See how I’m starting this article explaining a trend you don’t know about? That’s me being mindful. See how I’m writing a simple introduction so you can pick up on what I’m writing about? That’s demure.
Within less than a week, the internet has been swarmed with videos—predominantly from trans women—who are reminding anyone stumbling across their content to move with grace and act “demurely.” One of the most popular creators who helped kick off the trend is an influencer named Jools Lebron, who uploaded a video on Aug. 2 in which she shared a tip for how to get rid of a white mustache that can result from makeup mixing with sweat. At the end of the video, mustache eliminated, she adds: “Very demure.”
After her initial video, Lebron posted another in which she is promoting a fragrance. The text in the video reads, “How to be demure at work,” and she shares advice for how to be modest and mindful while at your place of employment. Her video quickly gained more than 3 million views, and she soon began sharing multiple videos in the same vein that routinely garnered millions more views. In one, she shows how demurely she picks up her ID from the gay bar she left it at after a night out. “Very demure, very mindful. I don’t come to the bar and go drink. I come, I get my ID, and I leave.” In another, she demonstrates how to line up to board a plane: “I don’t rush. I take my spot. I don’t intrude.”
The idea of demureness as Lebron explains it is a state of mind—and one which, interestingly, arrives on the coattails of a definitively “brat” summer which has promoted anything but demure behavior. The official definition of the word is reserved, modest, and respectful. Lebron also made a video in which she says it’s demure to pay homage to those who came before you—name-dropping ballroom stars like Venus Xtravaganza, a transgender performer featured in the influential documentary Paris Is Burning—while paving a path for those to come after. But since her videos took off, the word has taken on a life of its own, with people making satirical videos about eating a giant sandwich or donut in a “demure” way and joking about what does and doesn’t qualify as demure.
Lebron is not the only creator who reminds the internet to be modest and unassuming. A creator named Devin Halbal (also known by her username @hal.baddie) uploaded a video that also went viral. In the video, which has since received more than 2 million views, Halbal tells her followers that they “need to keep it demure” because they “don’t know how to keep it demure for at least five minutes and then you act shocked when sh-t hits the fan.” On her video, Lebron left a message of sisterly solidarity that reads: “Very demure, very mindful, very respectful.”
While Lebron’s videos on the subject appear to be the first to have become extremely popular, other creators have argued that they popularized the trend. A creator with the username @mayalabruja uploaded a video in which she talked about another creator, @selyna.brillare, who claimed she started the trend in deleted videos.
Some said that Halbal kicked off the “demure” takeover, but in a comment under a recent video in which she responded to the drama (aptly titled, “How to respond to drama in demure way”) Lebron said that it’s nothing but good vibes between her and Halbal. “Devin reaching out and giving me nothing but love was mindful,” the comment reads.
Either way, this drama is not going to get in the way of these women sharing their wishes for a more demure society. After all, drama is not very demure, is it? It’s not very mindful.
