 If this James Charles situation is what it's like to have big YouTubers as friends, then count me out. What is up everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, what I try to do is take a look at the YouTube community, all the drama that's going on, and try to take this mess and turn it into a message. Because what good is watching all this stuff go down if we're not trying to see how we can apply it to better our own lives. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. All right, and what inspired this video is, I'm sitting here and channels are pumping out like every single time, and it's on Twitter too, every single time somebody unfollows James or aligns themselves with Tati or whatever it is, I'm sitting here and I'm just like, what the heck? Like Jeffree Star and things like that. Like I am just absolutely blown away. And I want you guys to think about this, think about this in your life, in your regular life. Like, so I know that I tend to forgive easier than most, not even most, but like, let's put it this way, if you come from an addiction recovery background, you probably forgive easier than most as well. Those of you who are just now meeting me, hi, I'm Chris, I'm an alcoholic and drug addict. I got sober June 23rd, 2012, so I'm coming up on seven years sober next month. And you guys, I used to be, I used to be such an awful human being, all right? I became addicted to alcohol from the first time I drank when I was about 18 years old. I got sober on my 27th birthday. So there was a good almost decade, all right? A decade of me just running amuck, causing chaos wherever I went throughout my addiction. I screwed over many fellow employees as well as my bosses, which is one of the reasons why I got fired dozens of times in my active addiction. I screwed over women I dated. I screwed over friends, my family members, all sorts of things. I was not a great person. Any of you who are in recovery, you know what I mean. Any of you who might know somebody in active addiction or used to be in active addiction, you know what I'm talking about too, all right? At the end of my addiction, friends wouldn't talk to me, family wouldn't talk to me. I hadn't seen my son in four months, all right? I was not a great human being, okay? And in my recovery, when I got sober, it took a long time to get people's forgiveness. And some people still haven't forgiven me for my past. Like that is just something that I have to live with. But something I wanna touch on real quick is like, this whole James Charles thing, it's gonna take time. Like for anybody to forgive him like immediately, like that's just not human nature. But like the reality is, it's like, like so many of us, we sit here and we act like we have just been these amazing human beings our whole life. And that's one of the issues with the internet. Like it is so easy to hop on Twitter or hop on, you know, like YouTube comments and you are completely anonymous. Nobody knows who the hell you are, the shady things you've done in your past, right? Nobody knows those things. So it's so easy for people to take a moral high ground online, all right? That's something that's never gonna stop. But like I said, like when I see somebody like Jeffree Star completely abandoning James Charles, it absolutely blows my brain up inside of my skull, all right? James Charles is 19 years old, okay? 19 years old. You know what, you know what Jeffree Star was doing when he was younger? He was doing this. Should I be the next bitch? No. Hey, you don't have to ask me. God, you stupid, I'm gonna spray you. What the hell? Will you be the next bitch? You're the next bitch there. All right, like, like what, what, what? Like Jeffree Star expects everybody to forgive him too. And listen, I am not condoning James Charles' behavior here, but he's 19 years old. I think the most serious, the most serious issue with James Charles is him lusting after straight guys, which is also something that explodes my brain because this is something that's been known for a long time but the second Tati Westbrook brings it up, now everybody has an issue with it. But going back to Jeffree Star, have any of you met Jeffree Star's boyfriend, Nate? Does anybody know who that is? Nate was a straight guy, okay? I hate to compare the two because no, I don't think Jeffree Star like imposed his position of power on Nate or like hassled him or forced him into anything. But hell, I might be absolutely wrong about that as well because Nate was just this dude coming from this little town, you know what I mean? So like, when I see Jeffree Star just completely removing himself from the James Charles situation, like, oh, look at this terrible human being. I'm like, what, like, how old is Jeffree Star now? Like 30 or something? Maybe like, what were you? What were you doing when you were 19? You know what I mean? But then you have people like, like even Shane Dawson, you know, coming out like, Shane Dawson is no stranger to controversy either but he's grown and he's learned from these things. Like we're talking about blackface, we're talking about how clips from his podcast are being brought up like every other month about jokes about like pedophilia and that thing that he, you know, supposedly did with his cat, right? Like these are things being brought up from their past. I'm like, these are people. There's so many people who are supposed to be mentors to James Charles. Like, could you imagine? Okay, so I come from a 12 step recovery background. Could you imagine for one second some newcomer getting sober, right? Their life is a mess. They are killing themselves with alcohol and drugs. They come into the program. I started sponsoring with them. Sponsoring is like a form of mentoring. You share your experience to help this person overcome their addiction, walk through the steps, go through the book, whether it's, you know, the AA big book or the NA basic text or whatever it is. And imagine sponsoring somebody and they screwed up and then you just publicly said in a meeting like, oh, you know what? I'm not with this person anymore. They screwed up. Like your whole job as a mentor is to be there for somebody when they screw up. You know what? And that is why I love my damn first sponsor. When I got my first sponsor, one of the first things he told me, one of the first things he told me is like, Chris, you're gonna screw up. You're gonna screw up a lot, but learn from it and move forward. So like, I hate to play devil's advocate during this whole situation because I know there's a massive hate train against James Charles, but imagine for a second how lonely that must feel. Right? Here's every single one of his mentors just dropped him like a bad habit. They dropped James Charles as hard as the in bombs that Jeffree Star was dropping back in the day. So I just made a video, you know, yesterday about Tanimojo being tied up in this whole situation. And hopefully, hopefully, even if it's not in front of the scenes where we can see it. Like, hopefully, Tana is still there for James because that would blow my mind as well because if you look at Tana's history, the in bombs that she was dropping, running a convention called TanaCon where it screwed over thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people. And let's not forget the fact that Tana filmed a dead body as well as, you know, all this other stuff. So if I don't, I just don't get it. And everybody is just watching this thing go down and they're not even questioning it. They're not even questioning these people who are all unfollowing James Charles and canceling him. Like, it's not like Demi Lovato unfollowed James Charles. Like, Demi Lovato has had an entire history of insane stuff happen too. And she's in recovery as well. Ah, making this video just, it hurts my soul. It hurts my soul. Maybe, okay, let's make up a fictional scenario real quick. Maybe these people are just doing this publicly for their brand or for their image and then behind the scenes, they're telling James Charles that it's gonna be okay. But if that is the most hypocritical, ridiculousness I've ever seen, and like I said in the intro of this video, like, if this is what the YouTube community is like, if this is what it's like to have mentors in the community who will drop you the second a controversy comes around, like, nah, nah man. And so many kids out there, so many kids out there watching all this stuff go down wanna be YouTubers and they're watching, they're watching this kid James just get completely abandoned. Like, I get it. I totally get it. Like, Tati Westbrook, like, she needs to be done with James Charles. Like, I talked about this in a previous video. Sometimes you need to cut somebody off just for your own well-being and mental health. But in the YouTube community, there's so many, like, taking sides and all these other things that everybody else abandoning this person. Like, I don't know. If I was in Jeffree Star's shoes, knowing the screwed up history I have, I'd be like, listen, listen, Tati, I know, I know that you have to separate yourself from James Charles right now. I understand that he hurt you, but this kid needs help, all right? And it's only gonna make things worse if we all abandon him right now. So I'm gonna try to help him through this situation. You know what I mean? Like, what's the alternative? What's the alternative for these other YouTubers? You all just gonna, like, ditch the dude and let him become worse? You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't know, like, because something that I guarantee, I guarantee for a fact is going on in James Charles' heads because this goes on in anybody's head who's been canceled. Logan Paul even talked about this in his interview with Casey Neistat. When you're painted as the villain and nobody is willing to forgive you, like, you start to think maybe I should just become that villain that people think I am. You know what I mean? Hell, it's work for other people. So I don't know, it just bumps me out. People need to be there for James Charles. All of us have screwed up in the past, especially anybody who's around my age or even older. Like, this whole thing of just cancelling somebody like you've never done anything in your past. Like, we've all screwed up. Like I said, there's no, like, James Charles didn't murder anybody. Like, chill out. Anyways, I'm done. I'm done with this video. Let me know your thoughts on this subject down in the comments below. Please let me know down in the comments below if you have been a flawless human being since you came out of the womb. That would help me understand the situation a lot. All right, if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up if you're new. Make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell because I make a ton of videos. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody supporting the channel over on Patreon. You are all amazing. And if you would like to get your name on the credits, get access to our monthly Q&A, some of the perks and benefits, click the top on that Patreon icon right there, all right? Thanks again so, so much for watching. I'll see you next time.