Mascara and the dangers of ‘algospeak’
Mascara is causing a lot of people to LASH out this week (pun intended) 👁 💄
Happy first of Feb (and happy bday to Harry Styles in New Zealand!!) Hate to do this to you, but today I’ve gotta start the newsy with some upsetting news - there is no new Culture Vulture today :( Liv has had her wisdom teeth out AND has a bladder infection (poor angel) and I was gonna do a solo ep for you but got super bad period pains (I never got these when I was younger - has anyone else found that they’ve grown into period pains????) Sorrrrry 🥺🥺🥺
But while I’m not giving you anything today (except for a really good newsy, obv) I do need something from you! We’re still working on our ❤️🩹heartbreak project❤️🩹 and at the mo we’re talking a lot about ‘jealousy.’ So, we really want to hear stories from anyone who’s tried to make their ex jealous, and then regretted it. If this is you, drop your story here!!
PS I am OBSESSED with how many of you love Hayden and want one for yourselves. Flo would like me to pass on that he is TAKEN (Hayden would’ve liked me NOT to disclose that because he’s loving the attention) but I assure you there is a Hayd out there for everyone!!
PPS here are two pics that I wanted to share with you from yesterday:
My tidy bedside table (it’s never this tidy, hence, the photo):
Me departing the office yesterday in my “I Hate Matty Healy” t-shirt (feat the back of it which is funny yet I never get to enjoy):
Me & Matty wish u a lush day! 💌💌
Mascara and the dangers of ‘algospeak’
Some other mascara backLASH (pun intended)
A suicide bombing in Pakistan has killed 100 people
Do you plan conversations in your head before having them?
Mascara and the dangers of ‘algospeak’
The other day Dunc and I were having a chat about algospeak - which is the way we change our language online to get around censorship (for example saying ‘corn’ instead of ‘porn’ or ‘unalive’ instead of ‘kill’ or ‘dead’) - and ever since then, I’ve been despo to write about it. Here’s a quick definish:
Algospeak refers to code words or turns of phrase users have adopted in an effort to create a brand-safe lexicon that will avoid getting their posts removed or down-ranked by content moderation systems. For instance, in many online videos, it’s common to say “unalive” rather than “dead,” “SA” instead of “sexual assault,” or “spicy eggplant” instead of “vibrator.”
By way of luck, last week on TikTok we saw the dangers of ‘algospeak’ in action, thanks to mascara.
Stick with me, I promise this will make sense!! Last week I started seeing people popping up all over my FYP talking about their ‘mascara’ stories. After seeing about three videos I realised they weren’t actually talking about mascara (the beauty product), and had to search ‘what do people mean when they refer to mascara??’ I was then taught by a variety of different randoms that it was a euphemism for ‘sexual assault’ or more broadly ‘dick.’
So, after about 20 minutes of scrolling I finally SORTA understood what ‘mascara’ meant (and the seriousness of some of the videos I was seeing), but unfortunately, not everyone had done that 20 minutes of research into what it meant… especially not Julia Fox. Fox saw one of these videos about ‘mascara’ and commented: “Idk why but I don’t feel bad for u lol.”
This was the video:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Julia Fox, who seemed not to know about this ‘trend,’ quickly realised, and commented: “Hey babe I’m so sorry I really thought u were talking about mascara as in make up.”
At the most basic level I hope we can all see how creating words to stand in for other words/phrases is eroding our (already murky) communication skills on social media. Expecting everyone to see all the same videos/ understand all these new terms and trends and the context behind them is unfair, and was probably always going to lead to misinterpretation like this.
The dangers of ‘algospeak’
This situation isn’t the fault of the users - it’s actually more of a characteristic of social media companies. It’s what happens when users of a platform like TikTok (though it applies across most other social media platforms) feel like they need to ‘get ahead’ of the algorithm in order for anyone to see their content or hear their stories. When it’s a race between you and the algorithm, the algorithm (and the company behind it) is always going to win. Do you know how much engagement these ‘mascara’ videos will be getting now? How many more people will be flocking to TikTok to search ‘mascara’ and see how Julia Fox dunked on herself? Can you see who’s benefitting here? Because it’s definitely not the users who are trying to tell their stories.
For a deeper dive on ‘algospeak’ you should go and read this!
Some other mascara backLASH (pun intended)
First of all, let me be clear. For this story, I am talking about mascara, the beauty product. So, TikTok beauty influencer Mikayla Nogueira, who’s had a ROUGH time on the internet lately (and been very vocal about her mental health issues online so PLEASE be considerate of that) has found herself in some hot water, after posting a video reviewing a new mascara (I’m not gonna mention the brand coz I ain’t doing no free promo.) It’s not entirely clear whether it was a paid post, but the video was hashtagged that she was a partner of the brand, so take what you want from that. Unfortunately for all involved, Mikayla appears to be wearing false lashes in the final clip showing off the mascara, to make people think the product was better than it is. And people were NOT impressed.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
As a non-makeup guru (and a mascara hater tbh) (again, the beauty product) I would never have noticed this. But people did, and they were VOCAL about it - including Jeffree Star, who is apparently ‘coming out of retirement’ to start doing makeup reviews again off the back of this.
And just a quick reminder about Jeffree before we start giving him our views/time:
Mikayla could face some financial impacts if the FTC finds that she was dishonest in a paid advertisement, but the bigger impacts are probably going to be felt within the influencer community. Very lukewarm takes like “can I trust anything I see?” and “are all my faves lying to me?” are being thrown around again, but I feel like we KNOW that we can’t really trust everything we see when there’s money involved.
Think about the burgers you see advertised to you online - they’re puffed, pruned, stuck up and oiled - and we KNOW that when we go and order one ourselves that they’re not going to look like that. I’ve seen models buy ‘fake hip’ implants from amazon to make their clothes look better, celebs on the red carpet are covered in body makeup to make their skin look better, hair extensions are clipped in for added volume to make their hair look better - it's all a bit fake, and we all know it! The difference here is that online creators often get their come-up based on authenticity, so we expect it from them, but as soon as they cross a threshold, start getting paid for ads, and therefore need to report back on the engagement of the content and the sales, they revert back to these old ways. It kinda feels like it just works that way? Which SUCKS!
It does feel like on TikTok, the app built for authenticity and low-fi everything, there is waaay less room for us to be lied to (good) and way more room to stitch/duet/be mean to someone who’s made a wrong move (bad), and going back to my nerdy algorithm chat again, the company itself is benefitting from all the videos we’re making in outrage.
To be clear I really do like Mikayla and think that the backlash (pun intended, again) is a bit too heavy for what the ‘crime’ is, but these conversations about authenticity (a brands dream, and what they pay for) ironically being compromised when money is involved are super interesting to me! Let me know your thoughts in the comments!
A suicide bombing in Pakistan has killed 100 people
As of right now, over 100 people have been confirmed dead in a suicide bombing on a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan. The mosque was inside a high-security police compound, and more than 300 people were inside praying at the time of the bombing - many of whom were police officers.
“A commander for the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter, while an official spokesperson has denied any involvement. The militant group, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP [a close ally of the Afghan Taliban], ended a cease-fire with the government in November and has been blamed for a string of recent attacks on security forces and police in the region.”
In the past, the Pakistani Taliban have not claimed responsibility for attacks on “mosques, schools, or markets” saying “they are at war with security forces and not the Pakistani people,” but many people doubt this.
Today’s mundane poll:
I genuinely DO NOT DO THIS and I truly think it’s because I have no inner monologue??? Is anyone else the same??
To get a whole week’s worth of final thoughts on a Friday, become a paying supporter 👀
The mascara algospeak seems so confusing to me, like while I think it's not great that we have to use alternative phrases for words like porn, sexual assault or suicide but most of them are very self explanatory or similar so e.g. Corn / porn or SA for sexual assault (which was already an acronym for that in the context of abuse), but I would never have gotten that mascara was code for anything (or at least what it was code for) without the tag saying SA awareness,
so glad I'm off tiktok because it seems to foster a sense of tunnel vision at a level that I haven’t seen with other social media and people seem to truly think that their ‘for you page’ is representative of everyone’s and the broader world. When in reality it’s a small echo chamber. This just feels like it was an inevitable accident
Hey Luce! Could you talk more about your absence of inner monologue? Is this ok to ask or too private?! I recently learn about the fact that a fairly large amount of people don't have an inner voice (was that on SYSCA?!) and it has been on my mind since then. I feel like talking to myself in my head and having whole arguments with myself is so core to the way I see the world that I am immensely curious to be the head of someone who doesn't! Thanks and love you and gang!