r beautyguruchatter – Far away in the remote part of Reddit, the lipstick conversation is about to get ugly.
The commentators have particularly feminine names, such as “Princess Batman”, “Princess Baroque”, “Kitty Beauty”, and (ahem) “MindVagina”. Above them is a banner adorned with a slightly deranged college r beautyguruchatter, the quiet teenage goth would hang in his school locker. Includes a Minions eyeshadow palette, Urban Decay “Naked”, and a photo of Ellen Pao wearing devil horns. The Reddit alien is there too, hovering in the corner, his usually featureless face adorned with lipstick and a heavily arched pair of eyebrows.
/r/muacirclejerk on Reddit is a community founded on two values: a love of beauty products and a dedication to ruthless trolling. The result reads “Lord of the Flies” if Sephora created it.
Its members take advantage of YouTube’s exaggerated advertising claims and “beauty gurus” and mock the obsessions of beauty communities on Reddit, such as /r/SkincareAddiction and /r/PaleMUA. They draw on the materialistic and Machiavellian, frivolous brand loyalty and all-consuming narcissism of beauty guru culture while remaining part of that community. It’s a strange, sometimes funny place to peer into the mind of a troll girl at her most conscious.
r beautyguruchatter
To “catch” the humour of /r/muacirclejerk, you must already be immersed in online beauty culture. You will follow blogs, forums, and Instagram accounts and have probably spent hundreds of hours watching YouTube tutorials. While this will help you understand the references to “Dip Dip” r beautyguruchatter (an Anastasia Dipbrow Pomade cult product) and “boyfriend-made battle stations” (a vanity table often built with the help of a boyfriend), more importantly, it will help you to appreciate the underlying truth. /r/muacirclejerk: The online beauty community has become a joke.
Until recently, social media served as a mass-market counterpart to mainstream beauty media, where writers were often forced to give positive reviews of brands to please advertisers. Now, social media has usurped their place at the top, and beauty gurus have become one of YouTube’s most sponsored and brand-affiliated contributors (so much so that the site recently opened a “school” for beauty bloggers).
In this landscape, /r/muacirclejerk acts as an online beauty underground. Like his close relative, Guru Gossip, he builds on the solid foundation of the very scene he claims to criticize. However, /r/muacirclejerk cares not so much about public figures but the behavioural quirks of their fans.
The result is Reddit, right down to its name. “MUA” stands for MakeupAddiction, the most famous beauty subreddit, and also “makeup artist” (the irony here is that most members of the MUA communities are not professionals, although they can behave and spend money on makeup the way they think). They). Meanwhile, “circlejerk”, which means exactly what you believe, refers to a longtime Reddit community dedicated to Reddit users themselves.
Immerse yourself in her natural environment, a Beauty Vlog – r beautyguruchatter
It creates a curious mix of girly themes and trolling. The posts combine camp humour and absurd self-parody—many members are also part of the very communities they criticize. They struggle with crazy cosmetic brand claims about their products and disastrous results when they fail. (The infamous cosmetic brand Lime Crime’s favourite lipstick, “Cashmere”, is constantly referred to as “Cashmere Anus” because of the wrinkling effect it can cause on the lips.)
“I came up with the idea during one of the bitch party threads on MUA (/r/makeupaddiction) where everyone complains about what other people post,” moderator ZEF666 said in a Reddit post about the origins of /r/. muacirclejerk. “We all took ourselves way too seriously and repeatedly wrote about the same silly trends (back then, it was all about ‘zOMG WINGED LINER’ and ‘WASH BRUSHES OR DIE!!!’)”.
Unlike sites like GOMI dedicated to complaining about public figures, /r/muacirclejerk aimed to give makeup lovers a unique opportunity to laugh at themselves. Founded in 2014, the subreddit gained its first thousand subscribers in two months and then five thousand in four months, and membership is currently over 15k.
“He had a low following when I first linked him, and then he exploded every time there was drama,” wrote ZEF666. “There were some notoriously offend r beautyguruchatter people who hated that their posts were being parodied. They wrote about it on MUA, and everyone heard about it.”
r/muacirclejerk
/r/muacirclejerk memes can easily confuse outsiders as they usually refer to particular and often fleeting obsessions of major online beauty communities.
These include panic over paraben ingredients, “constructive criticism” of selfies, and compulsive use of sunscreen. (Skin colour is the subject of controversy in the beauty subreddits: users often refute implicit racism with their obsession with “pale princess” skin. And a curious persecution complex about highlighting products being too dark.)
r beautyguruchatter References
There are symbolic references to Mean Girls and Revlon’s Black Cherry lipstick. (a seemingly “universally flattering” shade of purple that leaves many who wear it undead). In most cases, you will see references to “Dip Dip” (“Dip Dip is the key, eyebrows are life…”), up to the point where the vote called “dip” instead.
They also have an eye for excess and cynical marketing. The posts parody meme culture and fandom’s a highly lucrative business. And challenge the assumption that internet users require the use of activation alerts. (users seem to take pride in not being able to activate them). The phrase “literally Hitler” often used to describe something terrible.
“People seem to go through stages where they like gurus and blogs,” said ZEF666. Who did not give his real name. “Then, little by little, they realize that half of them being pay to sell some shitty product. Then they become cynical and wise and begin to be more “conscientious consumers. MUACJ is an outlet for those in the cynical stage.”
r/muacirclejerk
Reading /r/muacirclejerk was confusing at first and at times even pissed me off. But I started to find it funny, and I came back I began to agree with his points. I stopped believing what the beauty gurus told me and started questioning her brow play. Perhaps this is what it means to be a conscious consumer.
Finally, I questioned my prejudices around Reddit: after all, this is an all-male place? His overtly feminine and troll tone seemed contradictory to me at first. But who said that men are the most trolling on the Internet?
Interestingly, it is clear that/r/muacirclejerk is that its community is a labour of love. For the products, for the community, they guard so militantly, for themselves and their selfies. You come to Dip Dip, and you stay for self-reflective humour.
Recently, a news story appeared in the subreddit. Cosmetics brand MAC announced the release of a collection with the theme of “Trolls”. They’re referring to the toys with the neon hair and wrinkled faces we remember from childhood. But it didn’t take long for the online troll beauty queens to get the joke.
