If you’re not into the YouTube beauty community,
let me first just say - don’t start!
You’ll get sucked into gossip channels and
won’t emerge until 2098 and Trump will still
be President!
But, like every other warm-blooded person
who needs a distraction from our reproductive
rights being ripped away from us, recently
I’ve been fascinated by Jaclyn Hill and
Lipstick Gate- wherein Make Up YouTuber Jaclyn
Hill release a line of lipsticks that were
hairy.
Moldy.
Had bits of plastic.
“Oh my god is this plastic?
Noooo.”
And even pieces of metal.
“That’s definitely metal.”
And denied that anything was wrong.
“Every single ingredient in my lipstick
is new and it is FDA approved.”
“It literally looks like a toenail.”
“FDA approved.”
But of course, since we live in hell world
a la Silent Hill, I couldn’t help but see
it as a really great example of how capitalism
is like a zombie virus that infects everything
it touches.
If, as Prager University loves to say, “in
capitalism, competition leads to better products,”
how did we end up with glass in our lipsticks?
Here’s just a quick look at what’s been
going on with Jaclyn Hill, and what’s led
up to this latest catastrophe, in case you’re
one of my regular subscribers who’s used
to me talking about Gay Robocop.
Three years ago, Jaclyn Hill created a custom
highlighter with Becca cosmetics that she
marketed as a limited edition, meaning as
soon as they sold out, there’d be no more!
But after they sold out… it was restocked
in stores only a few months later.
And a few months after that, it was literally
added to their PERMANENT collection.
This is known as “artificial scarcity,”
when a company pretends that there’s a limited
amount of a product to make it seem more exclusive
and valuable, only to produce more later.
Jaclyn Hill is not the only person who does
this in the makeup industry, and it’s a
fairly common in capitalism.
Jaclyn happens to be a repeat offender, meaning
we can probably assume that she’s doing
it knowingly, not just as a mistake.
Then, about a year ago Jaclyn released a palette
of eyeshadows called “The Vault” which
were all the leftover shadows she didn’t
put in her original palette with Morphe.
“So if you like this pallette, it’s the
same thing, just different colors.”
The Vault was old, unused product, thrown
together haphazardly to make a profit.
And LO AND BEHOLD, it was bad.
“Very basic.
I expected a little more from it, I did.”
The formula felt terrible, and beauty gurus
hated it.
“Do I think that it was not good?
Of course, you saw the trouble I was dealing
with on camera.
You saw how much of that green I put on, it’s
completely gone.”
So Jaclyn was like - “OMG you know what?
The reviews were so bad that Morphe decided
to re-do all of the palettes.”
“I am dedicated to swatching these vaults
and figuring out these issues.”
So that’s great, problem solved!
Morphe told their customers they fixed the
palettes.
Except…
Well, from all accounts… that didn’t happen.
When it was re-released, people had the exact
same problem.
“We are gonna be doing one eye with the
old formula.
The other eye with the new formula.
[SIGHS] Are any of these honestly looks?
Because they’re all coming out really bad
and I’m not really happy with them.”
Leading many to believe that they lied, simply
because Morphe would rather repackage flawed
product and sell it anyway, instead of throwing
away the thousands of palettes they had already
made.
“And this isn’t even close to being all
of it.”
Money, babyyyy.
“Where did we go wrong?
Where did we go from ‘We love makeup’
to ‘We only care about money?’”
Leading us to today, Lipstick Gate.
Jaclyn released lipsticks, under her own company,
as Jaclyn Cosmetics.
And like we mentioned…
“So that’s three out of three so far that
I’ve looked at that have fuzz attached to
them” They’re moldy, have metal shards,
and chemist recently came forward in a YouTube
video, stating that she believes she MAY have
found MOUSE HAIR in one of her lipstick samples.
“I believe that the hairs that I found are
not all synthetic, but I do believe that I
foudn some that came from an animal.”
Jaclyn loves to say she’s a “perfectionist,”
that she would never put her name on a product
that she didn’t believe in -- so surely
she would immediately recall defective products,
refund everyone’s money, and send the lipsticks
to be tested for mold, right?
But THAT’S not what happened.
The first thing she did was make fun of her
customers online when they told her there
was a problem with the lipsticks.
“Why is my Jaclyn Cosmetics Decaf lipstick
lumpy?
This can’t be ok right?”
“Jaclyn replied to this tweet:” “You
posted swatches two days ago loving the lipsticks.
Now it’s lumpy?
It’s obvious this lipstick is used and not
fresh from factory.
Like any other lipstick, if you use it over
other products, have dry lips, etc, things
like this can happen.”
“She later deleted the tweet.”
Then she posted a YouTube video saying that
her lipsticks were FINE and SAFE TO USE.
“My lipsticks are NOT MOLDY.
They are not hazardous, they are not contaminated,
they are not unsafe for you in any way shape
or form.”
There are many theories as to how and why
this happened.
Some internet sleuths think that they’ve
foudn the lab that Jaclyn Hill used to manufacture
her lipsticks.
It has terrible reviews, and is clearly a
cheap option to maximize profits at the expense
of quality.
But, to a hyper-capitalist, the quality of
the product doesn’t matter.
All that matters is that they think they can
sell it.
Jaclyn never really faced any consequences
from all the corners that she cut before,
so why would this be any different?
When I say Jaclyn is a capitalist, I don’t
just mean that she runs a company, or that
she likes making money.
I mean, at least from all the evidence we’ve
seen, she’s purely driven by profit, even
if it means doing things that are completely
immoral, or even potentially illegal.
When someone is willing to repackage old,
crappy product, or even product that’s literally
got mold and other gross stuff in it, just
to make a quick buck, that’s next level
greed.
Jaclyn is the perfect example of a social
media capitalist.
Classic capitalists have always taken advantage
of fanbases, like Apple taking away headphone
jacks so you HAVE to buy airpods, but thanks
to social media, Jaclyn also has direct communication
with customers.
Meaning that they have that extra parasocial
relationship where her followers think “She
couldn’t possibly be lying to me!
She’s my friend…”
“I’ve always been a happy girl.
But being able to get on camera and connect
with you guys, and leave my house and meet
you guys and have conversation with you guys--”
“It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Oh my god you know my name!!”
“Stalking you guy’s pages I’m like are
they posting are they excited???”
“I am so damn thankful for you guys, and
I think of my product as another way to give
back to you the happiness and the joy and
the freedom that you have given to me.”
“You guys have been a part of this in such
a big way and if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t
be able to do any of this I wouldn’t have
any of this, I wouldn’t be able to save
my money to make my dreams come true and take
care of my family and retire my mom and just
do what I love and I’m very thankful for
you guys.
I love you I love you I love you.”
“First and foremost, I can’t believe how
attached I am to you guys because just this
past week not being on social media has made
me realize how much I miss you and love you
and not talking to you on a daily basis and
communication has just been the craziest thing
ever.”
Oh my god, Jaclyn.
Unfortunately for Jaclyn, the flip side of
social media is that we have receipts upon
receipts upon receipts of both her business
dealings and evidence of her directly lying
to customers.
It’s a rare peek into the really f*cked
up shit companies do to screw us over.
On the same level as video game companies
working their employees to the bone while
management goes out and parties; or a ride
share company stiffing their drivers by stealing
their tips.
Here’s a really great example of how hyper-capitalists
think.
You may have heard Ben Shapiro’s brilliant
comment about how global warming doesn’t
matter because if the seas rise, people who
live on the coasts can just sell their underwater
houses.
“You think that people aren’t going to
just sell their homes and move?”
A lot of people have made fun of him for this:
“Just one small problem, SELL THEIR HOUSES
TO WHO, BEN?
F-ING AQUAMAN???”
And Harry is not wrong, but also, to a hyper-capitalist,
it doesn’t matter that a house is underwater,
a terrible product, they’ll always try to
scam someone into buying that sinking house.
Or moldy lipsticks.
Ben wasn’t making a mistake.
He was giving us an honest insight into how
absolutely selfish, greedy, and immoral hyper-capitalists
are.
Jaclyn is a millionaire, and her plan is probably
to be a billionaire.
Almost, it seems, at any cost.
She cuts corners to sell, sell, sell, she
partners with other shady companies so she
can sell sell sell, she even stopped making
tutorial videos and started only doing videos
when Morphe had something to sell, sell, sell.
Morphe morphe morphe!
Jaclyn’s Rag to Riches Story
Part of Jaclyn’s original success was her
down to earth attitude.
Fast forward to today, and Jaclyn’s CURRENT
aesthetic is all about valuing wealth, consumerism,
and opulence.
Gucci bags, gaudy fireplaces, fur rugs, thousands
of dollars of jewelry, injections -- And that’s
all cool…
I GUESS.
It just kind of sucks to see someone who keeps
claiming a “rags to riches” story… be
so obsessed with the “riches” part.
“When you get something new, it’s like
THE FUN THING.
Every time I get a new foundation and it’s
like expensive and I feel so bougie about
it I have to keep it in its packaging a couple
weeks cause I feel like ahhh so amazing.”
It’s really hard to figure out exactly what
someone’s economic background was.
And I try to take people at their word when
it comes to their own life stories.
The thing is, since Jaclyn is terminally online,
we can look back and see that a few things…
don’t quite line up the way she might want
them to.
She’s mentioned being on food stamps, while
she was working in makeup retail.
Cool, I have no reason to believe that’s
a lie.
A lot of people end up on food stamps for
a variety of reasons.
I actually think it’s great that she talks
about that and normalizes it.
But when she mentions it, her motive doesn’t
seem to be normalizing discussions of welfare,
but to milk sympathy from her viewers.
For example, this snapchat video, which she
posted to promote her eye pallette.
“I just can’t stop thinking about the
days when Sephora wouldn’t hire me and I
was working at MAC and I was living on foodstamps,
couldn’t pay my bills, all I wanted to do
was create products.
People just hated on me sooo damn hard back
then.”
And in this YouTube video where she’s selling
her lipsticks.
“I remember standing in the front of Woodfield
mall MAC store holding a lipstick saying to
myself: ‘One day, I wanna have a brand of
my own.’
And at the time, I was on foodstamps, and
there was NO brand in mind whatsoever.
But that was my first moment of ‘oh wow
I really wanna do this, I really wanna start
a line,’ and here we are, this is eight
years later, and this is my brand reveal video.”
[SCREAMS]
It’s also part of a larger story she’s
creating, where she’s tying her success
directly to her fanbase.
She tells her fans “You are the ones who
got me out of that place.”
She talks about being suicidal when she wasn’t
financially secure.
And again, I’m all for being open about
these subjects, and these feelings.
But when we see this pattern, where she’s
consistently financially exploited her audience,
it’s hard not to look back and see this
as a parallel pattern of emotional exploitation.
She’s implying that you, the customer, are
solely responsible for Jaclyn Hill’s well-being,
and when you buy her products, she’s making
you feel like you’re ‘doing a good thing.’
You’re ‘being her friend.’
She’s also implying that she’d rather
be dead than poor.
Now, “rags to riches,” can mean different
things to different people.
But we’re all drawn to that phrase, since
it’s such a huge part of the American Dream.
We all want to believe that we can come from
nothing and become something.
So let’s look at how Jaclyn defines “rags.”
After some poking around on the internet,
I came across this story, from 2002.
It’s about Jaclyn’s father, Jim, who was
a farmer, then became a preacher.
Okay, so “rags” and farmer.
That makes me think of like the Dustbowl,
and Steinbeck novels.
Very American...
But pretty early in this article, it mentions
that Jim “worked the earth raising corn,
hogs, and soy beans… on a SEVEN HUNDRED
ACRE FARM.”
So Jaclyn wasn’t raised on some small, family
farm, but a commercial farm.
After more internet sleuthing, in another
article, this time from Quad City Times in
2001, I learned Jaclyn’s father owned “one
of the largest hog farms in his area of Illinois,
producing 2,000 to 3,000 hogs every year.”
THATS A LOT OF HOGS!
Also, he was a fourth-generation owner, which
means he didn’t build this business from
scratch, he inherited it.
As someone who comes from a farming community,
I can say, with that kind of land and livestock
inventory…
YOU’RE PROBABLY DOING FINE.
Of course, it’s difficult speculating about
someone else’s finances, because you truly
never know.
But based on the details about her dad’s
farm, she sounds like less of a “rags to
riches” story, and more of a “riches,
to temporarily not rich, to more riches”
story.
And when put that way, it’s a bit less inspirational.
To a hyper capitalist like Jaclyn, all of
these things I’ve talked about--viewers,
expired makeup, even her life story--are commodities.
You, the viewer, are a commodity.
The more of you she can collect, the more
influence and money she’ll make.
And you are very disposable to her.
Garbage makeup that should be sent to a biohazard
containment facility and destroyed… is a
commodity.
Because she knows she can still sell it to
her young viewers who might not know any better
than to trust someone just because they’re
on YouTube.
The “Rags to riches” story is a commodity.
She exchanges it for your empathy.
She trades this story to you, the viewer,
in exchange for attention, money, and influence.
And there’s at least one more thing she
sees as a commodity!
Baby Jesus.
Continuing her “rags to riches” story:
the reason Jaclyn’s dad left hog farming
is because in 1997, his car was hit by a truck,
breaking both his legs, and leading to him
receiving over four million dollars in insurance
money.
I just wanna say that again: FOUR MILLION
DOLLARS.
So he went from being one of the most successful
hog farmers in that part of Illionis, to also
being the recipient of a massive cash payout.
My point here is not to belittle the pain
of being in a terrible car crash, or how traumatic
it probably was for Jacyln as a child, to
see her dad go through that.
It’s to highlight the totally NOT rags to
riches nature of Jaclyn’s upbringing.
So as a result of the crash and insurance
settlement, Jaclyn’s dad “got the call”
from God and became an evangelical preacher,
traveling to remote villages in Africa and
China to spread the Gospel.
According to him, “Some of the places we
go aren’t even on the map.
The safest place in the world to be is right
where God tells you to be.”
This, according to a man who was literally
hit by a truck.
His group, called International Harvest Ministries,
was “essentially made up of six people,”
which was basically Jaclyn’s family: her
dad, her mom, her brother Nicholas, Nicholas’s
wife, Jaclyn’s sister Rachel, and Jaclyn
herself.
So we’ve got a Christian non-profit, taking
donations, which then do not have to be reported
on their taxes--because religious nonprofits
are exempt from reporting donations.
Eventually, Jaclyn’s mom and dad got divorced,
in 2012.
Then, Jaclyn goes through controversy after
controversy on YouTube.
And on August 22, 2018, Jaclyn starts a non-profit
corporation called Lions and Lipstick, Inc,
which is a Christian non-profit, exempt from
reporting taxes, and the people listed as
directors of the corporation are: Jaclyn Hill,
her brother Nicholas, her sister Rachel, and
her mother Robin.
It’s literally the same family members,
minus her dad, involved in the same sort of
fishy non-profit that her dad set up.
Based on everything we know about Jaclyn,
her pattern of lying, of manipulating her
audience, of giving excuses for absolutely
everything… based on all of that, is there
some kind of conclusion we can draw, about
why she would start a non profit that can
take as many cash donations as it wants, without
ever reporting a cent to the IRS?
“You know what?
I feel like I deserved it.
So I did it.”
These earrings did appear out of nowhere.
I did just get a package from my mom.
Some people inherit religious scams from their
family, and…
I got these.
Jaclyn has mentioned that she is not close
to her father, and there seem to have been
undertones of financial abuse in that relationship.
But here she is, years later, perpetuating
that same cycle of financial abuse.
Here’s a hypothetical situation, for anyone
who is unfamiliar with how easy it is to hide
money through a Christian nonprofit.
Let’s say I’m a famous makeup YouTuber
named Maclyn Mill.
And you’re a famous celebrity named Bim
Barbashian.
We want to collaborate together on a YouTube
series, and you’re going to pay me one million
dollars.
Then I, Maclyn, come up with a great idea!
“Hey, Bim, instead of paying me a million
dollars, which I will then have to report
to the IRS, and pay taxes which would go to
things like welfare programs, and the FDA
which exists to ensure that my makeup doesn’t
kill anyone, and stuff…
How about you pay me one hundred thousand
dollars for this series, and then you DONATE
nine hundred thousand dollars to my charity,
because we’re both definitely deeply spiritual
people who definitely have strong religious
convictions.”
Bim would be like, “Maclyn, you’re a genius.
Not only will you not have to pay taxes on
that nine hundred thousand, but because it’s
a charitable contribution, I can also write
it off on MY taxes so I pay less to the IRS.
I am deeply spiritual, as all of my market
research has suggested I should be.
Let’s do it.”
Nonprofit laws don’t just allow this.
Shameless rich people use lobbyists to influence
state and federal politicians, specifically
so that these laws are written in a way that
they can exploit.
It’s a feature of capitalism, not a bug.
For example: this kind of tax avoidance is
one of the key ways Donald Trump has been
able to cheat the American public and evade
paying taxes for decades.
The Trump Foudnation was so shady that they
were forced to dissolve, under supervision
from a New York Judge.
Oh, and gee, guess who was on the board of
that foundation: Trump, his failsons, and
his daughter Ivanka.
New York State Attorney General Barbara Underwood
Said:
“Our petition detailed a shocking pattern
of illegality involving the Trump Foudnation--including
unlawful coordination with the Trump presidential
campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing,
and much more.
This amounted to the Trump Foundation functioning
as little more than a checkbook to servew
Mr Trump’s business and political interests.”
Among those shady dealings was a 25,000 dollar
contribution in 2013 to a group called And
Justice For All, which supported the reelection
of Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Bondi had been CONSIDERING investigating Trump
University but gee ya know, wouldn’t ya
know it, after that 25,000 dollar contribution,
she just like, decided NOT to.
That’s so fun.
And if you even suggest cracking down on dark
money in nonprofits, ESPECIALLY religious
nonprofits, you’ll be accused of playing
“politics.”
To bring it back to foodstamps for a second:
Foodstamps are a welfare program paid for
by our tax dollars.
Now that Jacyln is rich, she seems to not
want to pay her fair share or be held accountable.
And it’s not just her non-profit that’s
questionable in terms of tax avoidance.
Jaclyn has also filed multiple for-profit
businesses in Delaware: a state that is very
friendly to people who want to avoid paying
taxes.
So, she deserved to benefit from foodstamps,
but doesn’t feel a responsibility to pay
into that system?
I can already imagine the YouTube comments:
“But Maggie! she’s just trying to make
a religious non-profit for what she believes
in!
She’s a Christian!”
Which yes, call yourself whatever you want,
but Jaclyn and her father are, as far as anyone
can tell, the most awful kind of Evangelical
Christian: the hypocritical kind who are driven
entirely by greed.
What would Prager U have to say about this?
Well probably: “If she cares about profit,
she has to care about her customers’ feelings
and wellbeing, or they’ll abandon her and
she’ll lose profit.”
But if the only reason you “care” about
people is that you hope to make money off
of them in the future, then you don’t actually
care about people.
If people are just a means, and profit is
the goal, then you do not care about people.
Unless those people are sacks of money that
you’ve put clothes on and hang out with
in your room.
One thing that obviously sets Jaclyn apart
from famous capitalists of the past, is the
social media connection between her and her
fans.
Jaclyn getting DRAGGED for her terrible products
eventually led to her FINALLY [refunding]
the hairy lipsticks.
But only after thousands of angry fans staged
a kind of cyber-protest.
If no one had said anything, or even more
scary, if social media didn’t exist… people
wouldn’t have been able to share this information,
or organize like this on such a massive scale.
People getting their lipsticks in the mail
might not even know that their lipsticks were
literally moldy.
It’s not a coincidence that a resurgence
of socialist thinking has happened alongside
the internet.
The internet helps masses of people come together,
and hold millionaires accountable.
But not every company or influencer has the
following that the beauty community has.
Jaclyn is just one example, just one symptom
of a much much larger problem.
Celebrities, corporations, and shady nonprofits
do these kinds of things all the time.
There are metaphorical shards of plastic in
lipsticks EVERYWHERE.
So my makeup loving friends, or people who
don’t want their lips to break out in an
infection from a beauty guru’s products,
or people who don’t care about makeup but
are still trapped in a capitalist society,
what’s the lesson to take away here?
If you want to blame Jaclyn Hill by ALL MEANS
do it, she sold lipsticks with plastic shards
in it, my god, but also, maybe we should all
be holding up our lipsticks in the air and
asking for a better system, to ensure that
people like Jaclyn can’t literally put people’s
well-being in danger because she wants to
get rid of the moldy lipsticks in her refrigerator.
Also, supporting welfare programs like food
stamps and shelters and creating safety nets
for those who do fall on hard times, could
hopefully help lessen the terrible ladder
climbing mentality that capitalism supports.
If there are programs to fall back on, it
won’t be so life and death for the rest
of us to make a living.
The reason that I wanted to make this video,
is because now everyone knows who Jaclyn Hill
is.
She just gained a LOT of social capital from
this attention, and because she is a hyper
capitalist, she will try and take advantge
of that.
She will make new makeup, she will try and
capitalize on all the people who now know
her name.
But we, as the consumer, need to ask ourselves
- do we want to give more money and power
to a person who will most likely be hiding
her taxes in a non-profit, taking away from
community programs?
Do we want to give more power to a person
who already emotionally manipulates her fans
and followers?
Do we want to make these uber capitalists
of the world, the Jeff Bezos, the Jack from
Twitter, more influence so they can keep taking
advantage of the system?
Let’s not give Jaclyn and people like her
a come-back.
That story is old and tired, and it paints
us as fools.
And when she tries to make her eventual comeback--as
her mom is laying the groudnwork for on Instagram--maybe
don’t believe her schtick marketing about
how she’s “changed” and how she’s
really “sorry,” when she just tries to
push more cheap makeup.
I’m not saying that no one should have a
comeback.
I’m saying that if you do, you should change,
grow, and learn from it.
And she won’t.
Today, if you walk into a makeup aisle, you’ll
see makeup for diverse skin tones, and you’ll
see the little bunny ear logos telling you
that it’s cruelty free.
Both of those are due to the beauty community
being vocal, holding companies accountable,
and demanding change.
So, let’s see what else we can do.
Not just for beauty products, but for society
at large.
Now, please welcome my friend Macklyn Mill
who’s here to tell you about my Patreon.
Hey you guys!
Welcome to Maggie’s channel.
Now I am putting up a list, these people have
proven that they are good people by supporting
Maggie on Patreon.
Maggie’s videos are LUSH. they are RICH.
They are EV-ER-E-THING-GA.
EVERYTHING.
I am obsessed.
UGGGG You guys.
The reason I talk about Maggie so much-- MAGGIE
MAGGIE MAGGIE --is not because they pay me
to say that.
Maggie.
Maggie.
Maggie.
Maggie does pay me to say that.
Maggie.
Maggie Maggie.
Okay, the only reason I talk about it is because
Maggie is paying me to say that.
Now I’m asking you to put money behind a
product that I truly care about.
Maggie!
Thank you guys so so much, you’ve been there
from the beginning.
Thank you so much, god bless, and save Martha!
