I don’t consider myself political, but sometimes I just can’t stand by. And this is a hashtag. I’m a millennial, and hashtags are my absolute jam! I have no choice but to get involved!
So yeah, you know all about people who say that girls should look good for themselves and not for guys, whatever…I get that, I sympathise and I’m not about to ignite the whole debate again. But there’s another one doing the rounds on Tweeter, and that’s #youbeauty.
Sounds fine, right? It’s just a sort of Australian expression, ‘you beauty!’, what you say when something good happens. But lately, people have been using it to attack girls who get beauty treatments, as a bit of sarcastic slander. So they might gather outside a place in Melbourne that does dermal fillers, or some other beauty treatment, and actually chuck stuff at women going in like some kind of psychopathic movement. How could they be so nasty to their fellow humans? I don’t know, hashtags are weirdly powerful like that. You could tweet something like #kickpuppies and if you have enough enthusiasm you could get people all across Melbourne kicking innocent puppies. Of course, where puppies are involved there might be a storm of objection, and rightly so. But humans? Nope, they can deal with the harassment…and besides, they should know better than to get a beauty treatment. What very strange logic, but when people consider themselves activists there’s not much you can do to make them see sense. Because activists are always right, apparently, even when they’re making people miserable.
At least the hashtag doesn’t seem to be working all that well, and is even producing the opposite result. Helped by the hashtag #beautyifuwant, which says that people can have beauty treatments where and whenever they dang well please without being judged. Just when you think humanity has let you down, they snap right back, gather outside people in Melbourne and Ballarat who do eyebrow tattooing and chuck stuff right back. Ah, activism.
-Bella