Maybe HE's born with it...?
The popular makeup brand Maybelline posted a video advertisement for its lip gloss that as part of Amazon’s Prime Day Deals. Which in most cases would be considered normal. But this time, the issue arose when the beauty brand used a man - yes with a bald head, mustache, beard and everything - to promote the lip color.
Ryan Vita, a paid Maybelline promoter and a self proclaimed “she/he/they,” appeared in a video posted to Maybelline’s main Instagram account that boasts more than 11.8 million followers.
Now, if Maybelline selected Vita, a very, very obvious man, for something like a new face serum or even a concealer, that I could try to understand a little bit better. BUT A BRIGHT PINK SHINY LIP COLOR!? Seriously!?
Another day, another disturbing make-up ad.
This time from @Maybelline. pic.twitter.com/rQmoRV3Hd7
— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) July 13, 2023
The video featured Vita seductively putting on the lip gloss and getting all puckered up for the camera. It also rolled clips of the products itself, which honestly would have been a fine enough alone as an advertisement and likely wouldn’t have caused so much controversy. That, or Maybelline could have used a freakin woman!
Naturally, users blasted the brand on Instagram.
I particularly liked one commenter who claimed she was “scared” after seeing the video. Honestly, I can’t blame her - the dude looked like a circus freak.
This isn’t the first time Maybelline has partnered with men wearing makeup designed for women and shared it to its social media pages. As a matter of fact, just a few days ago, a video of “he/him” Zak Taylor featured the male applying four different Maybelline products to his face as part of his “flawless” routine, as noted by Maybelline’s Instagram caption. Maybelline also partnered with our favorite trannie Dylan Mulvaney, and has featured drag queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Now, when Maybelline partnered with Mulvaney and the drag queens, it still wasn’t as bad or weird as its partnership with these dudes. In this case, the models are men who are still claiming to be men, just in makeup. Which is weird. At least in the cases of Mulvaney or the drag queens, they're men pretending to be women. Which is weird, but perhaps a bit less so.
Nonetheless, if companies have learned anything in the past few months, it should be that using the wrong people for campaigns can be detrimental. Bud Light lost tons of customers and money thanks to its botched partnership with Mulvaney, and the situation is still one of the most talked about failed marketing campaigns.
But the left doesn’t seem to like to learn from their mistakes, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see who chooses to die next on the hill of wokeness.
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