The Unstoppable Rise of YouTube's Child Make-Up Artists

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He soon started making up his own face and posting photos of his work to Instagram, and by the summer of 2017 he had brands like Make Up For Ever and Anastasia Beverly Hills clamouring to send him their entire product lines. When he reached 300,000 followers they were paying him $2,000 (£1,600) per sponsored video. Now, having just turned 16, he's charging triple that and is on target to make at least $100,000 (£80,000) by the end of the year.

Ethan is one of a small but growing number of children and teens picking up millions of followers by posting make-up tutorials and photos to social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. Unlike traditional make-up artists, these young stars – Ethan, Jack, Reuben de Maid and Natthanan, to name a few – don't seek professional training. They seldom look for inspiration in the pages of magazines like Vogue, they don't practice their skills on other people and, as their work is predominantly viewed by those in their age group, their audience is different to that of MUAs who work on fashion shoots or film sets. 

In short: they're doing everything you normally don't do as a make-up artist – but their presence and popularity is still having a huge impact on the beauty industry, with an older generation of MUAs bemoaning the fact that a high follower count is now seemingly more important than talent.

”So I worked out how to use clickbait on my videos, and literally from May, 2017, all the way until December of that year, every single video I posted would get between 300,000 views and 2 million."

He worked most nights and posted every single day. Pouring all his energy into creating content, he lost friends – the only normal thing about his life now is that he has a steady boyfriend – but the hard work was worth it: he's got savings, he gets to travel and the sponsorship offers are plentiful. He can afford to have an agent and manager to handle his business so that he can focus on the creative aspect – and although he doesn't describe himself as famous, he is recognised most times he goes out in public.

 "Most young children are interested in attention and, as they become aware of it, the idea of fame," he answers. "What young child, myself included, hasn't expressed an interest in being a pop singer or movie star? Increasingly, social media is where young people encounter 'famous' people. Beauty and make-up have such a massive presence in this arena, that I think this is now seen among children as one of the primary ways to achieve the kind of renown that previous generations would have looked to boy bands and acting heartthrobs for."

"Increasing synchronicity with digital devices means young people are engaging with social media platforms from infancy, meaning that – to paraphrase cyborgolists and transhumanists like Nathan Jurgenson – there isn’t any distinction between the on and offline self and world. It’s only natural that children want to self-present, 'play' and engage in day-to-day activities online. Consequently, it's inevitable that these children and teens will then attain an audience of likeminded kids."

He continues: "Having said that, I definitely don't think that post-internet identity is the only factor at play here," explaining that because of "a liberal-minded movement toward acceptance, fluidity, performativity, fluctuation and indefinability" we're seeing "drag performances, for example, moving from the margins to become some of the most watched TV shows today. So it's inevitable that young people would be inspired by the frequent media appearances of makeup-donning men, seeing the potential to explore their own selves by doing the same."

"The number of followers does not equate Talent nore [sic] quantify you're [sic] worth. I hope in the future we will look back on this time as misguided diversion of talent, creativity and substance," wrote high profile make-up artist Alex Box on her Instagram account recently. In another post, the former creative director of cosmetics brand Illamasqua called out online MUAs' propensity for copying other's work without giving due credit, to which Yves Saint Laurent ambassador Celine Bernaerts commented, "The title 'make-up artist' has quite lost it's [sic] meaning in the online realm."

As Alex Babsky points out, "Making up your own face again and again on YouTube can quickly cultivate a formulaic and narrow approach to beauty, whereas a working make-up artist is required to deal with all kinds of faces, with all kinds of products, in all kinds of conditions, fulfilling all kinds of briefs and referencing all kinds of inspiration. Learning solely how you yourself like to do your own make-up doesn't in itself make you employable as a make-up artist."

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/7xgy9x/child-make-up-artists-ethan-peters-youtube?utm_source=vicefbuk

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