Opinion
Hi, how are ya?: A Review of the Shane Dawson series part 3
December 10, 2019
The fifth episode of the series is titled “The Failure of Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson” and is around 50 minutes long.
After the opening credits, it goes to them at Shane Dawson’s house where his cameraman Andrew Siwicki is posing as his first official makeup client. Dawson brings Siwicki into his bathroom/makeup room and has him sit in a chair, like a professional salon. Dawson figures out his foundation shade, lines up all the products he’s going to use, and finally gets to work. In the end, Siwicki’s makeup looks incredible.
Dawson talks about how he's starting to work out again. His main goal when working out a few years ago was to just lose weight and be skinny. This time, his goal is to make himself feel better and be mentally and physically healthy. We meet his trainer Jess, and we get a tour of Dawson’s new gym which is in the shed in his backyard. Siwicki films a montage of the gym and Dawson working out.
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Morgan Adams has made friends in the beauty community, and she brings up some concerns to Dawson. The girls in the beauty community are all about money and looks; they even go as far as getting plastic surgery. Adams talks about how she’s never thought about getting plastic surgery before hanging out with those girls. Dawson and Ryland Adams decide to take Morgan Adams to get advice from Jeffreee Star. They sit down and have a good talk about how she should just be herself and not have to worry about what her so-called friends are doing. While at Star’s, they approve all the proposed eyeshadow palette stamps.
Star and Dawson have a meeting to go over the actual palette ideas. Jeffree Star Cosmetics (JSC) employee Anna made up a palette example so they could get some ideas or pick the one. They go over the Mini Controversy product examples first, and fall in love with one that's black and has specks of a television-like static. They then move on to the Conspiracy palette examples. Anna has about 20 different examples ranging in wideness, thickness, and overall shape. Dawson says that he doesn’t really like any of the ideas. The whole room is worried because they have a tight schedule to follow if they want everything out by the set date. They spend a good amount of time trying to come up with new ideas. After leaving the meeting, Siwicki is playing around on Photoshop, and they finally get the palette shape and design they want.
On Aug. 4, they go to Star’s lab and see all of Dawson’s shades being stamped and assembled into his palette. Dawson and Star are in awe of how well they did and share a cute hug. The video then ends with a title screen in all bold letters “PALETTE REVEAL TOMORROW.”
The sixth episode of the series is titled “The Conspiracy Collection Reveal” and is about an hour long. It starts with Star and Dawson talking about what they are going to put in the series and if they are going to put in behind-the-scenes from the photo shoots for the palette.
After the opening credits, Star and Dawson are at a meeting, and it says that there are 10 days before the launch. They go over final touches and what’s going to happen over the next few days.
Star’s team made merchandise for Dawson through Killer Merch. Dawson’s new merchandise came out, and the website they were selling it on had one million visits. All of Dawson’s merchandise sold out in 30 minutes. Dawson can’t fathom this and tears up on Facetime with Star.
Aug. 1 is the date of the photoshoot for the palette. Dawson and Star dress up in futuristic themed costumes, and they look incredible. The set is super cool. There’s a big barn set, a huge triangle eye, and a black and white spiral background to tell the story of the palette.
Star reveals that his dog Daddy is in the emergency room with neurological issues the day of the photoshoot. Star talks to Siwicki to see if he should keep his personal life out of it for the day or let Dawson know what’s going on. He decides to let Dawson know what’s going on with Daddy and Dawson completely understands. Unfortunately two days later Daddy had sadly passed away.
When the second round of palette samples comes in, the final version of the Mini Controversy palette is approved. Anna from JSC comes back with three or four samples for the Conspiracy palette, and Star and Dawson find the perfect design. They then see samples of makeup bags, lip gloss containers, and even a track suit with Dawson’s logo instead of Star’s. They all get approved; everything in this collection looks so amazing.
The last episode of the series is titled “The Beautiful World of Shane Dawson” and is an hour and 20 minutes long. The beginning of the video shows clips of people reacting to the series so far. A lot of people mention the drama from the trailer between Tati Westbrook, James Charles, and Jeffree Star. People were upset that they haven't shown Dawson’s input on the situation.
It then cuts to Dawson and Adams watching the first video of the drama. They watch Westbrook’s video titled “BYE SISTER...” which is about her exposing her friend Charles. Dawson and Adams can’t believe she posted that video. As more people saw it, people started to unsubscribe from Charles. Charles posted an apology video, and then a week later posted another video with text messages explaining that not everything in Westbrook’s video was true. Westbrook took down the first video she posted, and then posted another video saying that she never wanted people to hate on Charles. She just wanted everyone to know the truth about him. On twitter, Star revealed things about Charles, but realized right after that he should’ve never got involved. That was something he would’ve done in the past, and he realizes now that it was very childish of him.
After the opening credits, the title screen says “The Finale ‘The Launch.’” Dawson and Star go to the office and wait for 10 am. They see all of the videos of people in the lines at Morphe waiting to buy the collection, and they get so excited. Right before it launches they get on a conference call with Shopify, the website that runs the sales of the collection. During the countdown to the launch, they show videos of people waiting to buy the collection online.
The collection launches. Some of the JSC team look over the website, and they keep seeing errors and glitches. They are having issues with not seeing all of the products on the website. It's about 10:15, and they are getting frustrated and angry because JSC told all Shopify that it was going to be crazy. JSC gets word from Shopify that there are 2.5 million people trying to check out all at once.
To speed up the process of people buying the collection, Shopify says that they can boot people off, but those who are kicked off won’t be able to buy anything. Dawson gets so angry and starts yelling because people have been waiting for this. He doesn’t want to ruin anyone's chances of getting things from the collection. He apologizes for yelling, and the whole JSC team tells him not to apologize because he gets the final say.
By 1:00 pm, Shopify is still trying to figure things out. All they know is that the Conspiracy palette is completely sold out. At 2:00, they are taking Star’s private jet to Minnesota. On the plane, they reminisce about how the beginning of the series starts with them going on a private jet and how the series will end with them on the private jet. The next day they find out the rest of the collection has sold out.
The next morning they get their makeup done for their meet and greet at the Morphe store at the Mall of America. The Morphe store is all decorated with their photoshoot pictures. They meet all the employees before the meet and greet. The Vice President of Morphe says that yesterday was the single biggest day in Morphe stores’ history.
Dawson and Star take a moment to realize all that's happening, and Dawson starts crying and smudges some of his makeup, which he apologizes for. Star says to Dawson, “Don’t ever be sorry. These moments are forever. This is so special.” I loved when he said this, because it shows how much their friendship has grown over the series.
They finally go outside of the store to see all of the people that came out to support them. Everyone goes crazy when they finally see them come out. Star thanks everyone for coming out and Dawson is speechless. Star then talks about how Dawson broke every single e-commerce record yesterday. Dawson’s fans broke the JSC website. They then have their meet and greet and see lots of fans ranging in all ages. After the meet and greet, they get back on the private jet and go back to Los Angeles.
The JSC team has a final Conspiracy collection meeting. They talk about the plan for a restock, and they think they can restock in March and in May 2020.
It cuts back to when Dawson unpacked one of Star’s makeup packages at the beginning of the series, then shows a bunch of other people opening all of Dawson’s products. I love that they did this, because it comes full circle.
It then says “The End,” but there’s an extra clip after. There was a green shade that they showed during the series that they didn’t put into either of the palettes. They show a bunch of people reacting to how they were mad they didn’t put it in the palette. As a result, Star decided to take out one of the shades in the Mini Controversy palette, and put the green shade in its place. That is where the video finally ends.
Overall, I thought this series was so entertaining and fun to watch. It really shows how much work goes into making a makeup collection. I also loved watching Star and Dawson’s friendship grow throughout the series.
Hallie Diekoff is a student at UW-River Falls.