If you're on YouTube and don't know who Shane Dawson is by now, are you even really on YouTube? Dawson is one of YouTube's long-running, most popular YouTubers with more than 21 million subscribers and an archive of videos that spans more than a decade.
In his early days he was known mostly for his… um, very specific brand of sketch comedy before he transitioned into vlog-style videos in the mid-2010s. Then he began producing in-depth, interview-based documentary series and found intense viral potential with an entirely new fan base.
His eight-part docuseries exploring the life and behavior of Jake Paul dominated the internet and earned over 137 million collective views, and his equally controversial series about beauty YouTuber Jeffree Star garnered an even stronger reaction online. Now Dawson is turning his investigative lens toward the entire beauty community, and apparently what he's going to expose isn't pretty.
Y'all know Shane Dawson. He's made some spectacularly large waves on the internet over the course of the past few years.
Most recently, he got wrapped up in intense internet drama surrounding some disturbing, resurfaced comments he once made about his own cat (sexual ones) in an old episode of his now-defunct podcast.
These days, he's primarily known as YouTube's insider investigative documentarian. With the help of his cameraman and editor Andrew Siwicki, he's produced two intensely viral doscuseries about YouTube's most controversial personalities — Jeffree Star and Jake Paul respectively.
Dawson aired his docuseries about Star in August 2018, and ever since he's inched his way further and further into the beauty YouTube community.
If you look at Dawson's most recent Instagram posts, you'll notice that he's playing around in makeup — something he never really did (outside the realm of theater and comedy) prior to filming that docuseries. He's also been publicly hanging out with Star — the duo have even made several videos together and are even collaborating on an eye shadow palette with Star's cosmetics brand.
He's also filmed videos with Tati Westbrook and James Charles (pre-breakup).
Dawson's been teasing a beauty community exposé for quite some time now, but this week he finally gave it a name and tentative time of release.
"Ugly Side of the Beauty World series in the fall and possibly something else in july," he shared on June 30 after a fan queried about the series. "Some stuff happened that threw a wrench in the conspiracy series but i’ll explain soon. but the series in the fall is A LOT..so trust me, you’ll be sick of me by the end of the year."
How much do you want to bet that "stuff" that "happened" was James Charles and Tati Westbrook's internet breakup explosion? Hmm…
Much like Dawson's series about Paul, this beauty YouTuber documentary will have one central "theory" that he'll likely try to prove or disprove with interviews.
His eight-part video series about Paul had shockingly few appearances by Paul himself. The "theory" of that docuseries was that Paul might be (and this was not a joke) a sociopath — he mostly researched that possibility by interviewing a mental health professional and several people close to Paul.
And as much as I'm hankering to see beauty YouTubers get exposed for their allegedly shady, secret operations, there's one thing about the upcoming docuseries that gives me pause — and lots of it.
And that's Dawson's seemingly close friendship with Star. Anyone with an outsider's perspective can only discern that Dawson's entry and sudden interest in makeup and the beauty community began (or at least flourished) thanks to Star. Let's not dismiss the fact that Dawson's docuseries about Star painted him in a pretty positive light — in fact, it gave Star a chance to address and dismiss past racist behavior in a vulnerable way that people sympathized with.
Heck, Star and Dawson are business partners at this rate — there's no way that kind of relationship won't affect Dawson's stance on the beauty world and certain people within it.
Dawson has been promoting Jeffree Star Cosmetics almost exclusively in his content, and Dawson is going to collaborate on his own Jeffree Star Cosmetics eye shadow palette, which is due to be revealed any day now.
Their relationship begs the question: Can Dawson remain objective about how he portrays certain YouTubers and brands? Star has burned a lot of bridges in that community, and it's only human for a person to pick up similar opinions as their friends.
I guess only time will tell, though.
No matter how biased or unbiased this docuseries will be, we're still sure to get some very interesting learnings on how beauty YouTubers operate. Whether or not Dawson will remain objective or follow Star's lead is still TBD, but hey — maybe Star is totally chill if his friends foray into territory he hasn't visited in a long time.
What do you think? Is this series bound for disaster, or is it exactly what the community needs right now?
