Over the course of the past 2 years, YouTube has been under fire with many feuds, scandals, and controversies; notably, in the beauty community. There has been an overwhelming amount of scandals being fought over on Twitter that have gone viral, especially with YouTubers: Gabriel Zamora, Laura Lee, Manny Gutierrez, Nikita Dragun, and Jeffree Star.
In early August, a somewhat targeting post was made on Twitter by Gabriel Zamora with Laura Lee, Manny Gutierrez and Nikita Dragun, showing their middle fingers with the caption “B*tch is bitter because without him we’re doing better” (Vox). The Twitter post was made following Shane Dawson’s video; “The Secret World of Jeffree Star”, and Jeffree’s remarks to Gabriel Zamora, Laura Lee, Manny Gutierrez, and Nikita Dragun, as his “ex-friends”. Once the Twitter post was made, Jeffree Star’s fans went crazy and started digging through old tweets of the beauty gurus to drag them down. Racist tweets surfaced and the beauty gurus were exposed, as a result, the situation went viral.
Participatory culture was a key factor in this scandal; to this day, the fans continue to circulate the feud by pulling up racist tweets from the gurus past. Additionally, the post by Gabriel wasn’t necessarily targeted towards Jeffree Star, but because of past events between the five beauty gurus, the viewer’s reception of the post didn’t go over very well and started the large feud. The scandal between the beauty gurus has also caused many followers and companies to end their involvement and affiliation with the aforementioned YouTubers, due to the spreadable nature of the situation put on Twitter. Furthermore, the scandal is considerably sticky content since there were so many fans on both sides defending and attacking the YouTubers, which in turn, fuelled the feud for multiple weeks and continues to affect people and the YouTubers now.
Laura Lee was the one to suffer the most from this scandal. She has lost thousands of followers, costing her around $65,000 a year in revenue from subscriptions, as well as, brands have stopped selling her products in store and online; costing her even more (Vox). This is the result of not only the old, racist tweets but her apology video as well. Viewers believe that she wasn’t being genuine, and merely crying about her losses. This contributes to the scandal being sticky content, because she continues to reinvent herself into a better person.
In the end, the scandal greatly reflects ideas explained in Henry Jenkins’ essay; “Why Media Spreads”. Participatory culture was the main factor which made the scandal so large, and the spreadability and stickiness of the situation continue to affect many viewers.
Bibliography:
Alex Abad-Santos. “Laura Lee, Jeffree Star, and the racism scandal upending the YouTube beauty community, explained.” Vox, August 31, 2018, https://www.vox.com. Accessed September 30, 2018.
Jenkins, Henry, et al. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, New York University Press, 2013.