Beauty Youtubers dominated the industry throughout the 2010s due to their chatty ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos and the countless brand deals and makeup collections launched by some of the more prominent creators. American vlogger Jeffree Star launched a makeup range (Jeffree Star Cosmetics), James Charles collaborated with Morphe, and British beauty guru Zoe Sugg (also known as Zoella) has been responsible for a variety of beauty lines, that includes a 2015 Superdrug collaboration.
Beauty Youtubers dominated the industry throughout the 2010s due to their chatty ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos and the countless brand deals
Zoella was, arguably, the UK’s most popular beauty influencer and her personal downfall can be largely attributed to a series of controversies that started with her ill-received advent calendar as most of her viewers felt as though it was not worth the steep £50 price tag. Sugg subsequently faced further backlash in 2019 following the release of her ColourPop, which left many of her fans feeling disappointed because of her boring and beige colour choices. Following these controversies, Sugg found herself at the top of Insider’s list of “The 16 YouTube channels that lost the most subscribers in 2019” after losing nearly half a million followers in a short period and she hasn’t posted a video to her Zoella account since June 2018.
In addition to being well-liked as an individual content creator, Sugg was also part of a group of British YouTubers known as the ‘Brit Crew’ that included her boyfriend Alfie Deyes alongside other beauty vloggers such as Tanya Burr (and her then-husband Jim Chapman) and Louise Pentland and the fall of the so-called ‘Brit Crew’, which is linked to the downfall of the beauty genre of YouTube in general, started with the controversial 2017 meet-and-greet, HelloWorld.
HelloWorld was an event that took place in Birmingham and was marketed as a ‘four-hour immersive live show’, in which the attendees would be able to play games and make videos with the participating YouTubers instead of spending hours in long queues that were common at most other YouTube meet-and-greet events. However, fans were left outraged at the disorganisation of the event as they were forced to queue for hours despite paying high prices for tickets to this exclusive occasion.
The downfall of British beauty YouTubers goes hand-in-hand with the declining popularity of vloggers in general and the controversies that they found themselves embroiled in
HelloWorld seemed to be the beginning of the downfall of this group of formerly popular British social media personalities. The already dire situation was further exacerbated by the divorce of Tanya Burr and Jim Chapman in 2019 as they were an integral part of the group and, consequently, they all began to drift apart with the only social media interaction within the group seeming to be congratulatory messages as Sugg, Burr and Chapman have all recently become parents.
The downfall of British beauty YouTubers goes hand-in-hand with the steadily declining popularity of vloggers in general and the controversies that many of them found themselves embroiled in, whereas the collapse of the community in the United States is directly linked to the ‘Bye Sister’ video uploaded by Tati Westbrook in 2019 detailing her drama with fellow beauty guru, James Charles.
People often talk about significant events in history, and I feel like most people that have access to the Internet can remember where they were on the 10th of May 2019, the day that Westbrook uploaded the infamous 43-minute video. In the video that dominated social media news, Tati discusses numerous controversial issues, such as how she felt betrayed by Charles for promoting SugarBearHair, a company that rivalled her own supplement company (Halo Beauty); however, the most talked about topic that she mentions in the video is Charles’ predatory behaviour towards other men, including his pursuit of straight men.
Westbrook’s allegations were scandalous and didn’t just contribute to the downfall of the YouTube beauty community, but also caused Charles’ career to implode
Westbrook also detailed her experiences with fellow beauty blogger, Jeffree Star, by stating that “he would frequently comment about how much dirt he held on other brand owners and members of our YouTube community,” and even dragged Shane Dawson into the drama. Westbrook’s allegations were scandalous and didn’t just contribute to the downfall of the YouTube beauty community, but also caused Charles’ career to implode. Consequently, Charles was dropped from his Morphe collaboration, demonetised on YouTube, and managed to become the most hated person on YouTube and despite his persistence to remain in the public eye, his career has failed to make a full recovery.
Countless members of the YouTube beauty community have suffered career-damaging controversies that have all contributed to the downfall of the group that once had a huge impact on the beauty industry, nevertheless, following the emergence of TikTok, a new and exciting social media site, a new beauty community has been formed elsewhere. Most beauty YouTubers, such as the likes of James Charles and Zoella, are linked to scandals and, due to the seriousness of some of them, have resulted in the community becoming toxic.
TikTok on the other hand has permitted the discovery of a new generation of beauty influencers, such as Mikayla Nogueira and Amelia Olivia who, similarly to their YouTube counterparts, post ‘Get Ready With Me’ videos and, because the industry has noticed the growing TikTok influencer culture, they are therefore securing brand deals with these stars instead.
Most beauty YouTubers, such as the likes of James Charles and Zoella, are linked to scandals
Some beauty influencers who made a name for themselves on YouTube have also made the move over to TikTok to maintain their relevance and place within the online beauty community. Dutch makeup artist and content creator Nikkie de Jager has almost 7 million followers on TikTok where she posts content that is almost identical to the kind of content that she became famous for on YouTube and has even secured appearances from celebrities such as Adele on her platform.
So, although it appears that the YouTube beauty community has died and is unlikely to experience a resurgence in the future due to the prevalence of TikTok, that does not mean that TikTok beauty influencers are immune to controversy. Mikayla Nogueira, who has over 14 million followers on TikTok, has recently been involved in a scandal after she decided to wear fake lashes to promote a mascara, so this new generation of beauty gurus could end up meeting the same fate as their predecessors on YouTube.