Forget everything you think you’re upset about right now: inflation, stock market crashes, how the hell you’re going to afford food for your family. Because as bad as those things seem, they pale in comparison to the real American travesty that is … cultural appropriation.
That’s right, folks, there’s a new scandal in town, and model Hailey Bieber put it there. We’re talking, of course, about cultural appropriation, in this case via a TikTok video about applying lipstick.
TIME has the scoop:
Hailey Bieber's "brownie glazed lips" look is yet another example of cultural appropriation in beautyhttps://t.co/tN8EynqVjI
— TIME (@TIME) September 27, 2022
Finally someone says it https://t.co/hKypKeqafU
— jimtreacher.substack.com (@jtLOL) September 27, 2022
Yes, thank God. More from TIME:
Hailey Bieber faced criticism over the weekend after a TikTok video she made about “brownie glazed lips” was called out for appropriating a makeup technique favored by Latinas and Black and brown women since the ’90s.
In Bieber’s original video, which has gained 2.9 million views since she posted it on Aug. 23, the model wears brown lip liner with a clear glossy lip treatment from her beauty brand Rhode, captioning the post “ready for all the fall things including brownie glazed lips.”
The use of brown lip liner and clear gloss has long been favored by women with darker skin tones, and Bieber doesn’t claim to have invented the lip combo in the video—but her post led to an influx of primarily white TikTok users recreating the look on the platform and crediting Bieber as their inspiration. As the trend took off, critics derided the framing of a beauty technique long practiced by women of color as having been “started” by a white celebrity. The controversy reached a boiling point over the weekend, when the topic began to trend on Twitter. One video in particular, in which creator Victoria Lyn referred to the beauty trend as “Hailey Bieber’s go-to fall lip combo,” was cited multiple times by other creators arguing that branding the technique “brownie glazed lips” is problematic and meant to help sell Bieber’s cosmetics.
Imagine, doing videos about lipstick to sell your cosmetics, while all the while you’re stealing lipstick application techniques that only black and Latina women and literally no one else are allowed to use. The nerve!
Whose what’s are another what?
— Colin Duffy (@TheRightDuff) September 27, 2022
So what? In the 90’s when everyone was wearing brown lipstick (revlon’s rum raisin for me), we were appropriating culture? Get a grip. I’m liberal and abhor racism, but that’s reaching
— Tracey Avery (@TraceyA56869375) September 27, 2022
Huh. Looks like TIME’s coverage isn’t as valuable as TIME had hoped it would be.
TIME: what time is it?
Um, it’s a little after 7am, why?
TIME: oh, I’m late to my ratio.
— dubs (@mrbigdubya) September 27, 2022
Hello time. You have appropriated writing, which was invented by ancient cultures not your own. Please cancel yourself.
— alias among us (@Jose_Feinstein) September 27, 2022
Maybe “Good Morning America” should go ahead and cancel themselves, too. Not for culturally appropriating writing, but for actually having put together and entire segment trying to make this story not just an issue, but the issue. Their freaking cover story:
Of course ABC's 'Good Morning America' did a full story freaking out over Hailey Bieber's "cultural appropriation" for using certain stains of lipstick.
The most superficial and unserious morning show on the planet, giving you the news. pic.twitter.com/q2QBJXPKc1
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 27, 2022
With “journalism” like this, is it any wonder that the media’s reputation is in the toilet?
Remember when America had serious news publications? We should go back to that. https://t.co/NEvYY8JDya
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) September 27, 2022
Too late. We should probably just burn it all down and start all over again.
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