HOW TIKTOK CHANGES THE BEAUTY STANDARDS OF GEN Z
DENIZ AKKAYA
E-Girls prefer DIYs to expensive products and replace the contour phenomenon with face stickers and colourful eyeliners!
According to one of the definitions in Urban Dictionary, E-girl is “a girl on TikTok that wears an excessive amount of blush, hearts under their eyes, cute hair, watches anime and dresses kinda lolita.” Though there are slight differences between E-girls and VSCO girls, their philosophies are the same: Have fun with make-up, play with your hair colour and don’t follow any imposed traditional rules!
According to a new study Facebook made, the interaction rate on Instagram is less than ever. In other words, Instagram influencers no longer “influence” anyone. The biggest reason for this is that TikTok dominates Gen Z and, everyone is starting to get their aesthetics and beauty inspiration from TikTok. While Instagram determines the aesthetic perception of the millennium generation; TikTok determines the aesthetics of Gen Z in a much more interesting and original way. The E-Girl aesthetic consists of A-cut tennis skirts, oversize t-shirts worn over a long-sleeved turtleneck, knee-high socks and incredibly creative makeup styles. E-Girls prefer DIYs to expensive products and replace the contour phenomenon with face stickers and colourful eyeliners!
TikTok is a platform where people tear down their own walls by behaving as they like with their friends and produce creative content as they wish without getting harassed by internet trolls. This platform takes us to a time we watched only funny viral videos, when everything we see on the internet wasn’t just advertisements. The central tool of Tiktok is the algorithmic flow page “for you” that users first see when they open the app. Even if you haven’t posted anything, haven’t followed anyone, or liked a video; you’ll see a full page of thousands or millions-liked videos, a page that’s unique for each user. Being on this page can make anyone “internet famous”. Beyond the algorithm, TikTok also has a unique aesthetic. The “For You” page and the need to see content according to the users’ wishes created many different aesthetics: E- Girls, E-boys, softboys and VSCO girls! TikTok proved to people the direct impact of the accepted beauty perception on beauty standards by showing the damage brands received when this perception changed.
TikTok users, who want to change the body perception of the society, are trying to fight traditional beauty standards by showing their bellies. “It doesn’t matter what size I am. I’m perfect just the way I am,” said 16-year-old Brooklynne Webb, who shared a video of her natural belly with her three friends at the end of August. Initially, although the bad reviews upset her, Brooklynne was very worried that the comments could affect her followers who struggled to love their own bodies. Instead of deleting the video, Brooklynne decided to post another video. For every bad comment about her body, Brooklynne made videos dancing with her belly open with the hateful message pinned on the video.
Since the end of August, videos of Brooklynne dancing with her bare belly have been watched nearly 200 million times. Brooklynne began creating content that normalized all body types and shapes to destroy harmful beauty standards. Women showing their unfiltered, un-photoshoped bellies with joy have recently become a big trend on the platform. Experts said this trend could help teens re-evaluate their beauty standards and put their expectations on what their bodies should look like on a more realistic basis.
Social media has served people to portray their lives as perfect and unrealistic so far, and this has led a generation to grow up with harmful beauty standards. But Gen Z broke the curse of the millennium generation and became a generation that values more realistic standards!
Cover imagery via Vynique Moon
