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James Charles, a name so chilling

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that it requires a trigger warning.

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Trigger warning: James Charles.

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You can say a lot of things about
James Charles.

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Most of them are bad.

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Like, really bad.

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But objectively, he is one of the most
well-known

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influencers from the last 10 years.

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And because of how much exposure

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and business success he saw
over the years,

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James Charles is truly somebody who
could have had it all

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if only he wasn't a piece of shit.

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If you're watching this video, odds are
you've heard of James,

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or you've at least heard of his infamy.

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You may have had the petrifying
experience

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of seeing his BBL or hearing him say

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"Hi sisters!"

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This guy's digital footprint has some of the
funniest

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and grossest shit I have ever seen.

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Because as we'll get into, he is a massive
creepo, freako,

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womp womp.

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It is quite a tale.

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So allow me to take you on an Unhinged
James Charles Deepdive.

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James Charles (or James Charles
Dickinson)

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was born on May 23rd, 1999 in Bethlehem,
New York.

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And he is Emily Dickinson's third cousin
twice removed -

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ignore that, it was a lie, I just lied.

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In 2010, at the age of 11, he started his

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very first YouTube channel called
JaysCoding.

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This channel mostly consisted of him
covering songs like

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"Pumped Up Kicks".

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♫ "You better run, better run
faster than my bullet." ♫

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"Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood.

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♫ "Carved my name
into his leather seats." ♫

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But most notably, this "It Will Rain" cover

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where he's wearing this wolf hat.

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♫ "- morphine at my door." ♫

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And although these childhood videos are
wholesome,

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this would be the start
of a very troubling

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pattern of him
singing unprompted.

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Although my personal favorite video
that I found on JaysCoding

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was this six-second upload of just
a image of an eye.

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Like, bro really uploaded an
image to YouTube,

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and that is so of the time.

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But in 2015, he would launch his second
and main channel

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that we know today as James Charles.

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And this is where he started uploading
makeup tutorials, such as

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serpent makeup tutorial and
Snapchat Galaxy makeup tutorial.

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And as you can see, none of these look
particularly good.

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In fact, they're pretty bad,
but I assure you

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everyone's makeup looked
really bad in 2015,

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so that really means nothing I guess.

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But he was gaining a really decent
audience from posting these tutorials.

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But the inciting incident, the
catalyst that would launch

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James Charles' career, happened in
September of 2016.

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And this moment would have irreversible
repercussions on society and the Internet.

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James was 17 years old at this point,

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and he had just taken his senior photos,

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which came out fugly according to him.

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And so he hired the school
photographer to come back

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and let him retake the pictures
with his ring light.

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And as you can see here, his highlight is
definitely going off,

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his brows have a good
Roblox look to them.

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However, where I draw the line is
that man bun.

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What the f**k?

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Anyways, his friend convinces
him to post these

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new glamorous pictures online
and they go extremely viral.

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Like, this picture of James
was being shared

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so much that CoverGirl noticed it.

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And that is how he became the world's
first male CoverGirl.

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Now because this was 2016, it stirred
controversy amongst conservatives.

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And, you know, of course it did

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because it's CoverGirl, not "CoverDong".

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Seriously, though, I found this
old Twitter thread

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where people are just bitching about this
like there's no tomorrow.

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A great example is this one:

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<i>reads tweet.</i>

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There's also this one where
a woman compares

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James being on CoverGirl to a white
person doing blackface.

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Um... Nurse, she's out again!

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Anyways, outisde of these rando's making
a stink out of it,

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this opened up a lot of opportunities

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for James.

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I mean, he went on Ellen, I guess that's not
that impressive, though.

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As I mentioned in the Jojo Siwa video, you
could literally fart into a bucket

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and somehow make it on Ellen at this
point in time.

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And as his fame was escalating,

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he did his first-ever fan meet.

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Only 50 people showed up to this event,

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and one of the videos that was taken there

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was turned into a meme because at

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some point James just sat down on the
ground and started singing.

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♫ Bring me a little water now! 
Bring me little water, Sylvie!♫

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I don't know what my favorite part about
this meme is. It might be

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the Snapchat caption that says "f**k it up"

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which insinuates that he's doing a good
job singing right now.

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Or it could be the fact that he raises

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his finger up as if he's hitting those
high notes.

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This was, of course, the very first time

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that he was turned into a meme,

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but it's certainly would not be the last.

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This same year, James did a CoverGirl
promotion with Zendaya,

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and oh my God, this has gotta be

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one of the most unintentionally funny
videos I've ever seen.

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So this video that they're doing is a
challenge to see what makeup

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looks they could come up with in the
span of 5 minutes.

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And so they're both in a rush and trying to
showcase these CoverGirl

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products along the way.

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And about 30 seconds in, James gets
befuddled and just starts

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copying Zendaya and then acts like

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everything he's doing was his idea.

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- "I used it on my inner corner."
- "Same."

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(Huh??)

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- "I used this as a base for the blue."
- "Yeah, same."

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And not only this, the end result is so bad,

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she absolutely ate him up, I can't believe
this video exists.

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These two people should not exist in the
same universe.

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James would soon also start doing collabs

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with massive YouTubers like Tana Mongeau,
Joey Graceffa, and even

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non-YouTubers like Maddie Ziegler.

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However, he would soon find himself in his

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very first controversy, and that is the
"Ebola" tweet.

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On Febuary 16, 2017, James writes:

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<i>reads tweet.</i>

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So obviously this is very out of touch

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and just kind of assumes that Africa is like
a diseased-riddled area,

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and so people were not happy about this.

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And so the very same day he did his first
public apology ever.

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He wrote:

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<i>reads tweet.</i>

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And people definitely still thought James
was racist for, like, a good month

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after this.

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But the discourse got completely
overshadowed by the events of

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March 5th, 2017, which was the birth of
Flashback Mary.

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So what happened was that
James was at an event

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and he had WAY too much
powder on his face,

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and so when they took this picture of him,
it caused a flashback that gave him this,

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like, ghostly, ghoulish, sinister
SCP look to him.

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And the internet was immediately
obsessed with this.

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Like, this is definitely one of the biggest
memes that has hit the Internet.

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Ask anyone, ask your grandma, ask your
local pastor, they know Flashback Mary.

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The main comparison that was being made
to James was of this spider from-

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what is this show called?

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It's called Miss Spider's
Sunny Patch Friends.

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Like, I can't express to you how many times
I've seen this image against my will,

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I wish I could permaban it from my brain.

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Something a little disappointing about this
meme, though, is that the

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widespread image of Flashback
Mary is not the real one.

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This is the real one, and I will say, the
flashback is still really bad,

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but whoever edited this picture
just made it 70 times worse.

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An interesting artifact of the time that I
found was this Redbubble page

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that just exclusively sells Flashback Mary
furniture such as clocks and pillows.

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I really don't understand Redbubble,
people will just sell

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tych-fck-ehchk-ANYTHING there.

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Anyways, though, speaking of James
Charles' foundation, he does not

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know how to match that shit.

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Like, there's entire compilations 
of him doing just that.

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And in this video specifically, he
describes himself as having

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warm undertones.

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"<i>GASP</i> that looks like it could be
such a good match for me,

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everyone is convinced that my skintone
is like, not warm."

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Girl you are PINK! You are PINK!

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I think the funniest part about all
of this, though, is that he

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literally has a YouTube video trying, like,
40 different foundation shades, and

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in the end he <i>still</i> chooses the wrong one.

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Side note, though, another James Charles-ism
is that he chronically misuses

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Facetune, especially in this era.

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And to be fair, he's never hid that he
uses Facetune, but it just looks so bad

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that I don't understand why he continues
to do it. Like, when I see these pictures,

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I get uncanny valley, Russian 
Sleep Experiment, creepypasta vibes.

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Moving on, though, we have the "It" 
debacle of 2018.

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Now, the It debacle began on December 7th
when James tweeted about

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how he was gonna go see It, and 
how excited he was about it.

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But literally 5 minutes into the movie,
he started tweeting about how bad

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it was, which of course if just nutty
because how have you already decided that

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you don't like the movie and it's only 
been 5 minutes.

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And like, why are you even on your phone?

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About 30 minutes later, James tweets again,

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and this time he says:

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<i>reading tweet</i>

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Both of these tweets annoyed people for
obvious reasons.

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Like, he's just been texting the entire
movie??

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It doesn't even sound like he's been
watching it to know if it's bad!

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And so in response to all the people
questioning why he's doing this,

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he writes:

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<i>reads tweet</i>

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But <i>then</i>

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Finn Wolfhard replies to one of these
tweets and says:

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<i>reads tweet</i>

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Granted, at this time, I think Finn was
12 or 13 maybe.

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And so James tweets:

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<i>reads tweet</i>

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Which sounds like he's accepting the
end of this.

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Like, this should be the end of the 
conversation.

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But instead, he starts backtracking times
3,000, and he says:

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<i>reads tweet</i>

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For the next few hours, people on 
Twitter would not leave him alone

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about why he was texting in the 
movie theater.

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And so he eventually says:

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<i>reads tweet</i>

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And this dug his grave in even more.

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Because people were like, "What do you
mean 'everyone does it,'

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like, everyone does not do that!"

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Personally, as an AMC Stubs member,
this pains me.

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Follow me on Letterboxd so I can
feel important.

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But this caused people to start doing
polls about whether or not people

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actually texted people during movies.

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And the results were, of course,
overwhelmingly NO.

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No they do not!

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And again, this should've been the end of
the conversation, but he just keeps

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acknowledging it, and he ends up filming 
an apology video in the backseat

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of an Uber.

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(James talking:) "I want to personally
apologize to Finn and anybody else

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involved in the making of the movie It."

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And regardless of all of this, a couple
days later, he ended up doing an

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It makeup tutorial.

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(James doing a Pennywise voice:) 
"Hiya, sisters! James Charles

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here, and welcome back to my
YouTube channel!"

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Which, by the way, the first 6
seconds of this video

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changed my life for the worse, so I'm
gonna make <i>you</i> see this too.

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(dubstep, intense music)

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(scream sound effect)