By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
The internet is obsessed with being demure & it's all thanks to TikTok's trans trendsetters
Thanks to ingenuity of the dolls, the rest of the summer is going to be very demure, very mindful, very cutesy!
Are you demure?
As Brat Summer starts to wind down, many of us are pulling back from the pool parties, long nights at the club, and hookups. We've got to go back to school, back to work, and back to society. And that means we've got to be very demure, very mindful.
But what exactly does that even mean???
The "demure" trend on TikTok goes back all the way back to trans girls like Selyna Brillare (@selyna.brillare) and Devin Halbal (@hal.baddie), but it recently hit the mainstream after a couple videos from Jools LeBron (@joolieannie), another trans woman who made a video about "how to be demure and modest and respectful at the work place."
@joolieannie #fyp #demure
"You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful," she says in her video, which has over 1.2 million likes and 10.7 million views at the time of this writing. "I don't come to work with a green-cut crease. I don't look like a clown when I go to work. I don't do too much. I'm very mindful while I'm at work. You see how I look very presentable? 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. I'm very modest. I'm very mindful. You see my shirt? Only a little chichi out, not my chocho. Be mindful of why they hired you. Here's your reality check, diva. What's the name you'd like me to make it out to?"
Since then, Lebron has made more videos showing how to be demure and mindful in different situations. This includes how to respond to drama, how to leave a hotel and thank the staff, and how to have the midnight munchies, all very demurely.
@joolieannie #fyp #demure
But being demure isn't just about being mindful and cutesy, it's also about being "very considerate, very consistent" and not feeding into drama, she says.
"Let's be mindful of who we are before someone feeds drama to us," she says. "Let's be mindful of the journeys that we're building and the paths that we're setting for ourselves."
She even has advice for how to get off of an airplane demurely.
@joolieannie #fyp #demure
"You see how I am when the plane lands? I don't get up immediately, I don't rush," she says. "I wait my turn. I'm very cutesy, I don't do too much. I don't do an applause when we land, I close my window. I'm very mindful."
@hal.baddie keep it demure
While LeBron is the most famous person spreading the trend, other dolls like Brillare and Halbal have used the term in the past in a similar way to talk about their gender and the way they move through life.
Halbal has made many videos encouraging her followers to be demure.
@hal.baddie Stay #demure and dollesque 🎀
"Stay demure and dollesque," she says in one video. "The world doesn't need to know all of your business."
Brillare recently made (and then deleted) a video saying that she invented the trend years ago in 2021 after seeing the word being used in a lot of the books that she read.
@blachannamontana ohhh idk what to think because ive def seen that one brownskin transgender woman saying demure n stuff a long time ago. But idk tho what yall think? #selenanyc #demure
She then made a longer video saying she doesn't want to cause any drama and doesn't want to be a mean girl, but was feeling hurt when she made the original videos calling out LeBron and blocking her.
"I will reach out to her, and I will say something, and I will apologize to her and I will extend an olive branch," she says. "Because I genuinely did enjoy her content, and at first watching those videos, I did actually enjoy them. Whether it was directly inspired by me or not, I did enjoy it."
Lebron paid tribute to the other demure dolls in a video posted just earlier today.
@joolieannie Replying to @PatriciaRou #fyp #demure
"The gag is, there has been so many demure divas who have come before me," she says in the video. "There's been Devin, there's been Selyna, there's been Venus Xtravaganza. Demure is just a way of life for the girls, for the dolls like me. With that said, I would love to give nothing but admiration, flowers, and respect to all those divas who have been demure this entire time. Who have paved the way for a girl like me to thrive."
"Who's the original demure? Well? All of us. Being demure is thanking the people who have come before you, while you pave the path for the people who will come after you. And that's being demure, divas."
Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
Mey Rude is a journalist and cultural critic who has been covering queer news for a decade. The transgender, Latina lesbian lives in Los Angeles with her fiancée.
