Sister Snatched
27
plain
2024-12-20T06:58:29-08:00
The final piece of this site critiques James Charles—a 19-year-old beauty guru who’s gained 16 million YouTube subscribers since his start three years ago—but also the YouTube ethos he represents. Although YouTube demographics are only available to their respective creators, it’s clear a large percentage of his fan base is young women and preteen girls. Them showing up in droves whenever James makes a public appearance, he recently brought the UK city of Birmingham to a standstill, as his fans flocked to see him open a beauty supply store in the city’s center. His channel interests me for many reasons: its quick and substantial growth (especially among young women and girls), James’ frequent use of the app Facetune, along with other makeup techniques to change his appearance and occasionally the appearance of his followers, his approach to gender stereotypes and expectations, the way he discusses his sex life on camera, his fame, his money…
The video at the bottom of this page addresses a few of these things, mainly James’ approach to femininity or the category “woman” and (for lack of a better term) the “imperfections” of him and his followers. His videos traffic in feminine stereotype and obligation, and he either disregards or hasn’t thought through the implications of this—all while being perceived as an expert on the very subject of the feminine enterprise by his impressionable followers.
Although he often jokes about being a woman, James is cisgender and white and his views or ~feelings~ in regard to gender often bolster deeply traditional expectations for young women. This becomes especially apparent when he discusses his nose and the use of nose contour. While he claims to like his own nose, “to look like a regular boy,” he thinks its too big for “glam.” The obvious implication here being that when James is living his everyday life as a man (one in which he is makeup free), his nose is fine, but when he wants to be perceived as feminine, or as a woman, his nose is too big. These expectations, that work to elide the character of the female face—and further the complexity of womanhood—are present throughout his videos. We see this again when he’s boorishly asked if he’s “a top or a bottom” and after explaining that in gay relationships the masculine partner is traditionally the top, he states, “I’m a woman basically.”
Is it fair to ask a 19-year old to consider his words more carefully? To consider the young ears that hang on his words? He’s stated more than once that he doesn’t wear makeup outside of his videos, except for special occasions or work events. Given this, I think it’s important to question the way he utilizes femininity in the service of profit—“business” often being cited as his main interest. And, further, the way his privilege and naiveté colors his views on femininity. It’s both illegitimate and unproductive to purely see the feminine as something superficial (and ultimately monetizable), this divorces it from those who embody it and utilizes it for other means, without respect for the diversity and humanity of James’ fanbase.
