WEBVTT

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James Charles, a name so chilling

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that it requires a trigger warning.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Trigger warning: James Charles.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You can say a lot of things about
James Charles.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Most of them are bad.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, really bad.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But objectively, he is one of the most
well-known

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
influencers from the last 10 years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And because of how much exposure

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and business success he saw
over the years,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James Charles is truly somebody who
could have had it all

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if only he wasn't a piece of shit.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you're watching this video, odds are
you've heard of James,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or you've at least heard of his infamy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You may have had the petrifying
experience

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of seeing his BBL or hearing him say

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Hi sisters!"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This guy's digital footprint has some of the
funniest

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and grossest shit I have ever seen.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because as we'll get into, he is a massive
creepo, freako,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
womp womp.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is quite a tale.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So allow me to take you on an Unhinged
James Charles Deepdive.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James Charles (or James Charles
Dickinson)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was born on May 23rd, 1999 in Bethlehem,
New York.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And he is Emily Dickinson's third cousin
twice removed -

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
ignore that, it was a lie, I just lied.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In 2010, at the age of 11, he started his

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
very first YouTube channel called
JaysCoding.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This channel mostly consisted of him
covering songs like

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Pumped Up Kicks".

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
♫ "You better run, better run
faster than my bullet." ♫

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
♫ "Carved my name
into his leather seats." ♫

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But most notably, this "It Will Rain" cover

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where he's wearing this wolf hat.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
♫ "- morphine at my door." ♫

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And although these childhood videos are
wholesome,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this would be the start
of a very troubling

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
pattern of him
singing unprompted.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Although my personal favorite video
that I found on JaysCoding

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was this six-second upload of just
a image of an eye.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, bro really uploaded an
image to YouTube,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and that is so of the time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But in 2015, he would launch his second
and main channel

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that we know today as James Charles.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this is where he started uploading
makeup tutorials, such as

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
serpent makeup tutorial and
Snapchat Galaxy makeup tutorial.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And as you can see, none of these look
particularly good.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In fact, they're pretty bad,
but I assure you

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
everyone's makeup looked
really bad in 2015,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so that really means nothing I guess.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But he was gaining a really decent
audience from posting these tutorials.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the inciting incident, the
catalyst that would launch

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James Charles' career, happened in
September of 2016.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this moment would have irreversible
repercussions on society and the Internet.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James was 17 years old at this point,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and he had just taken his senior photos,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which came out fugly according to him.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so he hired the school
photographer to come back

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and let him retake the pictures
with his ring light.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And as you can see here, his highlight is
definitely going off,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
his brows have a good
Roblox look to them.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
However, where I draw the line is
that man bun.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What the f**k?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Anyways, his friend convinces
him to post these

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
new glamorous pictures online
and they go extremely viral.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, this picture of James
was being shared

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
so much that CoverGirl noticed it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And that is how he became the world's
first male CoverGirl.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now because this was 2016, it stirred
controversy amongst conservatives.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, you know, of course it did

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because it's CoverGirl, not "CoverDong".

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Seriously, though, I found this
old Twitter thread

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
where people are just bitching about this
like there's no tomorrow.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A great example is this one:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's also this one where
a woman compares

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James being on CoverGirl to a white
person doing blackface.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Um... Nurse, she's out again!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Anyways, outisde of these randos making
a stink out of it,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this opened up a lot of opportunities

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for James.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I mean, he went on Ellen, I guess that's not
that impressive, though.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As I mentioned in the Jojo Siwa video, you
could literally fart into a bucket

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and somehow make it on Ellen at this
point in time.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And as his fame was escalating,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he did his first-ever fan meet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Only 50 people showed up to this event,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and one of the videos that was taken there

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was turned into a meme because at

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
some point James just sat down on the
ground and started singing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
♫ Bring me a little water now! 
Bring me little water, Sylvie!♫

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I don't know what my favorite part about
this meme is. It might be

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Snapchat caption that says "f**k it up"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
which insinuates that he's doing a good
job singing right now.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Or it could be the fact that he raises

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
his finger up as if he's hitting those
high notes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This was, of course, the very first time

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that he was turned into a meme,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it's certainly would not be the last.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This same year, James did a CoverGirl
promotion with Zendaya,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and oh my God, this has gotta be

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
one of the most unintentionally funny
videos I've ever seen.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So this video that they're doing is a
challenge to see what makeup

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
looks they could come up with in the
span of 5 minutes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so they're both in a rush and trying to
showcase these CoverGirl

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
products along the way.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And about 30 seconds in, James gets
befuddled and just starts

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
copying Zendaya and then acts like

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
everything he's doing was his idea.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- "I used it on my inner corner."
- "Same."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(Huh??)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
- "I used this as a base for the blue."
- "Yeah, same."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And not only this, the end result is so bad,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
she absolutely ate him up, I can't believe
this video exists.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
These two people should not exist in the
same universe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
James would soon also start doing collabs

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with massive YouTubers like Tana Mongeau,
Joey Graceffa, and even

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
non-YouTubers like Maddie Ziegler.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
However, he would soon find himself in his

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
very first controversy, and that is the
"Ebola" tweet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
On Febuary 16, 2017, James writes:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So obviously this is very out of touch

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and just kind of assumes that Africa is like
a diseased-riddled area,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so people were not happy about this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so the very same day he did his first
public apology ever.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He wrote:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And people definitely still thought James
was racist for, like, a good month

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
after this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the discourse got completely
overshadowed by the events of

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
March 5th, 2017, which was the birth of
Flashback Mary.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So what happened was that
James was at an event

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and he had WAY too much
powder on his face,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so when they took this picture of him,
it caused a flashback that gave him this,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like, ghostly, ghoulish, sinister
SCP look to him.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the internet was immediately
obsessed with this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, this is definitely one of the biggest
memes that has hit the Internet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ask anyone, ask your grandma, ask your
local pastor, they know Flashback Mary.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The main comparison that was being made
to James was of this spider from-

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what is this show called?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's called Miss Spider's
Sunny Patch Friends.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, I can't express to you how many times
I've seen this image against my will,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I wish I could permaban it from my brain.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Something a little disappointing about this
meme, though, is that the

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
widespread image of Flashback
Mary is not the real one.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the real one, and I will say, the
flashback is still really bad,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but whoever edited this picture
just made it 70 times worse.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
An interesting artifact of the time that I
found was this Redbubble page

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that just exclusively sells Flashback Mary
furniture, such as clocks and pillows.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I really don't understand Redbubble,
people will just sell

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
tych-fck-ehchk-ANYTHING there.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Anyways, though, speaking of James
Charles' foundation, he does not

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
know how to match that shit.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, there's entire compilations
of him doing just that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And in this video specifically, he
describes himself as having

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
warm undertones.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"<i>GASP.</i> That looks like it could be
such a good match for me,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
everyone is convinced that my skintone
is like, not warm."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Girl, you are PINK! You are PINK!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I think the funniest part about all
of this, though, is that he

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
literally has a YouTube video trying, like,
40 different foundation shades, and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in the end he <i>still</i> chooses the wrong one.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Side note, though, another James Charles-ism
is that he chronically misuses

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Facetune, especially in this era.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And to be fair, he's never hid that he
uses Facetune, but it just looks so bad

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that I don't understand why he continues
to do it. Like, when I see these pictures,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I get uncanny valley, Russian
Sleep Experiment, creepypasta vibes.

NOTE Paragraph

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Moving on, though, we have the "It"
debacle of 2017.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, the It debacle began on September
7th when James tweeted about

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
how he was gonna go see It, and
how excited he was about it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But literally five minutes into the movie,
he started tweeting about how bad

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it was, which, of course, is just nutty

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
because how have you already
decided that

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you don't like the movie, and it's only 
been five minutes?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And, like, why are you even on your phone?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
About thirty minutes later,
James tweets again,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and this time, he says:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reading tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Both of these tweets annoyed people for
obvious reasons.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, he's just been texting the entire
movie.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It doesn't even sound like he's been
watching it to know if it's bad!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so in response to all the people
questioning why he's doing this,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
he writes:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But <i>then,</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Finn Wolfhard replies to one of these
tweets and says:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Granted, at this time, I think Finn was
12 or 13 maybe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so James tweets:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Which sounds like he's accepting the
end of this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Like, this should be the end of the
conversation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But instead, he starts backtracking times
3,000, and he says:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For the next few hours, people on 
Twitter would not leave him alone

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about why he was texting in the 
movie theater.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And so he eventually says:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
<i>reads tweet.</i>

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And this dug his grave in even more.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Because people were like, "What do you
mean 'everyone does it,'

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
like, everyone does not do that!"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Personally, as an AMC Stubs member,
this pains me.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Follow me on Letterboxd so I can
feel important.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But this caused people to start doing
polls about whether or not people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
actually texted people during movies.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And the results were, of course,
overwhelmingly NO.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No they do not!

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And again, this should've been the end of
the conversation, but he just keeps

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
acknowledging it, and he ends up filming
an apology video in the backseat

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of an Uber.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(James talking:) "I want to personally
apologize to Finn and anybody else

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
involved in the making of the movie It."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And regardless of all of this, a couple
days later, he ended up doing an

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It makeup tutorial.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(James doing a Pennywise voice:) 
"Hiya, sisters! James Charles

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
here, and welcome back to my
YouTube channel!"

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Which, by the way, the first six
seconds of this video

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
changed my life for the worse, so I'm
gonna make <i>you</i> see this too.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(dubstep, intense music)

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
(scream sound effect)