And just like that, we are ‘very demure, very mindful’
If you’ve been on the internet recently, you may have lost track of whether we’re still in Brat summer or if we’re all meant to be demure now. Seemingly everyone on our FYPs are announcing their takeaway coffees, 'fits, and trips to the shop to be “very demure, very mindful”. But is this just another trend forcing women into unrealistic boxes or shall we dive right in?
The trend was kicked off by American content creator Jools Lebron, who posted a satirical TikTok video earlier this month explaining how to be “demure and modest” in the workplace. “You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure, very mindful,” she says in the video. “I don’t come to work with a green cut crease.”
The TikTok video quickly went viral, racking up over 31 million views. Lebron has since leaned into her ‘ Miss Demure’ persona and posted a range of other videos giving her followers lessons in etiquette. “I don’t go out and eat Wingstop after work, I get a nice salad,” she says in another video on “how to be demure when you go to order food” which has racked up over 7 million views. (Before anyone suggests Lebron is promoting disordered eating: the ‘salad’ in question is a jacket potato, cheesy fries, prawns, and salmon. Very mindful!)
Other creators have also jumped on the ‘demure’ bandwagon and shared their tips on how to be ‘ mindful’ in various social settings. “See how I step into the pool?”, says another creator in a video which has been viewed over 13 million times. “I don’t cause a commotion when I step into the pool – very cutesy, very demure, not a ripple in sight.”
Lebron’s career as a content creator has taken off in the weeks since her initial ‘demure’ video went viral. She has now amassed over 1.6 million followers and recently collaborated with brands including Dove, Patrick Ta, and Synergy, a US-based Kombucha brand. The creator, who is trans, reflected on her overnight success in a video posted last week: “One day, I was playing cashier and making videos on my break, and now I’m flying across countries to host events, and I’m gonna be able to finance the rest of my transition.”
To anyone who isn’t a chronically online Gen Z-er, the trend’s virality and Lebron’s success may seem baffling. But Lebron has some of the most essential qualities for TikTok fame – self-awareness and the capacity for a little self-deprecation – in droves. And while some commentators have argued that this is just the latest in a long line of trends which promote exaggerated and restrictive performances of femininity – such as ‘ quiet luxury’ , ‘divine feminine’ , ‘clean girl’ , and the tradwife movement – it’s clear that the ‘demure’ trend actually satirises the internet’s obsession with putting women in boxes in this way.
Almost all of Lebron’s videos are tongue-in-cheek: for example, in one clip, she documents a hungover trip to CVS with “Taco Bell refried beans stuck in [her] hair” and foundation, beer, and tequila stains on her T-shirt. “I show up as I am [...] very mindful,” she says. It’s hardly in the same vein as content from, say, Estee Williams, a tradwife TikToker who seriously promotes getting “dolled up” before your husband gets home from work.
Others have speculated that the demure trend is the death knell for brat summer, the hedonistic movement catalysed by Charli xcx’s new album Brat. But this take also misses the point. In another video posted by Lebron, titled “how to take a blinker [demurely]”, she coughs uncontrollably after taking a big hit from her vape. “Only a little bit of drool, I don’t do too much,” she wheezes in between coughing fits. That feels pretty brat to me.
Besides, I’d argue that anyone who thinks ‘brat summer’ is just about mindlessly partying until the small hours has misunderstood the meaning behind Brat too. Sure, lots of songs on Charli’s album are about “bumpin’ that”, but others are also about the fear of “running out of time” to have children, generational trauma, and the singer’s conflicting feelings about her experience of commercial success and international fame.
Arguably, Brat and ‘demure’ are two trends which go hand in hand. They both celebrate the duality of being a woman: they say yes, you can spend your weekends wasted and still spend hours dwelling on whether motherhood is right for you; you can go to the corner shop in a dirty top while violently hungover and still be demure. And after years of social media trends which promote unrealistic standards and put pressure on women to behave in a certain, constricted way at all times? Thank God.
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