Getting Dragged by Tik Tok

Tik Tok is a platform where you can find comedy sketches, commentary, and the latest cool kid dances. But there's something else the platform is now famous for- and that is getting dragged.

Dragged - Urban Dictionary

"Being disrespected or humiliated on an internet forum. "

Tik Tok's most recent targets? Shane Dawson, Jeffree Star, and Tati Westbrook, the three youtubers responsible for 'Dramageddon 3' or 'Karmageddon'. I'm going to take you through the drama and the viral-worthy tik tok's that spawned as a result. Some of these got a lot of attention, while others were just swept up in the sea of content released whenever a new scandal breaks.

But let's wind things back a bit. Who are Shane Dawson, Jeffree Star, and Tati Westbrook?

Shane Dawson is an infamous YouTuber who's ability to reinvente himself and swathes of loyal fans have seen him recover from scandal after scandal. Shane's YouTube career began in 2008, creating short comedy sketches loaded with highly offensive racist content, that would later come back to haunt him. His content then evolved into food challenges, and is now focused on investigative documentaries that make unlicensed psychological evaluations of other youtubers.

A run through of the video game 'Subway Surfers' with Shane as the player. The music is a parody of a Nicki Minaj song written by Shane, the song pokes fun at her appearance and culture as an African American woman.

Next up we have Mr Jeffree Star. Jeffree rose to fame from his makeup tutorials, reviews, and sickening displays of excessive wealth. Like Shane his career follows a cycle of scandal followed by apology video centred around a series of racist recordings of himself from the late 2000s.

Jefree Star's posing for YouTube apology video thumbnails.

Our final character is Tati Westbrook, a veteran beauty youtuber who began her career in 2010. She remained unproblematic for years until she invited one Jeffree Star into her life. Jeffree Star is the kiss of death to influencer's careers. He has been the catalyst in Dramageddon 1, 2 & 3, and has managed to avoid any damage to his reputation or personal wellbeing, while everyone else involved suffered enormous losses in both their professional and personal lives.

To understand Dramageddon 3 I must first explain Dramageddons 1 and 2. The long history of manipulation and scandal amongst the creators involved will make it clear why their audiences have turned on them.

It's unclear exactly how Dramageddon 1 began, only that it involved a falling out of friendship between Jeffree Star and his then squad of beauty guru giants Gabriel Zamora, Laura Lee, Nikita Dragun, and Manny MUA. A series of hurtful tweets were thrown back and forth between Jeffree and the three beauty gurus, which resulted in their fan bases becoming involved, defending their idols and dragging out their accusers old racist and fat-shaming tweets and videos. Gabriel Zamora, Laura Lee, and Manny MUA all had to release apology videos, and took major blows to their careers and reputations. Jeffree Star had already released an apology video for his racism a year earlier and didn't suffer any repercussions from the fiasco.

Dramageddon 2 revolved around beauty youtuber James Charles. James Charles shot to fame after becoming the first Male spokesperson for Covergirl cosmetics st the age of 17, just one year after launching his YouTube channel. He had a close professional and personal relationship with Tati Westbrook, who mentored him during the rise of his career. When Tati launched a range of beauty vitamins and James was caught promoting the companies direct competitor, the relationship quickly soured. Tati's bitterness over James betrayal led her to create the now infamous fourty-five minute long video posted in 2019 titled 'Bye Sister', where she broke down every reason she was turning against her once close friend. Tati not only spoke about the betrayal felt when James promoted her competitor, but also went into immense detail about inappropriate behavior she had witnessed from him, such as statements that he had used his position as a famous youtuber to persuade a straight male waiter into engaging in sexual acts with him.

As usual, Jeffree Star was eager to throw himself into the forefront of the drama, posting a series of tweets in which he called James Charles a 'predator' and 'danger to society', stating that he would soon release a tell all video exposing him. The beauty community was quick to 'cancel' James, he lost 3 million followers in 24 hours and was crucified on Twitter as alleged victims of his predatory behaviour came forward.

8 days after Tati's video James did what none of us thought possible. He managed to drag himself out of the vacuous pit of YouTube cancellation and clear his name. In a 40 minute long video titled 'No More Lies' James went into detail about how it was a necessity to take the paid promotion with Tati's competitor 'Sugar Bear Hair' in order to obtain security at a festival that may have been dangerous for him to attend otherwise. He also presented a series of texts messages exchanged between himself and the waiter at the centre of the allegations. The text messages indicated that their relationship was consensual, and James stated “I am a 19-year-old virgin. I have never and will never use my fame, money, or my power to manipulate or get any sexual actions from a guy. That is disgusting. That is not me. The fact that Tati brought this up blows my mind.”

James regained his subscribers and public opinion swayed back into his favour. This forced the YouTube community to question the motives behind Tati's video, and her once perfect reputation as being one of the most credible creators on the platform was now tarnished. Tati released an apology on Twitter stating that she wished she had raised her concerns in a different way. The incident also added to the platforms growing distrust of Jeffree Star. Why was Jeffree so eager to insert himself into the controversy? Why would he threaten releasing evidence to expose another youtuber when this information more than likely did not exist?

Let's move on to Dramageddon 3 or 'Karmageddon'. This began with a no warning, shocking expose video from Ms Westbrook posted on July 1st 2020. The video titled 'Breaking my Silence' went into detail about how she was manipulated by Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson into making her 'Bye Sister' video. Shane's reaction to this was to go onto Instagram live before he had even finished watching it to scream at the camera how 'manipulative' Tati is and that she was 'fake crying' in her video. Shane's innocence in the scandal is somewhat hard to believe however, as he had posted a tweet 10 days earlier stating that James Charles 'needed to be served a slice of humble pie the size of the fucking Empire State Building'.

Shane Dawson's Instagram live meltdown after Tati released her 'Breaking My Silence' apology video.

Questioning the sincerity of Tati's expose/ apology video 'Breaking My Silence'.

Jeffree Star's reaction to the video was that of silent indifference. He remained absent from social media except for a few appearances relaxing and socializing with friends. On all accounts he was generally unbothered. It wasn't until almost a month after Tati's video that Jeffree released his response 'Doing What's Right'. Jeffree sat perched on a gold velvet couch surrounded by his opulent mansion, dressed head to toe in Louis Vuitton, as he lectured us about how there are bigger issues going on in the world and that we shouldn't be focused on this silly drama. He used the black lives matter movement to deflect from the fact that he had tried to ruin a teenage boys life, and never once apologised to James Charles.

A parody of Jefree Star's 'Doing What's Right' apology video.

So why did they do it? I hear you ask. Partly because of jealousy due to James Charles enormous success at such a young age, but also because removing him would benefit the launch of Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson's beauty collaboration.

Re-purposing Jeffree and Shane's 'Controversy' makeup palette.