Will Twitter ever be able to cancel Jeffree Star?
YouTubers & Twitter fans have been waiting for beauty influencers & collaborators Jeffree Star, Shane Dawson, and Shane Dawson’s actions to catch up with them. After over six years of backlash after backlash, two Dramageddons, and the creation of the drama channel genre, Shane Dawson & Jeffree Star are being hit with a tidal wave of accountability – finally.
Morphe move
On June 30, popular beauty brand Morphe announced it would stop selling Star & Dawson’s viral 2019 makeup collaboration. In a statement on July 10, 2020 makeup brand Morphe Cosmetics dumped Jeffree Star. Taking to their Twitter account, the brand announced, “Today we’ve made the decision to cease all commercial activity related to Jeffree Star and affiliated products.”
“We expect this to conclude within the coming weeks. As we look to the future, we will continue to share updates on what lies ahead for the Morphe brand,” the Twitter statement continued. Star was once the star collaborator with the brand, launching several lines with the company.
Fans across Twitter responded to the news, with a large majority overjoyed by Morphe’s decision to drop Star. “THANK YOU MORPHE ABOUT TIME!! I’ll def start buying again, for those of you who don’t understand why, he has apologized, but he also hangs out w two known racists, also, he’s besties w Shane Dawson’s pedo ass, & he hasn’t even spoken out about it which I really hoped he would,” a top comment read.
Rampant racism
The Morphe move comes after beauty influencers like Jackie Aina dropped the company because of Star. In a Twitter post on July 2, Aina wrote, “Hey boos, as some of you may know as of this week I will no longer be a @MorpheBrushes affiliate. Code ‘EDGES’ has deactivated. I refuse to align myself with a company that continues to retail antiblack racist beauty brands. I strongly encourage other influencers to do the same!”
However, this is not the first time Aina spoke out against Star’s outrageous online exploits. “I have not and will not excuse his blatantly racist behavior,” Aina wrote in a 2018 statement about Star’s behavior. “Not his past references to me in derogatory terms, his continued use of the N-word, nor his efforts to eliminate spaces and opportunities for people of color.”
“No one in the community should feel they are protected enough to continuously say things to make black women feel ugly and ashamed in their own skin,” Aina added.
Manic manipulation
Aina’s statement came just a few days after YouTuber Tati Westbrook released a forty-minute video in which she spoke at length about her working relationships with Jeffree Star & Shane Dawson, claiming that they fed her “poisonous lies”.
Twitter drama hit a high point after Westbrook dropped that bomb. Star & Dawson, according to Westbrook, used Westbrook, her image, and her platform to attack rival beauty influencer James Charles without getting blood on their hands and allegedly manipulated her into filming her now-infamous “BYE SISTER” video.
Adding fuel to the fire, in June 2020, Kameron Lester, a micro-influencer who worked with Star on makeup campaigns for Jeffree Star Cosmetics, made an exposé that gained traction among Twitter fans & YouTubers. In his video, Lester said both Star & Dawson “manipulated” him and used him as a “token Black boy” on their social media profiles (and for Star, in his makeup advertisements) to appear more diverse.
Horrifying history
All this comes hot on the heels of Star being called out for his bigoted statements and the increasing backlash on Twitter, Instagram & YouTube he and his collaborator Dawson have been facing. Resurfaced videos show Star using racist and other types of offensive language, while three of Dawson’s videos were demonetized.
Amongst many accusations against Star, some have been calling for his “cancellation” on Twitter after old photos resurfaced of him causing self–harm (which he posted himself), and him posing with a confederate flag.
Chicken roost
While Star’s history is peppered with awful behavior, each incident is accompanied by apologies viewed millions of times. All those YouTube views & Twitter responses translate into a bank account – that we see in the form of a fleet of sports cars, luxury clothes, a palace, vacations to plush resorts, etc. — that never seems to feel the stress of the situation.
Yet, it looks like Star’s Twitter chickens are finally coming home to roost – and bite him in the butt.
