Make-Up Tutorials UP257
Social media is used to circulate short user-generated videos that serve as tutorials providing a step-by-step explanation of a particular topic or operation. Make-up tutorials represent a popular format for introducing cosmetic products and techniques and have now established themselves as a discrete genre with a specific community on a wide range of platforms. Owing to its uncontroversial, nondescript content, this popular online format is increasingly being used to put out veiled political messages whose content would otherwise become subject to censorship and be deleted. The users thus provide information not only about lip gloss and eyeshadow but also about government abuses and political impropriety: an example here is a make-up tutorial in summer 2020 by US Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that was distributed by Vogue and contained a feminist, political message.