Fans are not too happy about the contestants on James Charles‘ upcoming reality competition series, Instant Influencer. Some people took to social media and slammed the beauty vlogger for a lack of diversity when choosing competitors for the YouTube show.
For those who missed it, on Wednesday, April 1, the 20-year-old took to Instagram and announced that after months of waiting, the highly-anticipated reality show will hit YouTube on April 24, 2020. According to Variety, the show will feature six aspiring makeup artists — Benny Cerra, Ashley Strong, Christian Perez, Norvina, Britany Renteria, Kailin Chase and Gabriel Garcia — as they show off their skills and compete for the grand prize of $50,000. It’s also been reported that fans can expect tons of special guests to make appearances on the series, including celebrities and industry veterans. Not only will James act as the host of the upcoming reality show, but he also directed it and serves as executive producer.
After the announcement went live, some critics voiced their disappointment when it came to the lack of diversity in the show’s cast.
“Now I’m not surprised by this in the least but y’all really said f**k black beauty boys,” one person posted on Twitter. Another added, “I’m bummed because this isn’t diverse. It look like a very specific type of person from one age range. But I’ll wait [until] I see the show. I would have loved to see like an 80-year-old, someone who was disabled, but oh well.”
A third person said, “No dark girls? No dark men? No plus size people? Having one black girl does not all of the sudden make it “so diverse.” There needs to be more.”
As fans know, James’ series has been a long time coming. He teased the competition back in November 2019 and told his subscribers that it was “going to take beauty content and blow it up to a place that has never been done before.”
James has yet to respond to the fans’ backlash about the contestants.
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