Lately, I've gotten back into doing makeup, so I turn to the Internet for inspiration. I already live on the Internet, so I can see what a horrible place it is. People, especially when it comes to makeup, are so hell bent on cutting others down instead of building them up. It runs the gauntlet from "you would look better with less," "I don't need all that crap on my face" "girls who wear makeup are insecure" "this is why I have trust issues" (followed by "take her swimming on the first date!"). There's more, so much more. Beauty blogger and makeup artist Samantha Ravndahl quite succinctly talks about makeup shaming in an older video on her secondary channel.What does it matter if a girl wants to draw on her eyebrows? I, personally, am not a fan of the heavy, fade-in-front Instagram brow, but you know what? What other people do with their makeup doesn't affect my life. And news flash, neither does how someone does their hair or the clothes they wear. Makeup is a means for personal expression, and if someone wants to contour the hell out of their face, or overline their lips, or draw on eyebrows, or wear minimal makeup, it's their choice. No one else's. Want to get lip injections? Awesome. I personally love Kylie Jenner's lips. Boob job? Rock on, because I'm not brave enough to get one myself. There are these outmoded "rules" to makeup that are more about controlling a woman's appearance than actual "beauty." Rules designed, in part, to design women that are appealing to men. Those rules need to be thrown out.
However, before we can throw out those rules, women need to stop cutting each other down. Don't like someone's makeup? That's okay. What's not okay is to tell her she's ugly, insecure, a slut, a clown, etc., etc.. Instead, we should be building each other up. It takes so much more effort to comment negatively on a picture on Instagram, a video on Youtube than it is to just scroll by. Why are you so concerned with how another person looks? It's like the women who try to tell other women that leggings aren't pants. If you want to wear leggings, go right ahead. I'm not going to argue with camel toe. And bigger girls can wear them too. Let's stop policing each other's bodies and appearances, okay?
I see it all the time on Facebook. The fat-shaming memes are the worst, especially when paired with the exploitative and violating "people of Walmart" posts. Why the fuck are you making fun of the appearance of some stranger and posting it on the Internet? What if that was you? So what if you think their outfit is ridiculous, does it affect your life at all? No, it doesn't. That's a person you're publicly shaming, a person with feelings. It's disgusting and it needs to stop.
