By this point, you’ve heard the word “demure,” perhaps even used it yourself, more in the past week than in the previous calendar decade. It’s because of a makeup artist named Jools Lebron, who recently shared a video explaining how and why she maintains a respectful amount of daily glamor when she arrives at her place of employment. “I do my makeup. I do a little braid,” she said. “I don’t come to work with a green cut crease. I don’t do too much. I’m very mindful when I’m at work.” There we go and here we are.
I understand the impulse to conduct oneself in the opposite manner, to cry and scream and thrash around. It feels like just yesterday you learned what Brat Summer was, and what it could be: Acid hues, club classics, powdered substances. Brat, the album by Charli XCX, was forged in the flames of anarchy and debauchery. I needn’t explain it; it’s all there in the lyrics to 365: “Meet me in the bathroom if you’re bumping that,” she commands. “French manicure, wiping up the residue…”
Brat came out on June 7th, an eternity ago in the digital trend cycle. But who could have predicted that, two months later, Joe Biden would cede the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination to vice-president Kamala Harris (brown lipstick, silk press, very demure) whose campaign would immediately—as if laying in wait—adopt the Brat aesthetics for the purpose of engaging young voters? The death knell rang loud and clear, perhaps only audible to those aged 32 and under. RIP, Brat Summer! She died as she lived: Confounding Gen X. It was as if her departure from the cultural conversation opened up a void for a new grassroots philosophy to seize our attention. A vacuum this powerful could only stay open for so long. A few weeks passed. Around August 5th, the world met Jools.
Demure mindfulness, according to its patron saint, describes a practice that is spiritually equal and opposite from the one known as Brat Summer. Brat connotes mischief, flails toward solipsism; Demurity is much more conservative by contrast and considers community values. Brat is standing in the DJ booth, while Demure is seated in the VIP section, minding her prosecco. Brat shouts over the music, while Demure leans in to whisper, or communicates exclusively using eye movements. Brat is underscored by apocalypse, powered by a steadfast belief in the world’s imminent end; Demure understands that life is long, and everything is both different and the same as it once was—we exist in the context!—and Demure has work tomorrow, anyway, and they have to wake up early, but are going to do a full beat anyway.