Adam Ray Okay And James Charles Collaboration Controversy

Overview

Adam Ray Okay And James Charles Collaboration Controversy refers to a video of Adam Ray Okay getting his makeup done on James Charles channel following a controversial post by Charles in which he impersonated the Adam Ray Okay's Rosa character causing him to be accused of cultural appropriation. The collaboration in March 2020 led to fans of TikToker AdamRayOkay to criticize him for working with Charles.

Background

On February 22nd, 2020, Twitter user @ElPapiChulo0612 reposted a James Charles Instagram story in which he impersonates one of Rosa's TikTok^[2] videos (shown below). The next day, Buzzfeed News^[1] and The Daily Dot^[3] published a list of Twitter users speaking out against Charles impersonation, calling it cultural appropriation.

Developments

On March 24th, 2020, James Charles uploaded "Dude Come Here… Giving Rosa A Makeover!" to YouTube that gained over 6.7 million views and 398,000 likes in two days (shown below).

That same day, Adam Ray Okay posted to his Twitter^[4] account "I take SO MUCH pride in who I am and where I come from. I’m so fucking happy I can represent my community all around the world to millions of people. If you don’t see the greatness in what I’ve been doing… idk what to tell u. Remain positive or leave Smiling face with halo" (shown below, left). The tweet accumulated over 44,600 likes and 1,900 retweets in two days. Twitter user @leahhtbh^[5] replied saying, "You aren’t doing the community any favors by teaming up with an unapologetically racist and predatory influencer. Coming from a city that is statistically ~80% racial minority you should want to avoid associating yourself with someone who has a reputation like James Charles" (shown below, right). The reply received over 780 likes in two days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References