As I unlock my phone and check my social media accounts one morning, all I see is everyone raving about the new Anastasia Beverly Hills Prism eyeshadow palette launching. To my discovery as a makeup lover, this is the first time I am hearing of this palette. After researching this product, I came to the conclusion that I absolutely needed it, however before purchasing the item I just had to look up tutorials so I knew what I was getting myself into. So, I turned to the YouTube world of Beauty Gurus and Makeup Artists (MUAs) for help, which led me to a tutorial by MannyMUA. While most wouldn’t put so much work in to making the decision to buy a makeup palette, this is just the normal doing of a member of the online makeup community.
Two texts that I have chosen from this fan community display the appropriate and inappropriate conventions of speaking out in this specific group. The first source, Source A, is an Instagram photo that was posted by beauty guru MannyMUA showing off a makeup look he created with the aforementioned Anastasia Beverly Hills Prism eyeshadow palette with comments below praising the work he is showing off. The second source, Source B, is three tweets by babycakeface_ using screenshots to expose an artist, known as “chaleendeed,” for overly editing her photos that she posts on Instagram and manipulating her followers by promoting completely unrealistic beauty standards in the makeup world.
In the online makeup community, it is important to understand that being true to your skillset of doing makeup and not editing your photos to an extreme extent is key to reaching a greater audience to give yourself more exposure in the beauty world. Source A clearly has a stylistic advantage over Source B’s because Source A follows the typical conventions of the community by having empowering comments supporting the artist’s masterpiece. Whereas for Source B, babycakeface_ is showing side by side comparisons of the what chaleendeed actually created versus what she photo-shopped. One tweet doing this caused a domino effect of replies doing the same and bashing the not-so-skilled Instagrammer causing her to lose followers and receive “hate.”
Before analyzing these two texts, it is important to pinpoint what the true goals of this community are and how they shape what the appropriate and/or inappropriate conventions are. In Kerry Dirk’s “Navigating Genres,” the writer includes “…genres often have formulaic features, but these features can change even as the nature of the genre remains,” said by professor Amy Devitt. This statement directly relates to the online makeup community because even though not every single tweet, Instagram post, or YouTube video is positive they all have the same idea in mind. Which is to enjoy different makeup looks that various artists create with beautifully crafted makeup products.
In the online beauty community, there are three different types of members: beauty influencers, beauty gurus, and makeup lovers. Beauty influencers are individuals that review products and give their honest and true opinions of them regardless of their relationship with the brand who created the products. The goal of this group in the world of makeup is to keep consumers from buying products that are not worth price. Beauty gurus are the ones that teach everything about techniques for applying makeup to their followers or subscribers, these methods are usually shown through YouTube and Instagram videos. They’re ambition is to be noticed by popular makeup brands for their hard work or to be put on Public Relations (PR) lists by those same brands. Lastly, the makeup lovers are the supporters of the (big and small) beauty influencers and gurus. They show their support to these artists and admire their work and the products they use, as well as try to learn from them to better their skills. However, a couple goals shared throughout these three groups is to be honest, enjoy astounding makeup looks, create realistic makeup expectations, and to enjoy makeup itself.
Source A, an Instagram photo posted by beauty guru/vlogger MannyMUA, is clearly the more successful post of the two, not only because of his greater follower count, but because his post and the comments below follow the natural conventions of speaking in the beauty community. Instagram is the main social media platform in which beauty gurus post photos of looks they’ve created, promote their YouTube videos if there is one for that certain look, and allow their followers to interact with them by commenting on their posts. MannyMUA captions the photo, “Smokey eyes got me feelin some type of way *emoji*
Who's seen today's video reviewing the new @anastasiabeverlyhills Prism palette #anastasiabeverlyhills Link is in my bio!” then continues on with listing the products used to create the makeup look. Captioning photos this way allows his subscribers to try and recreate his look which means they’ll give him credit for inspiration of the look, hence giving him more exposure in the beauty world. This aligns with the goals of the beauty guru group in the makeup community.
Below his photo are a string of comments using tons of emojis and continuously complimenting him on his work, such as “your makeup is always poppin x love it,” “you are just SLAYYYING life like you are just gorgeous,” “love your makeup look” etc. These comments align with the conventions of speaking about others art by giving empowering comments and boosting his confidence with nothing but love.
Source B, three tweets by babycakeface_, is the less successful piece of text not only due to the fact that she has a smaller follower number but because it is a rare negative post in the online makeup community. Twitter is where most individuals in the fan community converse and grow bonds with each other. Her first tweet reads, “Y’all got me messed up on 25 different levels if you edit your makeup to this extent & have 12k *face palm emoji*” followed by four photos comparing what her makeup looks really looked like to what she edited. Her second tweet: “There’s nothing wrong with smoothing your skin but when you edit your makeup on it gives people false expectations.” Lastly, her third tweet: “She should pursue a career in Photoshop or something bc clearly she’s good at it,” all posted on September 26th, 2017. The replies to her tweet consist of more community members speaking about her extreme editing also incorporating screenshots of her posts.
The beauty community is “supposed” to be supportive and complimentary, so when babycakeface_ tweeted this it contradicted what the entire beauty world is about causing others to do the same by replying to the three original tweets. This series of tweets may not have been as successful as MannyMUA’s Instagram photo; however, it was effective in exposing a certain artist for her overly photoshopped makeup photos and creating false expectations for the rest of the community. Even though Source B did not follow the typical conventions of posting on social media for this fan community, it did in fact aim for one of the previously mentioned goals which was to create realistic makeup expectations for others.
While Source A follows the genre conventions of the online beauty community fan writing and Source B aims for the goals of said community, Source A proves to be more successful due to its’ overwhelming amount of supportive comments below the photo creating a compassionate environment.