An Unhinged James Charles Deepdive

James Charles, a name so chilling

that it requires a trigger warning.

Trigger warning: James Charles.

You can say a lot of things about
James Charles.

Most of them are bad.

Like, really bad.

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

influencers from the last 10 years.

And because of how much exposure

and business success he saw
over the years,

James Charles is truly somebody who
could have had it all

if only he wasn't a piece of shit.

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

or you've at least heard of his infamy.

You may have had the petrifying
experience

of seeing his BBL or hearing him say

"Hi sisters!"

This guy's digital footprint has some of the
funniest

and grossest shit I have ever seen.

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

womp womp.

It is quite a tale.

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

James Charles (or James Charles
Dickinson)

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

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

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

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

very first YouTube channel called
JaysCoding.

This channel mostly consisted of him
covering songs like

"Pumped Up Kicks".

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

"Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood.

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

But most notably, this "It Will Rain" cover

where he's wearing this wolf hat.

♫ "- morphine at my door." ♫

And although these childhood videos are
wholesome,

this would be the start
of a very troubling

pattern of him
singing unprompted.

Although my personal favorite video
that I found on JaysCoding

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

Like, bro really uploaded an
image to YouTube,

and that is so of the time.

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

that we know today as James Charles.

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

serpent makeup tutorial and
Snapchat Galaxy makeup tutorial.

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

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

everyone's makeup looked
really bad in 2015,

so that really means nothing I guess.

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

But the inciting incident, the
catalyst that would launch

James Charles' career, happened in
September of 2016.

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

James was 17 years old at this point,

and he had just taken his senior photos,

which came out fugly according to him.

And so he hired the school
photographer to come back

and let him retake the pictures
with his ring light.

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

his brows have a good
Roblox look to them.

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

What the f**k?

Anyways, his friend convinces
him to post these

new glamorous pictures online
and they go extremely viral.

Like, this picture of James
was being shared

so much that CoverGirl noticed it.

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

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

And, you know, of course it did

because it's CoverGirl, not "CoverDong".

Seriously, though, I found this
old Twitter thread

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

A great example is this one:

reads tweet.

There's also this one where
a woman compares

James being on CoverGirl to a white
person doing blackface.

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

Anyways, outisde of these randos making
a stink out of it,

this opened up a lot of opportunities

for James.

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

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

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

And as his fame was escalating,

he did his first-ever fan meet.

Only 50 people showed up to this event,

and one of the videos that was taken there

was turned into a meme because at

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

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

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

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

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

Or it could be the fact that he raises

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

This was, of course, the very first time

that he was turned into a meme,

but it's certainly would not be the last.

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

and oh my God, this has gotta be

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

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

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

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

products along the way.

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

copying Zendaya and then acts like

everything he's doing was his idea.

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

(Huh??)

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

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

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

These two people should not exist in the
same universe.

James would soon also start doing collabs

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

non-YouTubers like Maddie Ziegler.

However, he would soon find himself in his

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

On Febuary 16, 2017, James writes:

reads tweet.

So obviously this is very out of touch

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

and so people were not happy about this.

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

He wrote:

reads tweet.

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

after this.

But the discourse got completely
overshadowed by the events of

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

So what happened was that
James was at an event

and he had WAY too much
powder on his face,

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

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

And the internet was immediately
obsessed with this.

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

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

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

what is this show called?

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

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

I wish I could permaban it from my brain.

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

widespread image of Flashback
Mary is not the real one.

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

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

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

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

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

tych-fck-ehchk-ANYTHING there.

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

know how to match that shit.

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

And in this video specifically, he
describes himself as having

warm undertones.

"GASP. That looks like it could be
such a good match for me,

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

Girl, you are PINK! You are PINK!

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

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

in the end he still chooses the wrong one.

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

Facetune, especially in this era.

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

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

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

Moving on, though, we have the "It"
debacle of 2017.

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

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

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

it was, which, of course, is just nutty

because how have you already
decided that

you don't like the movie, and it's only
been five minutes?

And, like, why are you even on your phone?

About thirty minutes later,
James tweets again,

and this time, he says:

reading tweet.

Both of these tweets annoyed people for
obvious reasons.

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

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

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

he writes:

reads tweet.

But then,

Finn Wolfhard replies to one of these
tweets and says:

reads tweet

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

And so James tweets:

reads tweet.

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

Like, this should be the end of the
conversation.

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

reads tweet.

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

about why he was texting in the
movie theater.

And so he eventually says:

reads tweet.

And this dug his grave in even more.

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

like, everyone does not do that!"

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

Follow me on Letterboxd so I can
feel important.

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

actually texted people during movies.

And the results were, of course,
overwhelmingly NO.

No they do not!

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

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

of an Uber.

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

involved in the making of the movie It."

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

It makeup tutorial.

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

here, and welcome back to my
YouTube channel!"

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

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

(dubstep, intense music)

(scream sound effect)

In 2018, the "Sister Squad formed

And this was basically just of long

squad of these four best friends that

consisted of... I mentioned Ethan Dolan,

Grayson Dolan, and of course

James himself. Now Eathan Dolan / Grayson

had a huge Youtube channel that they

have been making videos on since 2014

And James ended up meeting them in late

2017 after he left he left a bunch of very

Questionably, thirsty Tweets on both of

Their Instagrams. These includes comments

Such as "Run me over with that

Motorcycle, daddy". "Choke me with that

Seatbelt, daddy".

And last but not least, " Hit me with that

Stick, daddy".

On June 9, 2018, the first ever "Sister

Squad" video was posted and this

Had a cultural impact like no other

Squad at the time. I don't care what

Anyone says. This is the truth.

The "Sister Squad" was such an

Immediate success and all their videos

Were pretty much just them hanging out.

Each one of the "Sister Squad" videos got

Around 30 million views a piece.

And so, they say that people were

invested.

In this friend's group dynamic

'It would be an understatement.

The most notable dynamics was that of.

Emma and Grayson because it was heavily

theorized that they secretly dating while

fans were constantly speculating them.,

making entire compilations of their

interactions. And secondly was the

dynamic between James and Grayson.

It was pretty much an open secret that

James had a crush on Grayson and there's

entire compilations of him unsuccessfully

flirting with him. And there's

definitely some of the incidents were

preplanned as a joke, but there's

also many that were pretty much very raw.

Very real like you can feel the rejection

in the air like groaning

this is very important to remember when

we get to bisister, so just keep this is

in mind that this group being able to

make millions and millions of views per

video and despite the way they seem so

close in these videos. These two things

have appeared to cause some turmoil

because by February 4th, 2019, Emma

unfollowed all of them and to be fair,

she did unfollow everyone but like six

people and posted on her story that she

had done that for a social media purge.

But to be honest, it doesn't really make

sense because if you are doing a social

media purge I think you still follow your

closest friends and just not anyone else.

So it kinda seemed like a convenient, uh,

excuse. And James Charles's response to

this was this tweet, "I posted a beautiful

makeup look today but you wouldn't know"

In November of 2018, James released his

first ever makeup pallet. And this, of

course, was James X Morphe. Now, let me

tell you, this pallet was extremely

popular at the time. Everyone that I

knew had this, I had this, and it was just

generally really well recieved. So this

new level of entrepreneurship really

brought him up a threshold of passionate

passionate fans. Like he did an appearance

at a Morphe store in Birmingham and

8,000 people showed up to the mall to see

him and it literally caused gridlock

outside of the store, like people were

trapped in their cars. That is how

popular he was at the time. However, it

wouldn't be long until James found himself

in another controversy. Also, oh my god, I

almost forgot to mention that he was

singing unprompted in front of this Morphe

as well.

singing

The 2019 Sisters Tour. So James was doing

a tour across the country and the most

expensive ticket that you could buy to see

him was $500. Which, a lot of people

were quick to call a scam. And he received

a ton of backlash for this. Personally, I

don't think this was a scam because you

were going to get what you paid for. Like,

it says right here what's included with

this. It says, "Exclusive hangout with

James Charles and the other Sister VIPS.

One on one photo with James Charles.

Exclusive Sisters VIP goodie bag. And

exclusive autograph tour laminate. Front

row seats and early access to merchandise

vendors". Okay, that last one is crazy.

Like, if your spending $500, I think you

should get some free merch. In no way do I

feel like this is worth $500 and like, in

my perspective, I would feel like an

asshole to hide a meet and greet with me

behind a $500 paywall. However, if you

really wanted to have all that stuff and

spend $500, that is your business. James

did say that he would try to talk to his

team about lowering the prices, but they

did remain the same. And in case your

wondering what the luxury VIP James

Charles experience was like, there's a

video on YouTube titled, "I PAID $500

TO SING WITH JAMES CHARLES" and it's him

surrounded by a huge group of girls

singing Listen by Beyonce very poorly.

singing

A genuine perk I see for anyone who went

on this tour though, was that they got to

witness the New Rules kick. In real time.

video plays

This became a meme just purely out of

being the perfect storm. People just found

out that some tickets to the tour cost

$500 and then they see this. Poor

singing and poor dancing. And that third

miscellaneous kick, muah.

Let's take a break to talk about something

that definitely isn't overpriced. Today's

video is sponsored by care/of. You guys,

I'm so excited that care/of decided to

partner with me again because I genuinely

love my vitamin packs. Like, care/of has

truly made remembering to take your

vitamins and incorporating them into

your wellness routines so convenient. And

all I had to do to get the vitamins that

were right for me, was take this little

online quiz and it basically asks you

questions about your lifestyle, and about

your health goals. Then boom. care/of

sends you doctor back recommendations

right to your door in compostable packets.

So! When I took my quiz, I said that I was

concerned about my skin health, my eye

health, and also that I wanted to improve

my focus. And they ended up recommending

me Astaxanthin, that's good for your eye

and skin health. Then I got some Ceramides

which is of course also good for your

skin health. I got some Rhodiola which is

for stress and focus. And honestly I could

really rave all day about all of these,

because since I've started taking these,

I'm hooked and I've never been more

satisfied with my skin, my hair, and my

focus. Like, I feel like I'm genuinely

getting good results.

Care/of also has these wonderful powders

that I love. I love their Collagen,

seriously. I have tried other collagens

and I hated them. They wouldn't dissolve

in my coffee. They had a weird taste.

And like they would just change the

consistency of the coffee itself, like

it was horrible. This is very important

to me, like you guys don't even get it.

So if you want to be super stoked, have

some personalized vitamins that are

researched-backed and reap all

their benefits, click here to take the

quiz and use my code NIKKIC for 50% off

subscription items in your first order.

Thank you so much Care/Of for sponsoring

us today. And now, back to the video.

Welcome back! Now we're entering the calm

before the storm and what I mean by that

is that we are on the cusp of dramageddon

This is literally April 2019 and no one

had a single clue that the biggest drama

of the internet would ever see what about

to occur. Now, let me introduce to the

central characters of the dramageddon.

Ok, so here we have Tati Westbrook. She

was a beauty guru as well as James'

mentor and close friend. He even referred

to her as a mother figure. As you can see

here, this is James doing Tati's wedding

makeup like that's how like this was how

close they were and prior to these

coming events, Tati had started her own

supplement company in 2018 called Halo

Beauty, and they basically sold like hair

vitamins and skin vitamins, hoopla hoopla.

Enter Jeffree Star. If you don't know who

Jeffree Star is, he's probably in the top

10 worst people on the internet and to

fully explain why that is that would

require like a whole three hour video.

inaudible

he has a very successful makeup company

called "Jeffree Star Cosmetics" and his

channel at this time was massive in the

beauty community. However, not

as massive as James' and side note,

in 2024 he lives on a farm and sells yak

meat. So, there's that. Our last big

dramageddon figure is Shane Dodsen.

Shane is probably also on that top 10 list

of worse people online. Come to think of

it, James is too, but we will cross that

bridge when we get there. What is

important to know now though, is that in

landscape of 2019 YouTube, for some reason

Jane Dodsen, like a respected

documentarian, and he has just done a

documentary series about Jeffree Star.

Looking back on it, these videos were not

good and 60% of them were just like

filler but each and every one of them got

around 30 million views. With that it

mind, this brings us to Coachella 2019.

This is where is all kicks off dude.

During this time, James was "seeing" an

influencer named Gage Gomez. "Seeing" it

in air quotes because it was less of an

actual relationship and more of actual

like bicurious experimental time on Gage's

end, but they were photographed at this

Coachella multiple times, which made fans

start to speculate that James had a

boyfriend. And so, a lot of people began

to tweet James about this and he actually

responded to one of these tweets saying

something along the lines of "No. I'm

sadly still single. I was manipulated by

a conman." I looked everywhere for this

tweet and read it and writing down

every thing it said at this point but

can't find it anymore. So, sources that

trust me. James just subtweeted

that Gage, several times over the

Coachella weekend, including this one

which says, "I'm sitting sobbing in my

hotel room at 8 am and have to be on set

in an hour. This is no one's fault but

my own because my dumbass continues to

go for the same type of insecure cute

boys and it gets me hurt, every single

time. I was started fucking to hate

myself". Tensions are rising. Things are

bubbling up, ok. And the next day of the

festival, James ended up getting mobbed

by fans because for some reason he didn't

have like a VIP ticket which would have

let him in like exclusive spaces to not

be around so many fans. And so, all these

people are running up on him right. He is

like, holy shit, what do I do? And this

led him to text his friend and fellow

beauty guru, Nikita Dragon. And he asked

her for help about the sicky situation.

And so, she connects him to the Sugarbear

Hair Team, because they're had their

own VIP tent space, and they were going

to let James in and in exchange for him

doing just one Sugarbear Hair

ad on his Instagram story and so,

with no other choice, he signs the

contract and gets in that tent. But let

it be known that Sugarbear Hair was a

very popular was a very popular vitamin

brand as in Beauty Vitamins, as in for

your skin and face. A.K.A. a direct

competitor to Tati Westbrook's

brand "Halo Beauty" Dramageddon arrived!

Her story in the making. On April 22,

James posted his contraction obligated ad

on Instagram. Notably, as you can see

here, he's actually promoting their sleep

gummies, not their skin or hair ones. But

he does this and then he gets on a plane

to Australia. For what I am about to say

next, at this point in time Tati

Westbrook is 37 years old and James was

only 19. By the time James landed in

Australia, Tati had already posted

multiple stories of her crying and

saying she feels so betrayed by a close

friend and she had been taken advantage

by somebody she thought she can trust and

she helped so much and it was very

obvious, like that she was talking about

James. Like he literally just posted that

Sugarbear Hair ad so, people added two

plus two together so unbeknownst to James,

thousands and thousands of people had

begun adding him on Twitter, messaging

him on Instagram. People he knew were

sending him messages being like what's

going on with you and Tati. And so, he

gets off the plane, right. He sees this.

He tries to call Tati. He tries to text

her. He tries to call her husband.

Neither of them answers but Tati just

continues to post on Instagram. So, he

decides to just make a public

apology post. So the apology read," I want

to publicly apologize to my close friend

Tati. She has been like a mother to me

since before my first days in this

industry and has given me more love so

important resources and advice that I

could ever ask for. This weekend I did an

Instagram story for sleep vitamins that

I have been taking because the brand helps

me with security when the crowd around me

at Coachella became unsafe. I did not

accept any money for the post. As most

of you know, Tati has a vitamin brand

which I take on a daily basis but at the

moment, I did not think about the

competition, which was a major oversight.

I've supported Tati both online and off

like she has done for me and I am

devastated that I hurt somebody that I

truly love and have endless respect for".

I think the mature thing for 37-year-old

Tati to do after seeing this would be to

just talk to him, but instead she just

continued ignoring him and posting and

posting about this situation and crying

online. And so, a few days later on May 4,

2019, Gabriel Zamora, another beauty guru,

posted this video titled "Makeup and

Opinions". And during this video, he

indirectly talks about the drama going on

between Tati and James, saying that it's

stupid that basically, Tati keeps like

sub tweeting about him but won't

actually say what's going on or just talk

to him and he's honestly so right, like

this 37-year-old woman just implying that

her 19-year-old colleague has done

something awful for days on end but then

refuses to say anything about it