Some people say the only way to stop online harassment is to stop going online. Well, we aren't going anywhere. Reclaim Your Domain is Refinery29's campaign to make the internet (and the world outside it) a safer space for everyone — especially women.
If the Demi Lovato Poot memes can teach us anything, it's that no one is immune to flashback (that moment when the flash from a camera reflects too much light, resulting in a Casper-like face that's forever immortalized in a photo). This week, Lovato decided to finally embrace the memes that resulted from her own experience — and it looks like CoverGirl ambassador James Charles is following suit.
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A few months ago, Charles had a photo op at an event and things got a little... ghostly. Posing beside a fan, Charles had on his full glam, per usual. But he, and others, were quick to notice the results of the camera flash. Naturally, the internet got ahold of the photo — and Charles’ bright face went straight to the meme factory. It wasn't long before the photoshop jobs were churning out of Twitter left and right — and we weren’t sure what he'd think. Today, we found out. Charles addressed the memes in a YouTube video and his reaction was way better than expected.
The video begins by mocking the countless tweets relating his white face to the legend of Bloody Mary. Once the prank is over, he gets real. “Honestly you have no idea how fun it is to wake up in the morning and then wanting to cry yourself right back to sleep," he says sarcastically. “I’ve been seeing so many crazy pictures of me going around lately, like, not only at meet-and-greets meeting all of my favorite sisters out there, but also I’m seeing pictures of me doing things that I don’t even remember doing, like starring in anime films, urban legends, and apparently I’m the lead role in a horror movie that hasn’t even come out yet!” Charles then goes on to replicate the image in the best way he knows how: a makeup tutorial.
“I want to make sure that no matter how ghostly I am, my face still looks flawless AF,” he says as he rubs primer all over his face. He goes on to say how important it is to pick a foundation shade that’s as close to your skin tone as possible, as he’s dabbing on an opaque white hue with a makeup sponge. Throughout the video, Charles reiterates how embarrassing it would be to experience flashback and that he has no idea why that would ever happen. He even jokes about being a “lazy and untalented makeup artist” who will just "fix it later with Facetune and filters" to further drag the Internet trolls.
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By the end of the tutorial, Charles’ face is stark white — an exaggeration of the face all the haters were set on spotlighting. “Super easy, light, beautiful glam,” Charles calls it. Before the video comes to a close, he even goes as far as to make a faux announcement regarding his leading role in the new remake of It.
He ends the video with this message to his viewers: “At this point, there’s been thousands of very, very funny, and also very, very nasty, tweets about me and, honestly, I’m just trying to move past it and have a good laugh out of everything. Take it from me... it is so important to just laugh stuff off and never let stuff get to you, especially people who you’ve never met, who are just online to spread negativity.” Check out the video above for the full response from Charles — because it's pretty fucking great.
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