Beauty Turns Beastly

If you love makeup and have been on YouTube in the last few months then you’ve probably heard about all the scandals that are happening in the beauty community. But, these scandals also have people outside the beauty community talking. The questions that should be asked are if these situations could have been handled differently, and if so would the outcomes have been differently?

YouTube has been around since 2005, but it wasn’t until 2013 that beauty influencers really seemed to take off in popularity. This was also when more beauty brands started noticing them and wanted their endorsements and for them to promote their products. Recently however the top beauty vloggers are under fire, and it all centers around one of their own, Jeffree Star.

Star, a huge beauty influencer who has 10 million subscribers on YouTube, was one of the first beauty influencers to have a scandal. Old videos of him making racist remarks from 12 years ago resurfaced. Soon after people started attacking him on social media. He has addressed the remarks and apologized throughout his career. Yet, it wasn’t until he made a video titled: RACISM, where he talks about his past and how he felt back then.

“I know exactly the person I am today… the person that said those horrible vial things, that person was depressed, just angry at the world,” Star said in the video.

People began to forgive him and this video was a smart PR move, because he admitted his wrong doings, owned up to the fact that what he did was wrong, explained why he acted out and most importantly he apologized. Owning up to one’s mistakes is great move from a PR standpoint.

Star also did a documentary series with Shane Dawson, where he talked about his past and moving forward. This documentary series has over 23 million views and shed a positive light on both YouTubers. The series was the best PR for both Dawson and Star, as a result they both grew in followers and in popularity with the public.

Shortly after this series surfaced fellow beauty influencers and former friends of Star posted a group picture. In the picture they all had their middle finger raised towards the camera. One influencer Gabriel Zamora, decided to start a fight with this picture by capturing it “B**** is bitter because without him we’re doing better.” It seems like he was referring to Star with this caption.

Star’s followers imminently took offense and started digging through old social media posts for dirt on everyone that was in the picture. The YouTuber that’s reputation and career were hurt the most was Laura Lee.

Racist tweets from her past were brought up and instead of addressing the issue head on she took an hiatus from social media. After what appears to be a PR attempt to save her reputation she released an apology video. Where many accused her of being insincere and fake crying to gain forgiveness. This is an example of bad PR. In the beginning she tried ignoring the problem, this a wrong move. She should have addressed the issue immediacy and released an apology letter. Do you think Lee and Star should be forgiven for what they did in the past?

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