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Louise Thomas
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The “very demure, very mindful” trend has taken over TikTok.
In a viral TikTok video, self-described “fierce diva” and content creator Jools Lebron shared a satirical clip on why women should present themselves conservatively in the workplace. She recommended that women rock looks that are “demure and modest and respectful at the workplace.”
“You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful,” Lebron said in the video. “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.”
She continued: “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 chee chee out, not my cho cho. Be mindful of why they hired you.”
“Here’s your reality check, diva,” she added. “What’s the name you’d like me to make it out to?”
TikTok user and English teacher Claudine James – who posts educational content about grammar to nearly six million followers – explained the difference between the words “demure,” which means reserved and shy, and “demur,” which she defined as to “raise doubts or reluctance.”
With the hilarious video going viral, Lebron began to make more content revolving around what it means to be “demure,” creating satirical videos about how to be modest in different scenarios. From thanking her hotel staff demurely in one video to “doing her midnight munchies” very demurely and very mindfully in another, the content creator has turned “demure” into her shtick. Because of Lebron, internet users everywhere have expanded the meaning of the word “demure” by putting it in entirely new contexts, such as eating doughnuts and buying groceries.
The trend appears to poke fun at influencer trends like the “clean girl” aesthetic, which focuses on minimalism and self-imposed classiness. The #cleangirl hashtag has even been used in more than 467,000 videos across the platform. Now, “demure” has become so popular that Lebron claimed she was “demured” in public, noting that fans have come up to her and recognize her in person.
What once was a cheeky video has evolved into a full-blown trend, with multiple content creators adding their own spin on how to act demure. In one video, one person showed why pouring wine into a glass is “very demure, very mindful.” Another internet user took the familiar “bed rotting” trend and combined it with our current one, writing on TikTok: “Bed rotting, but make it demure.”
One content creator’s TikTok video received millions of views after she showed her followers “how to be demure and take your antidepressants,” jokingly adding that she’s being “mindful” about why her doctor prescribed them.
Someone else posted a video of an Olympic athlete not going through with a high jump, writing: “About to jump to conclusions and then I remember to be classy and demure.”
Unsurprisingly, it seems that “demure” has now become a buzzword on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter), with some internet users dubbing the “demure” trend as the next “brat.”
“I can always tell when there’s a new TikTok buzzword because I saw 73 tweets with the word ‘demure’ in it today,” one person wrote on X, while another joked: “Brat summer, demure fall.”
However, to embody “brat summer” is to embody a very different lifestyle. The “demure” trend is the antithesis to the “brat” mindset, with the latter favoring being brash and bold.
In an interview with BBC’s Nick Grimshaw, Charli XCX – who’s album Brat inspired the trend – described exactly how to embody the “brat” lifestyle. “It can go that way, like, quite luxury, but it can also be so, like, trashy. Just, like, a pack of cigs, and, like, a Bic lighter, and, like, a strappy white top. With no bra. That’s, like, kind of all you need,” the British pop star said.
“Brat summer” is a movement bucking social convention and constructs, rejecting the strait-laced “clean girl” aesthetic in favor of the unapologetically messy party girl – the complete opposite of the “demure” trend, which embraces rules and social norms.
