Considering the fact that I've been so sick that it has practically left me bedridden for the past few days, I had spent a large portion of my time mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. Ironically enough, I ended up seeing a large influx of posts from the very infamous James Charles. I don't even follow him and, to be completely honest, I never even watched his content in his prime. (His trademark "Hi Sisters" just creeped me out ngl). Unless you've been living under a rock, you would know that he got cancelled back in 2019 for a myriad of things, such as sending nudes to minors, transphobia, racism, and scamming his supporters. Now you would think that after being completely demonetized by Youtube and having all his brand collaborations pull out and losing roughly 3 million subscribers, he would do a little self reflection and change his ways. Maybe he would actually try to better himself after he made that (now privated) apology video. However, this is all very wishful thinking. Nowadays, James Charles is pursuing the life of a singer and is launching a brand new makeup line. Maybe he believes in "forgiving and forgetting", but truthfully, nobody forgot. In the comment sections of his Instagram reels, a ton of the comments are some variation of "Didn't you groom minors". Sure, we could give him the benefit of the doubt, but when he only likes the positive comments that don't bring up his past, it reveals his unwillingness to own up to his actions and change. This begs the question if cancel culture is even effective anymore. If we try to hold people accountable, who's to say they would even care? Sure, he lost 3 million followers, but he still has another 20 million on Instagram alone. Is it just collateral to him? Or maybe he would care if it meant going to prison? Maybe, the real solution isn't cancelling someone online. Maybe it should just be taking it straight to the authorities.
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