TikTok users may have noticed a new trend on their most recent scroll — one that pits what people consider conservative and liberal makeup against each other, sparking the latest intense online debate.
There have always been different trends from each side of the political spectrum, but recently, these contrasts have become a hotly debated topic on social media. This tension mostly started with Suzanne Lambert’s video calling Republican users on TikTok who were commenting on her content.
After that four-minute video, satirical posts began appearing left and right, each side calling the other out on how they put on makeup or what they wear. Despite this seemingly random trend, there is precedent for politics bleeding into inconsequential online content.
Mike Draper, the founder and owner of the clothing store RAYGUN, believes there has always been some sort of divide with nonpolitical things. But he noted how most of it starts with the actual brand.
“There’s always been, in the world of branding, a political bend,” Mike Draper said.
A brand typically does not go into its creation as if it wants to be on either side of the political spectrum, but it commonly tends to lean one way or the other after a while.
“If I were going to drill down and get into why it’s now overly political, I’d say even something like Patagonia has always been environmentally focused,” Draper said. “But it was kind of like, this is how we want to set up our company. And it kind of stayed within that.”
He also acknowledged many of the reasons why fashion brands do this. With much of the population believing their elected officials do not take the proper action to keep progressing the country forward, they usually turn toward companies to try and fill that gap.
“People look towards anything to make progress. Before, political progress was left to politics in a lot of senses, but now everybody’s like, ‘What’s the company doing for the cause? What are these celebrities doing for the cause? What are these musicians doing for the cause?’” Draper said.
Many social media users have also been using their power as consumers to influence companies to “put their money where their morals are.” This is especially prominent in downtown Iowa City, where many small businesses are unafraid to display their political affiliations.
Faith Odhiambo, a sales associate at the local boutique Pitaya, talked about the difficult part of shopping based on your morals, especially for college students.
“Companies that aren’t as sustainable or aren’t supporting any good are morally corrupt. These companies are not affordable,” Odhiambo said.
For Odhiambo, fashion is how she expresses herself and one of her biggest interests in life. She said people can use what she is wearing to make assumptions about who she is as a person, which she claims are correct more often than not. Similarly, Odhiambo said fashion trends tend to reflect what we are experiencing as a society.
However, in our modern age of social media, trends tend to cycle quickly. Memes, dances, and fashion trends come and go, so it’s hard to keep up with modern fashion trends.
“I feel like trends come back because we’re reminiscing a time where things weren’t how they are now,” Odhiambo said.
Odhiambo recalled this past summer, dubbed “Brat Summer” by Charli XCX, characterized by club music, short skirts, and bright green outfits. During the election cycle, social media users even created memes of Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Kamala Harris over songs from “Brat,” consequentially politicizing Brat Summer.
“Somehow that became a political thing, but it was just an aesthetic of … the type of summer people wanted to have and dress for,” Odhiambo said.