THE MAKEUP CONTROVERSY

About a month ago, Twitter was full of tweets talking about a controversial topic which was started by a Spanish youtuber. This youtuber was Jpelirrojo, who has about 800.000 subscribers on his main channel and he’s on the list of the most famous youtubers in Spain. It all started with one of his tweets that literally said: “For me, women who stand up for makeup or heels, it’s like the slave who stands up for his chains thinking that they give him freedom.” Fast, everyone started giving their opinion, most of the people going against and attacking him for what he said. After this reaction, he tried to explain himself better through twitter and the next day through a video he posted on his channel, but anyways, a lot of people were still against him.

JPelirrojo recording for his
second channel

In this post I wanted to talk a little bit about this and give my opinion. First of all, JPelirrojo is a youtuber I’m used to watch, maybe not the videos on his main channel but the videos on his second channel (in which he records all his life, day by day). I like watching some of those videos because sometimes he discusses interesting topics with his girlfriend, with his friends or his family. And with this I want to say that he is a person who isn’t afraid at all of showing his opinion and his way of thinking to the world (he shows all his life, so it’s normal that he hasn’t any problems on expressing what he thinks). Not in everything, but quite a lot of times I agree with what he says, because I guess we have a similar way of thinking, but this time I can’t say that.

I think that he was just out of the line with that tweet, especially with the simile he made. With this simile, it seems that what he wants to say is that women are forced to wear makeup (I’m going to focus on makeup because it’s what has been more criticized about the tweet), but I don’t think it’s this way at all. Society may pressure a little bit women to wear makeup, but just as it does with lots of things. But it’s not the same as a slave with the chains: no one forces the women to wear makeup.

And I don’t think women depend on makeup or heels at all. Of course, there are all types of cases, and for some women makeup is essential and they couldn’t be happy without it, and in this case yes, maybe it is an addiction, just as JP says. But those are just a few cases. Some people tend to think that women wear makeup to impress the others, but a lot of times they just wear it to be pleased with themselves, and it doesn`t mean that they have low self-esteem or that they have an addiction with it. Also, for lots of girls makeup is not only a way to look prettier, it is a hobby and something that they like.

In my case, I don’t like to wear a lot of makeup on my daily life and I prefer not an excess of makeup, only for special occasions. But as I have said, “in my case”, so this should be a personal matter and we shouldn’t talk about all the girls as one. There are girls who hate makeup, so it’s completely fine them not wearing any of it, if they don’t want. There are girls who really like makeup and maybe feel better wearing it, and that’s completely fine too. And like these, there are hundreds of other cases, which should be respected, because it’s the girl’s body and she should be able to do whatever she wants.

But on the other hand, I think people also were a little bit out of the line with the comments they sent to JP. He started the tweet with “For me...”, so that shows that he’s just expressing his opinion, something that we all should be able to do, and his objective is not making everyone think this way, he just wants to show that in this point of view, girls look better without makeup. 

So, summarizing, I don’t agree with JPelirrojo’s opinion, and I think that, although he wasn’t fully disrespectful, some people were offended, so he could have just expressed his opinion, something that we all have the right to do, in another way.