If you are into the beauty community on YouTube then you know, it is no secret how messy it can be. From the cliques to shade being thrown, to scandals. The beauty community is like all the other communities on YouTube. It sits on a table and every now and then something happens that causes the table to shake a little. A leak of a palette, Snapchat fights, the usual. This incident, however, is very different from others. The table almost fell last week and here's why.
Last week, fans discovered some old tweets from YouTuber Laura Lee's account. What was discovered was not pretty. For those who don't know, Laura Lee is a YouTuber known for her makeup tutorials and doing her makeup with products from Dollar Tree, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, etc. Lee admitted to posting the tweets back in 2012 and as well as several fat-shaming tweets in 2013, all of which are now deleted from her Twitter.
The most scathing tweet was posted a few months after Trayvon's Martin death, Lee allegedly tweets, "Tip for all black people if you pull ur pants up you can run from the police faster."
Lee would then deactivate her account to quickly try and do damage control but it was too late. Subscriber counts and sponsorships began to drop, rapidly.
Since the scandal dropped, Lee's subscriber count has gone from 5 million to about 4.5 million and is steadily losing. According to Social Blade, a website that keeps track of YouTuber statistics, losing around 200,000 will eventually cost Lee around $25,000 a year. A big chunk in what was her growing empire. Along with losing subscribers, she has lost multiple deals with makeup giants like Ulta, Morphe, ColourPop.
Now, why is this such a big deal? It is because women of color have an extremely difficult time breaking into the beauty industry and when they are able to people tend to side-eye when makeup artists like speak about race in the beauty community. It's an issue because everyone has to be held accountable for their actions and just because a person created a cute palette or some lipstick for the beauty community, does not mean they get a pass.
The ignorance of Lee's comments was cringe-worthy and her tear-filled apology was a public relations disaster. These last few weeks have shown that nobody is immune from being called out for their actions and that those with a large social media presence must realize whatever they put out can and will come back.
Even for people who do not have a large social media presence but interact with people every day, there are just two things you need to do to live a good life. One, don't be racist; two, stay in your own lane.
