I wanted to name this video "How
Influencers like James Charles Are
Propagating the Normalization and
Monetization of Intellectual Property
Theft within the Online Community"
because it made me feel smart and
powerful but I also wanted people to
click into the video, so I didn't name it
that. I went with something more on-brand
and to the point, and you know what? You
clicked into it so I would say it worked.
Greetings, parasocial parish. Rejoice,
for today father's blessing you with a
very wholesome fan art video. See look,
I've got my James Charles merch, I've got
my handy-dandy drawing tablet, and I'm
just gonna paint a good and fun and
fresh portrait of James Charles. While
ukulele stock music plays in the
background.
Okay, Good. I think all the James Charles stans have clicked off of the
video by now. Thank Jesus. Now we can get
started for real. So I am gonna be
painting in this video, but the ukulele
music isn't gonna cut it. I'm gonna base
this portrait off of a couple of
photos from his Instagram. It was
actually pretty hard to find pictures of
him looking normal, because James Charles
does his art on his face instead of on a canvas. I guess he can't afford paper. But
then again his main income is YouTube,
and I don't think any of us can really
afford paper. Maybe that's why he put
five ad breaks on a 24 minute video. So
James Charles's channel is just a makeup
/ drawing / baking / singing
/ whatever he wants, I guess, channel. I don't know. He has over 15 million
subscribers, and that's really all I care
about and over a billion views on his
channel, which is absolutely insane.
He's one of the most popular and
influential creators on YouTube at the
moment, and that's not . . . good.
Now, last couple of times I've talked
about other youtubers, I got all kinds of
comments accusing it of being a hate
video, and this being a channel, and me
being a hate . . . youtuber. Which I didn't
think was a thing? But that's okay
because this time I'm gonna start off by
saying some things I really really
appreciate about James Charles. As you
know, he has a lot of subscribers and a
lot of money . . . now let's jump into the
criticism. One thing I want to make clear
is that James Charles is not a
talentless hack. You can look at his work
and see that he puts a lot of practice
into it, and it probably takes a pretty
decent amount of time. Some of it I
legitimately think is really
cool-looking. James Charles is a great
artist, so this video isn't me saying
that he's not talented or that he's a
bad youtuber or anything like that. This
video is moreso gonna focus on a
handful of isolated incidents involving
James Charles, and how those incidents
have affected this online internet art
space community thing that we operate in.
Basically, you know that saying
attributed to Pablo Picasso, "Good artists
copy, Great artists steal"? Like I said,
James Charles is a great artist. You see, James has been accused
multiple times of copying other people's
looks and not giving them credit, and I'm
not talking about "Oh she wore blue
eyeshadow and then he wore blue
eyeshadow . . . 
I'm calling the police". I'm talking about
actual recreations of concepts. Now I'm
not going to show every single time that
he's been accused of this, because not
all of them are legitimate and I
don't have context for all of them, so
I'm just going to focus on two that I
have seen that have been floating around
recently. And the accounts he was copying
are a lot smaller than his. One has two
million followers compared to his 15
million, and the other has only three
hundred and eighty four thousand
followers. I like I'm saying "only" like
three hundred eighty four thousand isn't
a lot of followers, but you know compared
to 15 million everything is small, okay?
So here's the first one.
I mean it's open to interpretation. Now,
for this one, people were just saying
it's an Instagram filter, and I think
that's true. This is the Instagram filter
that people were talking about, but from
what I understand, the filter's not going
to give you the exact same eyes as you
see in their looks. So uhhhh . .. take that as you
will.
Plus, he liked her picture on Instagram
exactly one week before posting this
same look, so . . . but you know what, let's
just drop that one. Let's just pretend--
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
Is this an Instagram filter? Just how
much benefit of the doubt are we giving
here? And can I have some? Now, I don't
just want this entire video to be
examples of James getting inspired
without credit, so again I'm leaving it
at those two, but as you can see this is
not the first time he's been accused of
that, because early 2018 he tweeted out: "I
literally have credit as a blocked word
in my comments so no one can send their
followers who accuse me of stealing
their unoriginal looks".
Now as a disclaimer there are some small
creators, who accuse James of being
unoriginal solely because it gains them
followers, like how I'm making this video
right now. But blocking the word credit
from your comment section on all your
videos is . . . kind of a lot. By the way, if
you disagree with anything I'm saying
in this video, make sure you include the
word "disagreement" in your comment,
because I will have that blocked from my
comment section. If you can't beat them,
prevent them from speaking. Now, I know
there are some people watching this and
just thinking "So he copied a couple of
looks. Who cares?" to which my reply is, who
cares . . . that you don't care? Certainly not
me. I noticed that quite a lot of people
like to defend James by saying "He works
hard, He's so hard-working, You don't know
how hard he works". And listen, I'm no
stranger to hard work. I've seen it done.
I literally stole that joke from Larry
the Cable Guy, but then I credited him.
And it wasn't hard. And it didn't kill
me. Sadly. But you know who else works
hard in this YouTube space? Everyone.
Literally everyone . . . except me. I can kind
of just exist, and thrive naturally. But,
everyone else is working really hard to
get to where they are. We appreciate that
James was working hard, but that doesn't
magically excuse him from criticism over
what he does to the art community, which
is propagate the idea that we don't
need to credit people for their hard
work. Now, from what I understand, there
are lots of times he recreates looks and
he does credit people. And his entire
profile isn't just him recreating other
people's work; he has a lot of original
concepts and ideas which I think are
really cool and should be respected as
art. You know, just like the looks from
smaller creators that he's copying. I
just have a feeling deep down that if
somebody was copying James's looks the
same way that he's doing? His fans
wouldn't be so dismissive of it as they
are when it's the other way around.
Now, hypothetical time. Let's pretend
James Charles had 150 followers instead
of 15 million. Now, he's still the same
James that we know and love . . . or that we
know and some of you love. And let's say
that despite the lower sub count, he
still had the exact same quality in
videos. Which is financially impossible
because if you have 150 subscribers, you
can't really run ads so I'm not sure why
or how he would be making money . . . but you
know what? Just use your imagination. Now,
with all the hard work that James does,
would he be any less deserving of the
respect he has as a creator just because
of a lower sub count? Of course he would.
Like imagine only having 150 subs-- no I'm
just kidding I'm just kidding I'm just
kidding.
No, absolutely not. It's all well and good
that James has 15 million subscribers,
but that doesn't make him any more
important than any other artist, just
like it wouldn't make him less important
if he only had 150 followers, just like it wouldn't make any creator less important
than James just because they have fewer
subscribers. He may be a lot more
monetarily valuable and marketable as an
influencer, but don't conflate that with
artistic value the way James seems to
have done. He's not more important than
any other online artist, just like I'm
not more impor-- well, I kind of am, but our
situations aren't really comparable. Now,
probably the last thing I want to touch
on is James Charles's absolute hypocrisy
in this entire situation. Remember at the
beginning when I was like "Maybe that's
why he put five ad breaks on a 24
minute video". Well, he got called out for
that on Twitter, which I personally don't
agree with. I would put 24 ads on a twenty four minute video personally but
that's just me. But one of his responses
to this whole situation was this tweet:
"If you think I'm annoying on camera"-- Aw! 
He's talking to me! "If you think I'm
annoying on camera about YouTube
business and marketing, you should see me
in some of the phone calls and meetings
I have. I'm totally okay with looking
greedy or obnoxious if it means that traditional media may finally start to
understand the value". So you're some sort
of Twitter martyr for digital mass media,
which I wish could have been my major.
Like, instead of Mas Communication, my
degree should have said "Twitter martyr for digital mass media". Then maybe it
would have been worth something. But alas. 
That's all well and good that James is
fighting the good fight for smaller
creators, but am I really supposed to
have faith in a person who's
exhibiting and demonstrating behavior
that is also making it difficult to
operate in this space as a smaller
influencer? If someone like James can
just recreate art from smaller creators
without giving them credit, and then just
block the word credit from existence,
what kind of message is that really
sending to us about this space that
we're in? Definitely a stronger message
than some tweet claiming that you care.
And that's pretty much all I have to say
about that. Now, as I always say at the
ends of these videos, we're not trying to
cancel James Charles. It's not canceling
somebody to have a different opinion on
them, and in this case specifically I
think it would be silly to think that
you even could cancel somebody who has
15 million subscribers. So if you need
somebody to cancel, cancel me. I assure
you I deserve it, as I have a long
history of problematic tweets just
waiting to be discovered.
Anyway, here's the portrait I painted. I
hope James notices me, hehe. And looks
like I've gotten 10 minutes of content
out of this so, leave a like, tell me what
you think, and subscribe if you haven't
already. Thank you for watchign and a big
thank you to my 95 thousand subscribers.
Okay bye.
