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- Beauty YouTuber James Charles has recently been embroiled in a major controversy.
- Numerous boys under the age of 18 have accused Charles of sexting them.
- Insider poll data shows that his favorability has decreased to just 20% since the allegations emerged.
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
Beauty influencer James Charles has been embroiled in numerous controversies since he began his YouTube channel in 2015. Despite the very public scandals and feuds, he has amassed over 25.5 million subscribers on YouTube. But after numerous boys under the age of 18 said Charles sexted with them, Insider poll data shows that Charles has become less well-liked among people that knew him.
Following the most recent allegations, James' favorability has decreased
Since February, numerous boys under the age of 18 have accused Charles of sexting with them. Charles responded on April 1 by posting a video titled "holding myself accountable," in which he admitted to having had conversations with minors that "shouldn't have happened."
Insider's poll data showed that Charles has been one of the most well-known influencers since December 2020, when 20% of people reported knowing who he was, and 27% had a favorable opinion of him.
Charles has become slightly more well-known in the first three months of 2021, with 25% of respondents knowing who he is, yet his favorability has decreased by 7 percentage points since accusers began posting videos about the purported conversations, with only 20% of people viewing him positively.
Over 1,000 people were surveyed by Insider through SurveyMonkey Audience to find out which of over 75 influencers are the most well-known, liked, and disliked online. The same survey was previously conducted by Insider in December 2020.
As Charles' favorability drops, most companies have stayed silent on whether or not they would continue to work with him. Only two out of 10 companies Insider reached out to responded to our request for comment.
Long-time makeup users have begun to boycott make-up brand Morphe Brushes, a collaborator of Charles', as they have yet to make a comment on whether or not they would continue selling his products.
The 21-year-old mainly posts makeup tutorials on his YouTube channel. He has become one of the biggest beauty YouTubers since he famously retook his yearbook photo in 2016 in full glam with a ring light. This isn't the first time Charles has fallen out of favor during his career. In 2019, Charles was at the center of what is commonly referred to as Dramageddon. During the drama, two fellow YouTube stars and former friends of Charles', Tati Westbrook and Jeffree Star, accused Charles of predatory behavior.
After Westbrook's initial explosive video, Charles lost 2.6 million subscribers in three days, but he managed to recoup them after posting a video sharing his side of the story.
SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Recent polling data collected 1,129 respondents March 26-27, 2021 with a 3 percentage point margin of error, December data collected 1,042 respondents December 24-25, 2020 with a 3 percentage point margin of error,