or sought to hold him accountable until there was a friendship break up involved. 

The influencers at the center of Dramageddon have more or less recovered from 2018’s Beautube culling. Gabriel Zamora continues to make videos. Nikita Dragun was just profiled in Forbes. Manny MUA is still releasing products from his makeup line, Lunar Beauty. Even Laura Lee, whose iconically terrible apology video fueled Twitter memes for weeks, seems fine according to Insta.

Will James Charles’ cancellation last, or will the internet accept him into the fold again like it did with Jeffree Star? Despite his many controversies, Star is a multimillionaire thriving on top of a massive beauty empire.

Will he always be canceled? Hopefully. Will more makeup-centered drama go down in the near future and take down more racist, transphobic predators? God, we hope so.