Seven very important questions I have for that James Charles singing video

Seriously who is asking for this??

4 years ago

In Ancient Greek mythos there’s a tale of this guy Prometheus. According to the legend, Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to the humans and as punishment Zeus chained him to a rock where Prometheus had his immortal liver pecked out by an eagle once a day for eternity. Sounds pretty gruesome, right? But Prometheus was lucky, for had he existed in 2020 Zeus would have probably just strapped him to a chair and made him repeatedly watch the below video.

Yes, that is James Charles and another boy who isn’t important right now singing several popular songs at once over the same backing track. It’s arguably the worst piece of audiovisual _content_ ever produced and it makes me want to vomit blood from my eyes just thinking about it. Needless to say it’s been *doing the rounds* on Twitter and TikTok and people have been less than enamoured of the video. Now, I don’t want to dunk on James for indulging in a passion project – he’s been through a lot – but I do have some very important questions that need answering. James, if you will, please email me ASAP with clarifications. Cheers.

Okay, first off, do people enjoy this?

YouTubers seem to just have the money to make pop music. KSI, the Pauls, the Hype House – they’re all somehow able to just become popstars without any of the usual qualifications (the ability to sing/rap [delete as applicable], songwriting, dancing skills). But who are the fans enabling this? Are they okay? It’s very obvious James and his mate (who I refuse to Google, btw) can’t sing a note without the arm-bands of autotune, so I can only assume everyone who watches these clips and respond in a way that encourages James to make more are just in on the joke.

What is the little jig James is doing?

Seriously. Does he need the loo?

What exactly is the purpose of the backup dancers?

My favourite theory that I’ve birthed after watching this an inordinate number of times is that they were stolen away from their cots not long after birth and were trained in the art of terrible TikTok dances in some kind of factory for the sole purpose of appearing in videos like these. If you look really closely in their eyes you can see the reflection of the man behind the camera drawing a line across his neck and then pointing at them menacingly.

Why are they filming this outside and why even bother pretending they’re not miming?

It’s fine to professionally record mashups and make them sound all purty like, but why then stage it with a microphone like you’re singing it live. I can practically see the autotune fairy bench pressing the flat notes to where they’re meant to be and you would think James would get a bit short of breath when he’s trying to take off his shoe midway through the “performance.” In fact, he faces away from the microphone at one point and the audio does not change. Why not at least make it a fun music video?

Is Connor Maynard happy?

This is his fault. Personally I think he should be held accountable in a court of law.

Why does James keep looking at the camera?

Dude, the microphone is in front of your face. It’s like he’s trying to tell me with his eyes “look! I’m singing” like, I’m aware of that James. Regrettably I can hear it.

Who is the other guy and why did he agree to this?

Presumably James Charles approached this forever nameless boy and told him his vision of silly TikTok backup dancers, autotune and miming. And presumably this lad was just like… “yeah, sounds good.” I think the saddest part is that while James seems to at least be enjoying himself a little bit and not taking the whole thing too seriously, the other guy is really selling the sincerity – like this is his moment and he’s gonna ham it up like the lil’ popstar he is.