How TikTok became 'very demure, very mindful'

The TikTok logo is displayed on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen, Oct. 14, 2022, in Boston. (Michael Dwyer / AP Photo, File)

Traditionally, women considered "demure" behave in a way that is modest, reserved and inoffensive to the point that they’re barely visible.

Jools Lebron, a makeup artist and prolific TikTok user, has appointed herself as the app’s new authority on “demure.” But her version of the term is far more expansive than the traditional definition –– being demure to Lebron extends to the makeup you wear, how you style your wig and how quickly you get up and stand in the aisle when a plane lands.

“You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful,” she says in one TikTok. “The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job. A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like Patty and Selma. Not demure.

Be mindful of why they hired you,” she goes on. “Here’s your reality check, diva. What’s the name you’d like me to make it out to?”

But by using “demure” to describe her trivial daily habits (and often directly refuting her own guidance), Lebron, who’s also a trans woman, is poking fun at gender norms and traits associated with womanhood.

In the aforementioned TikTok, she avows that she would never go to work with a “green cut crease,” a dramatic style of eyeshadow, because the look is “not demure.” In another video, she reveals that she arrived on her first day of work at Texas Roadhouse with that very style of makeup.

“Every video is me just referencing me,” she says in another clip explaining the joke after users criticized her for “judging” the way people show up to work. “That’s the joke!”

The satire is clearest in a clip in which she asserts that she’s going to behave in a demure, mindful way while going out on the Las Vegas Strip. Her sober assertions that she’ll be back in bed by 10 p.m. are intercut with scenes of Lebron from later that night, giggling at a club and struggling to find her hotel room.

Other ways to be demure, according to Lebron: Eating a little packet of StarKist tuna as a midnight snack. Complimenting someone’s new haircut even if it’s not your style. Tying a scarf around the lace front of your wig when there are Taco Bell refried beans stuck in it so you don’t offend the employees of CVS Pharmacy after you’ve had a big night out.

She’s inspired many women to film themselves behaving demurely as defined by Lebron: Trying on makeup at Sephora without making a mess, eating a Chipotle bowl one half at a time, using a real bookmark while reading instead of a receipt or another loose item.

One account even used the format to praise Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign as “very demure, very mindful” when compared to the campaign of former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio GOP Sen. JD Vance. (The Lincoln Project also made its own “demure” video making fun of Vance and his appearance.)

Lebron jokingly promises in her videos that she’s making herself dainty and modest. But in a new video from this week, she drops the act and says that her frequent refrain of being “mindful” also means considering one’s goals and pursuing them with confidence.

“One thing you need to learn about being demurity, about being demure –– being demure is being mindful, and being mindful includes your f**king self,” she says. “Chase those dreams. Be responsible. Be mindful, be demure and don’t ever let no b*tch dull your shine.”