Shane Dawson Cancelled: The new PR fear

Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.

It has been more than a year after the most famous Youtube feud happened between James Charles and Tati Westbrook which captured global attention not only within the Youtube community but extended to mainstream media. It certainly shook YouTube beauty community to its core, especially with “The Ellen of Youtube” Shane Dawson seemingly being involved and having to release a lengthy statement about his own role in the drama. 

Shane Dawson has been and still is one of the biggest YouTubers throughout the platform's existence and would currently be best known for his documentary series about ‘controversial’ social media stars, including Jeffree Star, CEO of Jeffree Star Cosmetics and one of the main participants in the feud that became known as "Dramageddon 2.0." 

We wrote about how this was the best and worst marketing campaign of 2019.

Jeffree Star has appeared in two of Shane Dawson's series, and the latest was a lead-up to the pair's record-breaking "Conspiracy" makeup collection, which Dawson referred to as "one of the best experiences" of his life in his Twitter rant. 

Although Shane Dawson didn't have a public role in the drama between James Charles, Tati Westbrook, and Jeffree Star, except for openly showing and supporting Westbrook and Star. He later used the drama in the promotional video for his "Conspiracy" launch series with Star — but was heavily criticised for not actually addressing it in the series. In his statement, Dawson wrote, "Putting drama in the trailer was something i [sic] regret more than anything in the world and I'm mad that I chose tea over my morals."

This rant is a PR nightmare. Working with clients in the public eye and having experience in crisis scenarios, I read this rant physically wincing at what the reaction from his audience would be.

The rant mainly focused on suspicions that he quietly influenced the feud behind the scenes. Over the last two months, those suspicions have been building in the beauty YouTube commentary community thanks to Star reigniting accusations about James Charles in an April 2020 podcast. They also arose after a former friend and collaborator of Jeffree Star's accused Star and Dawson of "manipulating" him in regards to "Dramageddon 2.0" in early June. In denying those claims, Dawson also announced his departure from the "beauty world."

"So did I 'plan' dramageddon? Are you SERIOUS? NO," Dawson wrote. "Do people in the Youtube world come to me like a grandpa and ask me for advice? Yes. Is it easy for me to get wrapped up in something potentially toxic if I think someone I love is hurting or upset? Yes. It's an issue I need to work on and have been working on."

Shane Dawson denies that he had any "involvement" in the events that sparked Dramageddon 2.0

In his four-page rant, which was only posted to Twitter. Dawson began by addressing the "questions" that have been circulating in the YouTube commentary community about the "Bye Sister" video that sparked the feud between Charles and Westbrook. Dawson wrote that he knew Westbrook "was thinking about making a video" but he said he had no idea the video was "gonna be that intense."

Shane Dawson praised "Bye Sister," writing "that s--- will be in the history books," although Westbrook deleted the video and apologised for making it and directing abuse toward Charles because of it. In a follow-up statement, Dawson wrote that his praise of "Bye Sister" did not equate to him thinking Charles deserved the online bullying that followed it, and Dawson wrote the "humbling" should have happened "OFF camera."

Unsurprisingly the rant quickly proved unpopular, as the social media metrics website Social Blade shows he lost over 20,000 Twitter followers after posting it. Many of the initial replies criticised him for seemingly defending Star's accusations against Charles, who Dawson wrote: "was a young egocentric power hungry guru who needed to be served a slice of humble pie the size of the f---ing Empire State Building."

Back in 2019 when the feud was at its height, Star accused Charles of being a "danger to society" for allegedly preying on straight men (No evidence to date has been released). In an April podcast, Star still claimed he has a recording of "an alleged victim of James Charles" on his phone. In his "No More Lies" response to Star's accusations, James Charles denied all claims and essentially proved Westbrook and Star’s allegations to be false; Charles, who was 19 at the time Star accused him, said he was a "virgin."

The “No More Lies” video was brilliantly done, James Charles took the time to answer every claim and provided evidence that they were false. Any wrong doings such as his growing ego, he apologised for. This PR video absolutely saved his career and probably the route Shane Dawson should have taken over the Twitter rant which essentially put blame on everyone but him without any owning up or apologies to his audience.

There is another two elements of Dawson's rant that received widespread criticism were his continued defenses of Star and his announcement that he was "out" of the beauty community. Both Star and Dawson have controversial pasts regarding racist incidents — Star has a long history of making racist comments that he has apologised for, including his use of the "n word" slur on camera, and Dawson has also used the slur and dressed in blackface on YouTube.

"The beauty gurus who are ALWAYS involved in scandals are ALL THE F---ING SAME. They are all attention seeking game playing egocentric narcissistic vengeful two faced ticking time bombs ready to explode," Dawson wrote. " [...] Yes, Jeffree is in that list of dramatic gurus (and he would admit that) and he will always be family to me and I love him despite those characteristics. He's VERY aware of the fact that I don't agree with many of the ways he approaches situations and I have been very honest with him about needing to make some changes. [sic]"

"Shane" and "Shane Dawson" trended on Twitter for more than 12 hours after he tweeted and deleted his rant and follow-up, and the most-liked tweet to emerge besides Dawson's own tweets was one that criticised him for "trying to out" Daniel Howell and Phil Lester. Dawson addressed that criticism back in 2017, writing on Twitter that he "NEVER spoke bad" of the YouTube-famous pair, but the most recent tweet criticised Dawson for old remarks about the two. Howell came out as gay in 2019.

The same day Dawson tweeted his rant, he also announced the restock of a mini version of the "Conspiracy" palette he debuted with Star, and he posted videos of himself promoting his makeup products, even though he was practically simultaneously saying he was leaving the beauty community over drama. 

"I'm done with the beauty world," he wrote. "I love what I was able to create with Jeffree and I'm sure people are going to assume I only did it for money but thats [sic] not true. I just am choosing to no longer be apart [sic] of that world."

Not the best line after promoting a re-stock that same day. Eek.

From a PR perspective and what steps Shane Dawson should have taken to avoid being “Cancelled”.

This is definitely a tricky one, from a business perspective - Shane 100% has contracts and ties with Jeffree Star. This is a no brainer with continuous releases and restocks plus Shane’s merch is sold under Jeffree Stars other brand, Killer Merch. From a human level, they’re probably good friends behind the scenes and let’s be honest, Dawson is making millions from the business deal. It’s practically impossible for Shane to be able to say what his fans seem to want to hear which was something like “I changed during my time knowing Jeffree and not in a good way, I am disassociating myself from him and the community and I apologise for upsetting my fans.”

I don’t believe fans have a right to demand who someone can be friends with, not one bit. That being said, from a PR perspective if someone is damaging your career and image that you’ve tried so hard improve then it would be a smart move to publicly avoid that person. Shane didn’t have to say anything harsh about Jeffree but perhaps leaving out that he’s family in the rant would have been less damaging

Much of the anger towards Shane comes from him admitting Jeffree Star is the same as James Charles in a problematic and dramatic sense but is backing the problematic CEO and seemingly happy to have James suffer with (as of now) serious false allegations.

This continues from an outside perspective to push that Shane did the series and makeup collaboration for monetary reasons only. I don’t know if Shane has a team but after his series, he needed to post many make up videos using his line. It looks incredibly bad that the palette was released and no mention of it after except complimenting customers and promoting re-stocks.

It gives an incredibly fake persona that Shane ever liked make up and saw it as a fantastic money opportunity. This wouldn’t have been a problem if Shane approached his series by seeing the behind the scenes to see how make up is made rather than the basic marketing/packaging of it and instead following Jeffree’s luxury lifestyle. Shane pushed in the series he loved make up and this now essentially comes across as false advertising to his fan base post sales/series.

I feel the best steps Shane could have taken was to not post that rant and instead do a video similar to '“No More Lies”, any evidence he has that he didn’t start or conspire in the drama… Use it.

He is without a doubt now in an incredibly difficult position post rant with his old drama being thrown back in his face on all social media channels along with the new drama.

The best steps Dawson could take now is a live video on Youtube, which is promoted across all channels prior. He needs to not be a victim, own up to his mistakes and be honest and genuine to his fans. He needs to research and cover every single problem the fans have plus answer all the tough questions that would be posted in the live feed.

After this video there should be nothing left unanswered. He’ll without a doubt lose fans from it but as it is now, he could lose his career. This honest approach could save many fans and give a new respect to him finally not ‘playing victim’ but owning up and said “I messed up”. Although he’s apologised for his past, he needs to repeat this for his new fanbase who may have not been around for the original apology.

Written by Co-Founder L

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