No makeup, No problem (FALSE)

For this post, I wanted to explore a new trend that I have been seeing lately on social media: the “no makeup movement.” Now, I am not a girl, so obviously makeup or lack thereof on my face has no bearing on me for this latest fad. However, recently I have been seeing celebrities, such as Alicia Keys (the leader of this movement) encouraging fans, and the general public that it is ok to show your true beauty, and that you don’t need to wear mascara, or foundation to cover it up. So now, I’m all for this like, “yes girl do you, you show them what’s up.” But then, after I watched the VMA’s last week or so, I saw how much negativity she was receiving for not wearing any. Don’t get me wrong there were a lot people praising her for being so confident and not wearing any at all, but the amount of tweets and even articles I saw was astonishing. One person wrote, “Alicia Keys and the ‘no makeup movement’ is annoying and imaginary”, and another commented saying, “Alicia Keys and her fake ass feminist ‘don’t wear makeup and love yourself’ campaign needs to go.” Yeah, so a little aggressive if I do say so myself.

Keys is not the only one being attacked either, the other week when I was at the Adele concert, Adele had referenced a video that she posted on Facebook the week before telling her fans how sorry she was she had to cancel the show. The only thing the media and social media users commented on though was how she was not wearing makeup. PAUSE, how could anyone ever attack Adele? She is PERFECT (see video below for confirmation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nck6BZga7TQ

What this trend has reinforced to me is that anyone is susceptible to online shaming through social media. Even celebrities: who followers and users aspire to be like are body shamed, bullied and criticized just like anyone else. This is a disturbing notion that people can’t go in public and not wear makeup or post a video relaxing at home, without being picked apart for literally being themselves. When I began to explore this topic, obviously I knew celebrities are more heavily concentrated on because their social media is so magnified in the public’s eye, however, it’s sad to see how prevalent cyberbullying is on social media for nitpicking at something as minuscule as no makeup. What this movement also made me think about again and again was how the people who always desire money and fame don’t truly know how hard it is to be put into such a prefixed idea of how they need to appear to society. When we see celebrities, models, etc. on social media we think about having their lives, their money, their glory, but rarely think about the retributions that come with it.

As I continue my blog I am intrigued to see what new trends develop and how people will respond to them.

If you want to see more tweets about how delusional people are for tweeting at celebs, see link below!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/alicia-keys-no-makeup?utm_term=.lkeBlA45be#.ylopkl6MON