The thing about being a rich influencer is that you're only a rich influencer in the first place because the fans who watch your content made you one.
Makeup content creator James Charles seems to have forgotten this simple fact and has turned himself into the internet's latest Marie Antoinette because of it.
Charles is under fire online after using his enormous platform to berate a former Spirit Airlines employee who recently lost her job due to the airline's abrupt shutdown.
After the woman asked Charles to share the GoFundMe she'd started, the influencer insulted and mocked her in a profanity filled video that has left people shocked.
- YouTubeyoutube.com
Charles quickly deleted the video after a tidal wave of angry criticism, but of course screengrabs and downloads of the video have been widely reposted.
In the video, Charles went on an unhinged rant about the supposed "privilege" of the Spirit employee asking him to repost her GoFundMe because "any donations help."
"I’m sure they do, sweetheart. I’m sure they do. You know what else would help you? Getting another job. Yeah, try that.”
“Because in the time that it took you to copy and paste the same fu*k ass message to myself—who you don’t follow, by the way—and probably a hundred other influencers and celebrities, you could’ve applied for a hundred other jobs."
"But you didn’t, ‘cause you’re a lazy piece of sh*t, and you’re entitled, and you think that influencers and celebrities should fund your life for you. Why would I ever help you?”
We can certainly argue over the appropriateness of begging influencers for help, but the job market is in a shambles and has been for literal years now.
There is no shortage of articles about how incredibly difficult it is to find a job right now—something Charles, who has never held an actual job, having become an influencer 10 years ago as a teenager, likely knows nothing about.
But he certainly talked like he did in the video. After berating the woman for not following him, he went on to say:
“You’re not a fan, you don’t even follow me... And you think that I’m gonna send you money because you lost your job?!"
"Oh my God, welcome to the real world, sweetheart. People lose their jobs every fu*king day."
A multimillionaire who makes his money doing makeup on YouTube telling an airline employee "welcome to the real world" is awfully rich, no pun intended.
As you might guess, the backlash against Charles was immediate and heated, especially once the video began circulating on Reddit.
"This is disgusting." —u/ThrowawayColonyHouse
"Imagine spending years trying to repair your reputation after being a total POS and then recording this." —u/bunnytrox
"He really could’ve just chosen not to have made the video. This is so out of touch. Especially considering his job is being an Internet personality. He adds no value to society. Yet he has the nerve to call someone else a piece of Sh*t..." —u/Ok-Dish6655
And it was hard not to notice a distinctly, er, French Revolution-like tenor to many of the responses. For example:
"this is what the rich think about us. they have lost touch with reality & have no idea how difficult these last few years have been for all of us."
"they think we’re all lazy pieces of sh*ts for being one paycheck away from homelessness while they spend the equivalent of a normal person’s salary on seamoss & green juice. eat them all." —u/beardedcurve
Other influencers were quick to post scathing responses to Charles too, chiding him for being so cruel and delusional.
@jackieaina a mess
Charles, whose lack of judgement really should be studied, quickly posted a response to the backlash that made the whole thing exponentially worse.
@loluwildfr JAMES CHARLES FIRST response video (now deleted) addressing his original “Spirit Airlines Rant” video. Thank you to @meemawz.almanac for helping me find James Charles FIRST Spirirt Airline rant “apology” video (he literally post/deleted this one so fast — so TY to the OG person who was able to screen record it). Literally makes me realize his “second apology post” was just because he was called out. Regardless of how he feels or how you may feel “agree”, there’s always a BETTER approach to addressing situations like this (aka not posting). #jamescharles #dramatiktok #apologyvideo #spiritairlines #fyp
In it, Charles defended himself for being "out of touch," saying that that is precisely why people continue to follow him.
He then took a page out of Kim "Nobody Wants To Work These Days" Kardashian by claiming too many people today "do not have the 'make it work' mentality"—another thing Charles wouldn't know anything about because he's never had to have that mentality himself.
This, of course, made the backlash even worse and Charles deleted THAT video and posted a different "apology" video—which has also done him no favors whatsoever.
Charles has since deleted that apology video too, after it only intensified the backlash.
Charles at least had the wherewithal to admit that his initial video was "privileged" and "obnoxious" and admitted the elephant in the room: He could have simply said nothing at all.
But when he was done with that, he went on to complain about how frustrating it is to be constantly fielding messages from "people who don't follow you and don't support you" asking for your help.
My, my, what a terrible plight. The heart truly bleeds for him.
We wish Mr. Charles all the luck in the world with dealing with his truly harrowing circumstances, and also remembering that random people on the internet put him in his multimillion dollar mansion, and they can take him right back out of it, too.
@omahajoe/Bluesky
@pattriottakes/X