14 Comments
Feb 16, 2023Liked by Jessica DeFino

I was hopeful about de-influencing and I knew a few people that were using de-influencing to talk about how to get more life from your clothes and shoes and learning how to mend them or taking them to be fixed. But as I say more of the trend pop up with other people it feels like it soured and became about products and not learning to be conscious of your consumption.

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Feb 16, 2023Liked by Jessica DeFino

Yep. It’s officially Bizzarro World. I’m starting to feel like Zod imprisoned in that flat thing in “Superman 2”.

Looking back on it, Terrance Stamp was serving lewks, even in the Phantom Zone.

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Feb 18, 2023Liked by Jessica DeFino

I was optimistic about de-influencing, for like a week, and then i saw the first tiktok with the title ‘re-influencing’. I cant even.

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're-influencing'?!

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Apparently its like the de-influencing part is “dont buy this charlotte tilbury contour because so and so” and then the re-influencing is “but do buy the fenty contour instead because so and so” so essentially making you unhappy about your current products and telling you to replace them which specific other ones in one go

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Until the CT products will 'work' again in a never ending consumption cycle.

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Interesting. Thanks for explaining.

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Got an ad for plant venom FACE WATER just wanted to share if you haven’t heard of it. I hadn’t.

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author

Omgggg hahaha. Why am I not surprised

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Well spoken..er, written, as usual. Huzzah!!

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When I first heard the term, De-influencing, silly me thought it was a move away from influencing, but now I realise it's just a ploy to reestablish relationships to sell more.

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Hi Jessica,

I don't know where else to ask this but I would really like to hear your opinion about drag queens vs beauty culture, for example how some "drag aesthetics" (i.e. ultra "fishy", exaggeration of some "feminine" traits) perpetrate inaccessible beauty standards in the name of entertainment and "celebration of women and queer people". I really enjoy drag and learned a lot about the queer community by learning about this art form, but I sometimes have a discomfort about how the queens portray and address "femininity", especially in regards to younger audiences that are more influenceable. Have you ever wondered about the impact of those representations on beauty culture, especially for younger women and queer people?

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I don't expect a quick answer, but maybe this is something to think about for a future piece? I had this discussion recently with some people and it made me think a lot about your work, which I follow for almost 2 years now. Thanks a lot for everything you are doing 🌞

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author

This is something I definitely want to write about, and it will feature in my future book for sure! In general, the point of drag is to highlight the fact that gender and femininity *are* constructs, things that are performed and not innate. Unfortunately we live in a culture with very low rates of media literacy and art literacy, and an all-encompassing focus on the superficial! That leads to cis women co-opting drag aesthetics (think: the Kardashians with contouring) and perpetuating gendered beauty ideals, thus further obscuring their construction.

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