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An Unhinged James Charles Deepdive

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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 23, 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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    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
    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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    somepoint, 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*ck 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 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 colabs
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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 can't believe we're going to Africa
    today, omg what if we get Ebola?
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    James we're fine we could've gotten
    it at chipotle last year"`
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    So obviously this is very out of touch
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    and just kinda 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: "I am extremely sorry.
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    Rehardless of my intentions, words have
    consequences. I take full responsibility
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    and will learn and do better"
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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 like
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    this ghostly, goulish, 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 made to James
    was of this spider from-
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    what is this show called?
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    Miss spiders 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, this is the real one
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    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 Charlses
    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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    "GASP 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 still chooses the wrong one.
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    Side note though Another James Charles-ism
    is that he chronically misuses
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    face tune 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 expirament, creepy pasta vibes.
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    Moving 9on though, we have the "IT"
    debaucle of 2018.
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    Now the IT debaucle 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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    reading tweet
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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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    reads tweet
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    But then
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    Finn Wolfhard replies to one of these
    tweets and says:
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    reads tweet
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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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    reads tweet
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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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    reads tweet
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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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    reads tweet
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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 you see this too.
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    (dubstep, intense music)
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    (scream sound effect)
Title:
An Unhinged James Charles Deepdive
Description:

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Video Language:
English
Team:
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Duration:
01:37:53

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