Every few years, a new trend comes out that encourages us to look back on and shame our past selves for our hair, clothes or makeup. Most recently, it’s been the *insert body part* blindness trend on TikTok, where people look back on their previous brow or lash choices and cringe at how they used to look.
On TikTok, there are over 8,000 videos under the hashtag #eyebrowblindness.
#eyebrowblindness
The videos started as relatively harmless and as retroactive quips poking fun at the way people used to style their eyebrows. The 2016 makeup era was especially scrutinized. Think Anastasia Beverly Hill dip brow and super matte lip kits.
The makeup was thick, bold and distinct, but it was the vibe for the time! (The most relevant metric for any trend.) Like most trends, though, eyebrow blindness quickly avalanched into a much bigger and scarier content source. See, creators quickly realized that pointing out new areas of insecurity via the cringe-based “blindness” trend was a great way to capitalize on the shared insecurities of the collective — one of the most profitable sectors of the attention economy that drives many trends on TikTok.
Soon, it was open season for every part of our bodies as our hair, makeup and weight became targeted games online. Not only were people ripping apart their own previous looks, the popularity of the trend has emboldened others to start commenting on the appearance of others.
It’s become commonplace to see people leaving snarky remarks like “eyebrow blindness” or “lash blindness” under unrelated videos, and they are completely unsolicited.
It also fostered a whole new level of self-deprecation as people would post videos tearing down past versions of themselves, from their hair to their makeup and everything in between. But what seems to be lost in all of this is the fact that the past versions of yourself are still you.
It’s natural to look back on previous things we’ve worn or done and wonder, “What in the world was I thinking?” The advent of social media has exacerbated this, though, and we now exist in a constant cycle of detesting all of our previous aesthetic ventures every 10 years or so.
Not only is that a disservice to your past self, it impedes our current ability and desire to try new things. Now more than ever, people are so scared of looking back and cringing at themselves that they don’t want to try anything new.
To take a page from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s book: All we have to cringe at is cringe itself!
