Opinion
Hi, how are ya?: A review of the Shane Dawson series, Part 2
November 20, 2019
In the third video of the series, titled “The Dangerous World of Jeffree Star,” Star tells Dawson about how he doesn’t want something to be filmed involving his agent and Star having to do background checks on everyone working for him. Then it cuts to the opening credits.
News came out that Dawson made some inappropriate jokes about his cat in his past. People found those jokes from Dawson’s past and posted them on twitter to try and cancel him. Cancelling is a modern internet phenomenon where a person is outcast from influence or fame due to questionable actions. Every time Dawson comes up in the news people try and cancel him, so Dawson and his close friends decided that when this “cancellation” was threatened, they would throw a party. On March 18, after the old tweets resurfaced, they had their “Shane Dawson is over party.”
A week earlier they had the first design meeting with Anna, the head of packaging. They start talking about what the actual palette design should look like. They come up with a bunch of ideas like triangle shaped, an old television set, and a pyramid. They discuss all of these with Anna, and she put together some examples.
Also at the meeting they talk about impressions on the eyeshadows. Impressions are the artwork that they stamp on the eyeshadows in the palette. The artist of Jeffree Star Cosmetics shows some ideas he’s been working on, including a pig, triangles, tea cup, schooner glass, and a soda can. The group loves and approves of the impressions. Star and Dawson get word that the lab made samples of all of the shadows that they wanted. They decide to go to Star’s house to look at and approve all of the shades.
At Star’s house they go over the process to approve the shades. They first swatch it on their hands, and then test it with a brush on the eyelid. If they like the color and consistency, then it’s approved. If they don’t like it, they can send it back to the lab and tell them to add more pigment, pearl, or pay off.
Once they see how many shades they’ve chosen, it’s decided that they need to have another mini palette. Dawson comes up with a great name for the palette, the “Mini-Controversy.” They decide which shades are going to go in which palette. All the shades in both palettes look amazing.
The day following the “Shane Dawson is over party,” Dawson is no longer trending on Twitter, and things seem to be going back to normal. However, Star explains that $1 million worth of products was stolen from his warehouse. Star believes it was an inside job, and most of the products stolen were from his new, unreleased collection
To end the episode it cuts to Dawson and his boyfriend, Ryland Adams, at their house. Adams’ family joined them from Colorado for a vacation. Dawson planned to have Adams’ family come over because he wanted to propose. There is a super cute montage of Dawson’s and Adams’ best moments on video, then Dawson proposes to Adams, and he says yes. At the very end of the episode, they dedicate it to two of Star’s dogs, Diamond and Daddy, who passed away while filming the series.
The fourth video of the series, “The $20 Million Dollar Deal,” is around 50 minutes long and was filmed in March. It starts with Dawson and his now-fiancé Adams on their couch, reading an email from Mark with some samples of Dawson’s logo for everything. There's about 12 logo designs, and they don’t like any of them. So they reject all of them and will have to figure out some new ideas, which is scary because they need to have it finalized soon.
Star brings Dawson into his office to talk about how he needs to stand up for himself more. If he didn’t like any of the logo ideas, he just needs to say that and say more of what he's looking for, without worrying about hurting people’s feelings.
Dawson and Adams are in the process of selling their old house and they go back to get Dawson’s car. They walk in the house to see how they have it set up for showings. It cuts to old videos of how they had it decorated and some of their favorite memories they had in that house.
Another meeting occurs with Star, this one is to figure out how many units they need to purchase. They have to estimate how much they think they will sell so they know how much to make. They want to sell out, and don’t want to have a bunch left over. This meeting is very important because it can make or break how much money they make in the end.
They then have a conference call with the makeup brand Morphe about if they want to sell Dawson’s collection in their stores. They are also calling to see what kind of deals they will make for Dawson.
They tell Morphe that they will have an 18-shade Conspiracy palette, a 9-shade Mini Controversy palette, 6 liquid lipsticks, clear lip gloss, a pig mirror, and a couple different makeup bags.
Morphe asks when they want to launch this collection and Star and Dawson tell them Nov. 1. The Morphe team is silent for a second and they ask if they could do it any earlier. Dawson comes back and says that with this palette being a conspiracy theme he didn’t want it to come out in October, with its close proximity to Halloween. Dawson wants this palette to be versatile; he wants it to be an everyday used palette, but also hopes that it encourages creativity. Star mutes the call and says that he thinks that Morphe probably has another influencer coming out with something for the holiday’s and they’re worried about their release dates conflicting with Dawson’s.
Star and Dawson go to Star’s lab, where they produce and package the makeup. They get suited up with hair nets and face masks before they go into the lab. They meet up with Sabrina, the lab project manager, and she gives them a tour of the building and helps them finalize Dawson’s shadows, as well as give them a first look at the lipsticks. The final eyeshadow shades are all approved, and his six liquid lipsticks look amazing and are all approved. They also talk about a lip gloss, because Dawson loves lip gloss. They come up with the great name: Shane Glossin’.
Shane and Star travel to Morgan Adams’ apartment, Rylan Adams’ sister. They ask her what kind of makeup she likes, to get ideas about what people would like. They find out that people like neutrals to wear on an everyday basis, but also like to play with color.
They go back to Jeffree’s warehouse and meet with Sean, the leader of JSC/Killer merch branding. He shows them a couple more ideas for Dawson’s new logo. They take a look at a few mockups, and decide on one that they’re happy with.
They then go over final shade placements for both of the palettes. They get opinions from some of Star’s employees and get them all finalized. Both of the palettes look incredible, and I can’t wait to get my hands on them.
The whole Star team meets with Shane to figure out the final details for how many palettes they should make. They decide that they are going to buy and make 1 million palettes. They tell Dawson that they are going to make around $35 million from Morphe and JSC. Dawson will take home around $10 million if they sell all of the palettes. Dawson freaks out because that’s the most money he’s ever made.
The video ends with Dawson playing around and getting better at makeup. It also shows some upcoming things for the next couple episodes.
Until the next episodes, I’ll see you soon.
Hallie Diekoff is a student at UW-River Falls.