James Charles vs Tati Westbrook PDF

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Analysis between intercultural conflict of two public figures...

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Pola Hannan Kuri CMS s354 Dr. Madeline Maxwell August 10, 2019 James Charles vs Tati Westbrook On May 2019, Tati Westbrook and James Charles had a public dispute over their personal friendship of many years. Tati is an influencer, YouTube beauty vlogger, and owner of Halo Beauty, which is a beauty-supplement company. Similarly, James Charles is an influencer, a YouTube beauty vlogger, and a model. After a polemic publicity post done by James on his Instagram account about SugarBear Hair, a direct competitor of Tati’s vitamin supplements, she created a 41 minute long video publicly exposing and cutting ties with James. This video caused him to lose almost 3 million of his now 15 million YouTube subscribers overnight, to which he responded with another 43 minute long video addressing Tati’s claims and explaining the situation. These videos transcended the beauty scene as well as transcending YouTube, being reported by a number of news sources like CNN, BBC, and The New York Times. Tati Westbrook is a self-taught makeup artist and creator of the GlamLifeGuru Youtube channel since November 7, 2010. According to Newsweek, she is considered to be a “progenitor of YouTube’s beauty scene" and the “mother of the YouTube beauty community". She currently has almost 9.8 million YouTube subscribers. On February 2018, Tati founded and launched her own company called Halo Beauty Inc. which formulates and sells vitamin supplements. James Charles on the other hand, came up on the beauty scene as a prodigy. He began showing clear signs of ambition from a very young age, and possessed “talent beyond his years”, which quickly made himself noticed on the internet. His strategy to success was simple: He associated himself with people who were more successful in the industry, learned from them, and use their help and support to keep growing and getting more and more established. Because he was so young, talented, and showed so much potential, he was able to outgrow everyone around him and became the top beauty guru on Youtube, while still being a teenager! His relationship with Tati Westbrook began through an Instagram Direct Message that he sent her when he was only 17 years old and only had around 50,000 subscribers on YouTube, while she had around 2,000,000 at that point. In his message, James complimented Tati saying that she was “the reason why he wanted to get into makeup” and that she “inspired him to start his channel” because hers was “one of his favorites”. All of this flattered Tati, making her feel special and like an inspiration to him. According to her, he was “wide-eyed and ready to make it on Instagram and social media”, which made her want to help him. Even though there is an almost 20 year age gap between them (she is now 37 years old, and he is 20), she decided to stand by him

and began guiding and helping him ever since he moved to California, where she also lives. Soon, they became very close, and their friendship grew on and offline, bonding over their careers and their mutual understanding of the “complexity” of being a creator in the public eye. However, according to James Charles’ 43-minute-long video titled “No More Lies” their relationship of years began its downfall on April 11th through 15th of this year, when James Charles attended the Coachella music festival. He was given Artist tickets to the first week of the Coachella music festival, for him and his group of friends, by an unknown sponsor. During those 5 days, James went through some personal issues which prevented him from enjoying the experience. Due to this, James and his friends thought it would be a good idea to also assist the second week of Coachella in attempts to relive the experience they had had last week but in a better mindzone. Although this decision was very last minute, they were still able to receive tickets from the same sponsor as last time, however, they were only able to obtain VIP tickets instead of Artist tickets. James explained that VIP tickets are different from the Artist tickets in that VIP is open to the public, while artist tickets are not purchasable by the public. Artist tickets can only be obtained through a brand directly getting them from the Coachella management, or having a personal connection to an artist or a band performing. Individuals with these types of tickets are placed in highly secured and private areas, away from the public. So even though they were able to obtain VIP tickets for week two of Coachella, the difference in the experience was drastic. According to James himself, they began to get “mobbed” by the large crowd due to their popularity and broad internet presence, which made him feel highly unsafe. This is when he remembered that Nikita, a fellow influencer and Youtube vlogger friend of his, had also assisted the first week of Coachella through another brand: SugarBear Hair. He was told that SugarBear Hair had offered Nikita an Artist pass, private security, and backstage passes. James decided to get in contact with her and asked if there was anyway she could put him in contact with SugarBear Hair directly in hopes to receive the same privileges, to which she agreed. SugarBear offered James Charles an artist pass, backstage access and security for him and his friends so he could continue to enjoy the festival, just like he wanted. Even though no money was exchanged, James was asked to post a 24-hour Instagram story promoting SugarBear Hair, to which he immediately accepted and signed a contract for. The story was posted on monday April 22, a day after Coachella had ended. After the story was posted on James Charles personal Instagram page, Tati posted multiple clips of herself crying to her Instagram, saying she felt “lost” and “betrayed” by an unnamed person. Fans quickly realized that these statements were towards James Charles and his promotion of the competing and leading brand in beauty supplements, SugarBear Hair. After James saw her stories, he sent multiple text messages to Tati and her husband, as well as calling both of them repeatedly. However, they stonewalled James and did not respond. Stonewalling is the fourth of Gottman's four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is characterized by a person’s attempt to withdraw themselves from interaction (Hocker & Wilmot, 2018, 27). Due to James’ inability to reach Tati, James was forced to post a statement to his story saying that he wanted to publicly apologize to Tati. He wrote that “she has been like a mother to [him] since [his] first days in the [beauty] industry” he also added that she has given

him “ more love, support, resources and advice than [he] could ever ask for.” However, this was not enough for Tati Westbrook to speak to James Charles. After James Charles’ public apology, he turned to his friend and fellow YouTube beauty personality Gabriel Zamora for advice, which formed a conflict triangle between James, Tati, and now Gabriel. A conflict triangle is when a third party intervenes in a conflict (Hocker & Wilmot, 2018, 239). After explaining Gabriel the current situation, Gabriel decided to take matters into his own hands and uploaded a YouTube video on his own channel on May 4th calling Tati’s behavior “fraudulent” and accused her of making James seen as a “horrible human being”. He accused Tati’s relationship with James to be “transactional”, and also directly incited Tati to make the conflict public by stating “If you are gonna go to the internet and cry, and imply that [James] is a horrible human being [...] say it on the internet and talk about it”, which was exactly what she did, triggering this public scandal. On May 10, Westbrook uploaded a 41-minute-long video titled “Bye Sister” going in detail about the feud with James Charles. Throughout her video, Tati’s pace is quite calm (Maxwell, 2019, 2). Even though one can easily tell she is angry, she maintains her posture at all times, speaking with confidence and in a serious manner. In her video, she argues that the Coachella story told by James was “orchestrated”. She stated “[James] went to Coachella, somehow had a security issue, and magically SugarBear Hair is there with contract in hand to save the day [...] ?” She continued to argue that no company would ever go out of their way to “have an extra handful of passes that cost thousands of dollars [...] just in case”. At the end of this sentence, her pitch of her voice clearly rose (Maxwell, 2019, 3), as well as her lifting her eyebrows to demonstrate her doubtfulness. She finished that statement by explaining that she believes that James made up that story because he experienced “emotional conflict” due to the relationship he had with her as well as “promises he made [...] behind the scenes”. James Charles responded to this on his video by stating that it was “not a big scheme” planned before, but rather insisted that it indeed “happened on the spot”, explaining that the SugarBear Hair team sent him the proposal “right away”. He attempted to excuse his actions stating that “with no time to negotiate, and a panic, [he] signed”. Tati also mentions in her video that James did not attempt to talk to her about the situation until many days later, stating that he had “nine days after Coachella” to reach out, making the argument that even though “he knows where [she] lives [...], he did not make an effort to fix the problem. She states that he “he could have come face-to-face to chat, because [James] knew that this would hurt [her].” To which James responded that it took him exactly “one ... day after Coachella” to get in touch. This is a clear example of a metamessage (Tannen, 2003, 20). A metamessage is when subtle actions and behaviors convey a different message than the words used (Tannen, 20). James made this pause and raised only his index finger signifying the number one, to highlight that Tati’s nine-day argument was false, and in reality it only took him one day to get in

contact with her. He proceeded to add screen captures of his phone showing the dates and times of his multiple attempts of reaching her and her husband through texts and calls to which they did not respond. Tati also made claims that she “had a lot of influence [on James]” and believes James took advantage of that to help to impulse his career. She provides examples of this, sharing that anytime James needed help with his channel or his brand management, he would rely on Tati and her husband, coming to their home and getting any help he needed, whether it be life or business. She added that her husband spent “hours on the phone” getting James contracts in order to improve his position in the industry. She also says that she was “the only one that wanted to work him with him after all his scandals,'' referring to past feuds he had encountered with the media regarding his behavior and past Twitter controversies that were deemed disrespectful and borderline racist. Furthermore, Tati claims to have taught him everything in the game, including how to monetize his videos, raising his income of 90 dollars per video to 2,500 dollars immediately after. She added that she is mad at James for not apologizing to her or her husband for all of his support. James did not address this on his video response, instead he focused on explaining and going into more detail about certain claims she did regarding him and his character that he considered to be “misleading and false” in order to disprove them. His lack of response to these claims signifies that they are indeed accurate and factual. Lastly, Tati mentioned in her video that she was particularly hurt about the whole situation because James had never promoted her brand regardless of their close friendship and her endless support and free promotions of his products throughout the years. Tati stated that the reason that James gave her as to why he had never done heavy endorsements of her products was “because he has a teenage audience and it would just be inappropriate.”, which she finds to be hypocritical considering how easily he did them with SugarBear Hair. To this, James responded claiming that the conversation to which Tati is referring to “never actually happened”. He continued to explain that he does not do “dedicated product reviews” on his YouTube channel, meaning that he does not do videos solely speaking about one specific product unlike other vloggers like Tati do. However, he claims to have talked about her products on many of his social media networks multiple times. He proceeded to insert three different clips of him openly supporting Halo Beauty on Snapchat and Youtube on his video, showing the vitamins that he “paid for himself” as well as inserting a screen capture of a tweet talking about the launch and and his support for it. No further response from Tati was given. Overall, it is easy to see that both Tati Westbrook and James Charles used lowpower tactics (Hocker & Wilmot, 2018, 145). This type of tactic attempts to increase one’s own power at the other’s expense, and it worked. After Tati’s posting of her “Bye Sister” video, which was watched around 44 million times, she gained over 3 million subcribers, and cost James another 3 million subscribers. However, after his response

video “No More Lies” posted a few days after hers, he quickly gained back 2 million of the 3 million previously lost, and continues to be on the rise. After this scandal, both of them decided to take a break from social media for their “mental health”. Ultimately, Tati decided it was best to delete the video, while James on the other hand, still has his video up on his channel with over 46 million views as of today. However, Tati’s video can still be found on YouTube posted by a third party that recorded hers and reuploaded it. Today, Tati Westbrook has cut all ties with James Charles, the conflict was never resolved, and their friendship is completely over.

Works Cited Charles, James. No More www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFvtCUzfyL4.

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Draggy, It's me. BYE SISTER. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOGGuLqfhdg.

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Lunning, Just (May 12, 2019). "YouTuber James Charles Loses 2 Million Subscribers Following Tati Westbrook Feud". Newsweek. Hocker, Joyce L., and William W. Wilmot. Interpersonal Conflict. McGraw-Hill Education, 2018. Maxwell, Madeline. Conversational Styles. August 2019. “I Only Say This Because I Love You.” I Only Say This Because I Love You, by

Deborah Tannen, Virago, 2003. “James Charles Has Almost Completely Regained 3 Million Subscribers He Lost during YouTuber Feud.” indy100, 24 May 2019, www.indy100.com/article/james-charlestati-westbrook-youtube-drama-subscriber-count-latest-8928591.

Transcript Tati: You went to Coachella, somehow had a security issue and magically SugarBear Hair is there with a contract in hand to save the day for you and all of your friends? No company would go out of their way and have, you know, a handful of passes that cost thousands of dollars a piece like “just in case”. That leads be to believe that it was orchestrated beforehand but he had emotional conflict because of me and promises he made to me behind the scenes, so he had to come up with a very clever story and didn’t tell me right when he got back, but after the little bit was posted on their launch day. James: This whole situation was definitely not a big scheme that was orchestrated beforehand, it really did happen on the spot. The SugarBear team texted me the proposal right away, no money was involved, and with no time to negotiate and a panic, I signed and that was that on that. Tati: James Charles, he had nine days after Coachella to talk to me… James: On monday april 22 which was one day after coachella, I was due to post my stories based on my contract. And up until that moment I honestly had not thought about the fact that Tati was a SugarBear Hair competitor. And in that moment I thought that, as a friend, she deserved a courtesy text to let her know the context of the sponsorship

and everything that was going on. Tati: To not even get a phone call, to not even get a text a few days prior but right after that sponsored post when up to have a text like “hey love you I’m stressed. Just so you know, I just did xyz, I just did this post but it’s no big” James: Before posting my stories I actually did text Tati first out of respect for her, giving her a heads up about the sponsorship, but she was immediately upset. I tried my best to kind of explain the entire situation. Also gave her a direct apology as well, but at this point I had signed a contract and I absolutely had to post it . There was no getting out of it. I then headed to the airport and took off on a flight to San Francisco. By the time I had landed 1 hour later, Tati had uploaded all of her Insta stories about her crying talking about the friends in the community that haven’t really supported her, how she was alone, and how she felt very very hurt and betrayed. Very quickly people put two and two together and realized that this was clearly about me and I started getting thousands and thousands of tweets and comments and texts about the whole situation. Throughout the next several hours, I made countless attempts to text both Tati and her husband James, and many phone calls as well, trying to reach them, all of which they did not respond. And later on that night while sitting in my hotel in San Francisco, because I could not reach Tati, I isseed a public apology directly on my Instagram because I really wanted to make sure she saw that I was sorry and I wanted to end the situation by taking full responsibility for my actions. Tati: I wrapped as much love as I could around this kid, more from like a parental stance than like, a best friend stance. You know, my husband who has run an agency, he was the VP of Motion Pictures, he knows the industry through and through. I don’t talk about that end of my husbands career too often. He is so gifted with his view of how deals contracts, business development, he is a master at it, and i love is brilliant mind. He was mentored by roland perkins who is one of the original founders of CAA. He has built businesses and sold them. He is so insanely intelligent. Anytime James would need help he’d be like “what should I do?” And he’d come over and be like “I don’t like my manager, will you manage me? And James was like no im not doing that I don’tt do that anymore, but youre family how can i help you. My husband would spend hours on the phone looking over contracts getting him in a better position. So we helped him get into style hall back when basically n-oone wanted to work with him because of his ebola scandal, and everyone was really afraid that he was really toxic, but once again, you know we had his back. They got a boutique manager around him, they finally taught him how to monetize his videos. He was making 90$ a video and because of me and my husband he was making$2500 immediately from a switch being flipped because his former management did not go ahead and do that for him. So that’s just like a small sample of some of the things that we’ve done for James Charles. Another thing I have an issue with is James Charles never even apologized to my James. If this was just about Halo, then you know,like, you know that this is our business. Apologize to him too.

Tati: The reason that James always said that he couldn’t promote Halo on his channel

and really do like, you know, heavy endorsement, was because he has a “teenage audience and it would just be inappropriate”. James: Now this thing was just confusing to me, mostly because this conversation never actually happened. If u guys know my channel, you would know that i don’t really do dedicated product reviews ever, which is what tati is known for. But even though that is the case, I still multiple times talked about her products on all my social media networks....