Scrolling through social media, whether it be Instagram, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube, I tend to come across some form of cultural appropriation, usually splashed across the faces of models.
According to Lexico.com, an online dictionary collaboration between Dictionary.com and Oxford University Press, cultural appropriation is an inappropriate adoption of a culture’s customs, practices and ideas by someone who has no knowledge of it.
Retail companies like Fashion Nova and PrettyLittleThing hire multitudes of white models for photo shoots filled with blatant displays of cultural appropriation.
These models have dark, tanned faces that do not match any other part of their bodies because their skin is naturally fair.
There is a difference between wanting a tanned complexion and trying to look like an entirely different race.
The “new blackface” is problematic because for years, Black women have had to change their appearance by straightening or relaxing their hair just to get jobs. Now it is seen as acceptable because people of other races are wearing dark complexions and Black hairstyles as fashion trends.
Various Black beauty influencers, like Jackie Aina, have voiced their concerns about cultural appropriation, and yet no change has been made.
Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson went through a transformation by “blackfishing,” a term used to describe women with fair skin using Black aesthetics to appear as if they are mixed race.
Nelson tanned her skin to an extremely dark shade, got lip injections and has worn Black hairstyles, but she has no traces of a multiracial background.
When Rihanna released the Fenty Beauty line with 40 shades of foundation, people with darker skin tones were able to find makeup in their shade range.
Instagram models trying to look like a different race rushed to buy up the darker foundations, making it even harder for those with darker complexions to actually purchase foundation.
Some people with darker-skin tones have had to go years without finding their exact foundation shade and it is because of white culture vultures.
Many non-Black people are guilty of this new version of blackface and do not see the fault in it.
Emma Hallberg, a Swedish Instagram model, has a feed filled with pictures of herself, all curated to make her look ambiguously biracial, but in actuality, she is pale and white.
She fooled 394,000 followers into believing she was Black, denying and arguing against the usage of self-tanner and tanning booths.
But the 2.0 version of blackface is not only seen on the visages of social media stars; top celebrities are just as guilty.
A guilty celebrity is Ariana Grande.
When starring on the show “Victorious,” she played Cat Valentine , who wasn’t necessarily fair-skinned but had a light skin tone.
After leaving the show, Grande became more successful. Meanwhile, her skin has become darker over the years.
Some would say her Italian descent gives her an excuse to be tan. However, the opposition could argue that Italians are white.
Kim Kardashian West has Armenian paternal lineage, which stirs up arguments about her darker complexion.
In Kardashian West’s older photos, she had a lighter olive skin tone, before gradually tanning and looking orange. She then started to bronze with finesse to make herself look more ethnic.
The Kardashians and the Jenners are some of the biggest cultural appropriators of Black culture with beauty trends like wearing Black protective hairstyles and tanning their skin to look more brown, not tan.
