Doing What's Right: Rhetorically Criticizing Jeffree Star's 2020 Apology Video
Sorry Jeffree, your digital footprint is forever.
*This post was originally an essay for a Rhetorical History and Criticism class I took in Winter 2023. It has since been edited to upload on Substack.
In July 2020, social media celebrity Jeffree Star uploaded an apology video (total length 10:36) to YouTube, addressing his involvement in perpetuating false information regarding fellow beauty influencer, James Charles. Filmed in the living room of his mansion, with a face full of makeup, Star delivered his apology and posted the final video of what would come to be known as “Dramageddon 3.0”, or “Karmageddon”. With over 13.5 million views, his apology video received massive backlash from both fans and haters alike. It is the contribution to a significant cultural moment of the Internet in 2020, the overwhelming backlash, along with the high distribution that gives this piece of rhetoric reason to be analyzed.
When analyzing Star’s apology (if one were to use the Wayback machine as it has since been deleted), one can find that while he was able to appeal to ethos through some admittance of fault, he did not manage to achieve the appeals of logos and pathos. Instead, due to his use of the invention canon, he committed a multitude of fallacies, including the anecdotal evidence fallacy and the red herring fallacy, and attempted to use the kairos of social movements in 2020 to try to sway the audience to his side.
Rhetorical Situation
Jeffree Star is a YouTube influencer, makeup artist, and the founder and owner of makeup brand Jeffree Star Cosmetics, with his life of Internet stardom rife with controversy. The specific situation Star is responding to in his Doing What’s Right video is the culmination of several years of drama, starting from the original ‘Dramageddon’. The multiple instances of Star engaged in drama, with the time span ranging from 2018-2020, are what constrain his rhetorical attempt, with the controversies culminating into Star acquiring an initial ethos of being manipulative and ‘problematic’ for his Doing What’s Right video.
The original ‘Dramageddon’ spawned due to Star having a falling out with multiple beauty YouTubers. The event itself was the tension created by and between Jeffree Star and five other beauty influencers—namely Gabriel Zamora, Laura Lee, Manny Gutierrez, Nikita Dragun—all of whom would become ‘cancelled’ by the end of Dramageddon. As a sort of response to Dramageddon, fellow YouTuber Shane Dawson created a documentary series covering Jeffree Star’s life on the Internet—this was the beginning of Dawson’s and Star’s friendship.
Through Star’s connections, Dawson became friends with makeup YouTuber Tati Westbrook. Westbrook was also known as a pseudo-mentor for James Charles, another beauty influencer who rose to major fame through being the first male spokesmodel for CoverGirl.
The friendship between Westbrook and Charles, however, morphed into antagonism in May 2019 when Westbrook posted a video claiming that Charles was “backstabbing and manipulative” and “made several accusations about his alleged inappropriate behavior around straight men.” Charles was cancelled—over three million people unsubscribed from him—as a result, and later that same month posted a video relieving himself of Westbrook’s claims. As Lindsay Dodgson states, “[t]he whole saga was dubbed “Dramageddon 2.0” for its similarities to the previous feud: both featured incredibly high-profile friendships which had suddenly broken down in front of an audience.”
‘Karmageddon’ was the drama that spurred from the aftermath of both Dramageddon and Dramageddon 2.0. Star and Dawson’s friendship, as aforementioned, came about from the effects of Dramageddon, and the two are alleged to have started Dramageddon 2.0 behind the scenes.
In June 2020, Westbrook posted a since-deleted video titled Breaking My Silence, in which she claims that Star and Dawson manipulated her into speaking out against Charles, as “([a]llegedly) [Dawson] and [Star] knew [Westbrook] was already upset with [Charles] and created lies and fake victims that would make Tati want to upload the video”. Westbrook’s video release showed an effective use of kairos, as at the same time she uploaded the video, Dawson was being exposed and cancelled for offensive videos he uploaded to YouTube years prior to 2020—meaning the backlash Dawson faced for the video was twofold.
Tati Westbrook’s Breaking My Silence video summary and thumbnail
Star’s response to Westbrook’s video was a prepared and edited video, posted nearly a month after Breaking My Silence. Star’s Doing What’s Right video, the source of the following analysis, featured Star apologizing briefly to Charles, as well as Star’s defense of himself and Dawson. Star attempted to deflect from the issues of the Charles/Westbrook and Dawson situations by telling the audience that they should be focussing on the systemic racial issues in America at the time, and his video ends with him promoting the new launch of Jeffree Star Cosmetics products for later that year; however, this attempt was futile, as audiences familiar with Star, and the events of Dramageddon and Dramageddon 2.0, were already viewing him as manipulative and willing to associate with problematic people. This meant that Star himself was also considered problematic.
Analysis
Throughout the overall video, Star’s achievement of Aristotle’s 3 appeals (ethos, logos, pathos) was lacking. He did not manage to achieve logos or pathos, instead committing rhetorical fallacies—this will be expanded on later. He did manage to achieve a little ethos, with his claims of self-reflection:
For the first time in a very long time, I’m really reflecting on my behaviour—and mine alone—and I’ve come to a lot of realizations, and it’s been really important to actually understand everything that I was a part of that I did wrong and really start a new chapter for myself. (0:26)
This statement, said near the beginning of Star’s video, worked to rectify his initial ethos of being manipulative and problematic. He let the audience know that he recognized his past wrongs, and wanted to make changes to his behaviour—he was not the same Star as people knew before they started the video. Additionally, he made several self-deprecating comments about himself, such as calling himself “dramatic” and “crazy at times” (1:30). It was through his claims of self-reflection, and the fact that there were no excuses for his behaviour, as he “fully admit[s] [his] flaws” (2:08), that he attempted to achieve an ethos of trying to be a better person, moving past previous problematic actions.
Star’s ethos, however, was diminished by the rest of the content in his video, which was littered with rhetorical fallacies. One of them arose from his argument for, and defense of, Dawson. Here, he commits the anecdotal evidence fallacy, which is “where personal experience or a singular example is used to support an argument or position instead of compelling evidence”. Star provided the audience with his personal account of Dawson rather than using valid evidence to refute the allegations against Dawson:
[Dawson] is one of my best friends and someone who helped me remember who I am when I was starting to crack and lose focus of who I really was. He is genuine, amazing. He is selfless and he is one of the most kind people that I’ve ever met in the entire world. I know Shane would put his family and friends before himself in a flash. (6:20)
Rather than providing evidence on how Dawson is a good person, a changed person from his problematic past, Star only focussed on his experience with Dawson. This is not a whole or accurate portrayal of his fellow YouTuber, as it is only based on the claims of one person—a person who has a bias towards the pig-shirt wearing man.
Another fallacy Star used was the red herring fallacy, where he distracted the audience from his involvement in the controversial situations by directing their attention to the social issues present at the time. In the summer of 2020, around the time Doing What’s Right was posted, there was a huge focus on the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement due to the murder of George Floyd by the hand of a police officer in late May 2020. In attempting to use the kairos of the BLM movement, Star deflected the audience’s attention to an issue that he was not supposed to be addressing; and, there are quite a handful of topics that Star did not cover in his apology video.
When inventing his piece of rhetoric, Star chose to speak on the Charles/Westbrook situation and his friendship with Dawson, making a confusing connection between these issues and the BLM movement. He did not, however, choose to address a multitude of other issues that audiences had with him, such as calling Charles a “danger to society”, Westbrook’s claims that Star gaslit and manipulated her, as well as actually taking responsibility for past problematic behaviour rather than simply addressing the issues. Instead of realizing the full fault of his actions, Star attempted to shift the focus to the issues faced in the world at the time—this had a negative response from audiences.
With Star’s history of racist behaviour, as well his lacking defense of Dawson for his racist actions, Star telling people to focus on BLM instead of the issues they have with the two YouTubers did not sit well with viewers. One ‘tea’ channel called Def Noodles called Star’s apology a “publicity stunt” and that people should not take Star’s word at face value, and Hannah Rose, a commentary YouTuber under the name Smokey Glow, called it a “non-apology”. One X user responded to Rose’s video, as well, saying that Star’s deflection to BLM “[is] the perfect example of how white people hijack the BLM movement for their own ego”.
User @kayemantra’s Response to Smokey Glow’s YouTube Video
It appears that even with Star establishing an ethos of growth, his initial ethos still rings true in the minds of his audience. It is his aforementioned initial ethos of being manipulative and problematic that causes the audience to dismiss his claims of growth; and, his invention strategies of not addressing a multitude of topics, shifting focus instead to the BLM movement, only work to further his initial ethos rather than aid in his established ethos.
Conclusion
The kairos of COVID-19 in 2020 is likely what caused Karmageddon to occur. With everyone staying inside, there was a lot of focus on what was happening on the Internet. Due to everyone staying in their homes constantly, there was a lot of time for people to dig up the past problematic behaviours of both Star and Dawson. Additionally, it allowed audiences to reminisce about times before the pandemic, due to Karmageddon’s similarities and connections to Dramageddon and Dramageddon 2.0—both of which occurred before the consequences of the COVID-19 virus came about.
Since the world’s attempt to move back to relative normalcy, there has not been a huge scandal like Karmageddon since. Furthermore, both Star and Dawson have remained relatively quiet since the exposing event.
“MascaraGate”, however, brough Star back into the limelight. He came out of retirement to review the L’Oréal Telescopic Life mascara that had come under fire due to TikTok influencer Mikayla Nogueira allegedly faking her own review of the product. With more videos by Star being uploaded, it will be interesting to see if Star has stuck to his word of personal growth, and if he will remain controversy-free in 2023.
I personally haven’t heard much about Jeffree Star since writing this piece. Is it possible he has? Remained controversy-free that is.
Let me know in the comments if I’ve missed any Jeffree Star drama in the past year! I’m dying for more tea.