Modesty is in its peak era . . . but not in the way you think. The word demure is the new word of the season after TikToker Jools Lebron popularized it in a viral video that garnered 6 million views and over 600,000 likes within about two weeks. In it, she shows off her natural makeup look, saying, “See how I come to work? Very demure. I do my makeup, I lay my wig, I do a little braid, I flat iron my hair, I do chichis out, I do viral vanilla: very demure, very mindful.”
Now people can’t stop saying demure in both apt and ironic settings. Going through airport security with electronics already out of the bag? Very cutesy, very demure. Not blowing up when responding to drama? Very demure, very mindful. Sitting in the middle seat of a crowded train and not man-spreading? Very . . . wait for it . . . demure.
The word is so popular even brands and celebrities have started using it. Netflix tweeted a scene from “Gilmore Girls” where main character Rory asks for a club soda and her grandma responds, “So demure. Isn’t she so demure?” Penn Badgley jumped on the bandwagon, filming himself on set of the next season of “You” while repeating Lebron’s quotable line, “See how I come to work? Very demure.” Even the White House couldn’t resist, posting a photo of President Joe Biden with the caption, “[Canceling] the student debt of nearly 5 million Americans through various actions. Very mindful. Very demure.”
The trend may seem like it came out of nowhere, but the rise in pointing out modesty and mindfulness makes sense alongside a growing celebration of authenticity and humble success stories.
Demure didn’t just fall out of a coconut tree. It exists in the context from which it came: the fall of Brat Summer. To understand the current demure rise, we first have to understand what killed brat. Charli XCX popularized the word through her latest album of the same name, where brat came to symbolize a lifestyle of being messy, partying and all things hedonistic. The perfect examples are the viral photos from the pop star’s own birthday: washed-out candids of tongues out, cigarette bouquets and sweaty bodies en masse. The photos prompted comparison to the indie sleaze era, aka the early aughts’ peak hipster era, for the way it can pass as an old photo that Cobra Snake (who was at the party) would have taken. But with virality comes criticism. People started critiquing the photo’s indie sleaze revival because the carefree feeling proffered by Charli and the throwback era felt inauthentic in 2024. “This is a completely manufactured industry bday party,” said one comment under the photos. Others lamented the ways indie sleaze was co-opted from an authentic spirit to a marketing ploy, and how indie sleaze’s untroubled partying can never happen in 2024 when rent is that high, the drugs are more laced, and everyone’s concerned with getting their Instagram shots rather than having fun.
It doesn’t help that the brat ethos was already being criticized for similarly losing its spirit to marketing. Shortly before Charli’s birthday, Pitchfork declared brat summer dead. This came right after Charli tweeted, “Kamala IS brat,” prompting the Vice President’s team to quickly make new marketing graphics with brat’s signature neon green to capitalize on this support. Suddenly, brat was political, marketable and being used to court Gen Z voters with pop culture references to distract from the fact that many young democrats have been explicit in their demands to see a ceasefire in Palestine. This was the record scratch in the middle of the party: Brat had gone too far. Like the indie sleaze photos, what had once felt like an authentic ethos has become a marketing campaign ripe with co-option.
The shifting attitude towards brat created the perfect environment for a new word — its exact opposite — to enter the lexicon. Whereas brat was about being loud and messy, demure is about being classy, considerate and, as Lebron elaborates, authentic. In an interview with CBS, the TikToker explained her meaning of demure: “It's being mindful and considerate of the people around you, but also of yourself and how you present to the world.” As a self-described plus-size transgender woman, Lebron faces certain preconceived perceptions. As she told CBS, she struggled with her own self-confidence and came to embrace herself more through making TikToks. By making content online, she found solidarity with a lot of other girls like her. Calling herself demure and cutesy — words not often ascribed to women who are fat or trans — is her being a touch tongue in cheek. Demure fall, then, is about being mindful of those around you and true to yourself.
Demure has gotten so popular that Lebron has her own curated “Very Demure, Very Mindful” collection on Netflix. Now she can use the meme's popularity to fund her transition. In a recent TikTok, she tearfully spoke about how she feels about this bout of fame: “I feel so overwhelmed. I feel so grateful, don't get me wrong, but everything’s happening so fast.” See how she responds to fame with authenticity and gratefulness? Very demure, very mindful.
The virality of “demurity,” as Lebron would say, makes sense when looking at the authentic stories that surround celebrities that found fame this year. Charli XCX, for example, speaks about this heavily in “Brat,” another reason why the transition from her era to demure isn’t so random after all. In the album, the singer opens up about not reaching the level of fame she wished for at this point in her life and feelings that her career is inconsequential. Part of the album’s success was the pop star's vulnerability about her relationship to fame and her choice to continue making music for her versus mainstream success.
The other pop star to climb the charts this summer is equally vulnerable about not making it. Chappell Roan released her billboard-topping debut album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” last year, but it didn’t make viral numbers until her NPR Tiny Desk Concert in March of this year. After, it felt like her success came overnight but in actuality it was about seven years in the making. At 17, Chappell signed with Atlantic Records when she moved from hometown in Missouri to Los Angeles to record with the label. In 2020, the record label dropped her when her single “Pink Pony Club” didn’t reel in the numbers they expected.
Roan returned to Missouri in defeat, doing some sporadic gigs in between working at a drive-through coffee shop. The hopelessness and defeat is captured on the album’s 13th track “California.” (“Thought I'd be cool in California/I'd make you proud/To think I almost had it going/But I let you down.”) By the end of 2020, she got out of the slump and decided to move back to Los Angeles to make music as an indie artist, finally signing with Amusement/Island Records in 2023 to release her album. Even still, it would be half a year until that album truly took off.
Like Charli, Chappell sang and spoke candidly about the feeling of “not making it.” She told the Guardian that she “felt like a failure” when Atlantic dropped her, and that when she did shoot her shot again in Los Angeles it came out with doubt and a caveat: “I was like: I have no money, but I’m gonna push through; if nothing happens by the end of next year, it’s a sign I need to move back home.” Her hustle and humble rise to fame is part of the reason people celebrate her. “One of the things that makes Roan’s story so compelling is how long it took her to get here,” wrote Constance Grady in Vox. Even with her newfound fame, Chappell has remained down to earth, speaking about boundaries between herself and fans, wanting to “pump the breaks on fame,” and turning down invitations for leading roles because “actors are so f**king scary” and “the industry is so scary.”
In a sea of nepo babies, these modest rises to acclaim stand out. While no one would say Charli or Chappell’s public personas appear modest, the authentic way they rose to fame, the way they humbly hustled to get where they are? Very demure, very mindful. Perhaps the word had not yet entered the viral lexicon at the time, but when they rose to stardom, their demurity was already being celebrated.
We see this even with our next midwest princess: Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz. Walz is dubbed everyone’s midwestern dad for his wholesome energy, his background as a teacher (so humble!), his not owning stocks, equity or even a home (so modest!), and the way his son, Gus Walz, tearfully cheered him on during the Democratic National Convention (“That’s my Dad!”). He’s so down to earth, both The New York Times and former President Barack Obama described him positively in relation to his flannel shirts. “You can tell those flannel shirts he wears don’t come from some political consultant — they come from his closet, and they’ve been through some stuff,” said Obama. Walz’s wife, First Lady of Minnesota Gwen Walz, was likewise likened to a person who’s too busy being a real person to have enough time for luxury maintenance, or “a high-school teacher who’d just dismissed her last rowdy class of the day” according to The Cut. They cited her “frumpy cardigan, shapeless above-the-knee shift” and, get this, “‘demure’ makeup.”
If Harris is brat, Walz’s inextricable midwesterness, dad vibes and quaint style is so demure. And clearly, the people are starting to think so, too. One of the top comments under Walz’ latest TikTok (yes, he recently joined) says, “respecting our neighbor’s choices . . . very demure, very mindful, very considerate.”
It’s no surprise the Harris-Walz camo hat — which drew comparisons to Chappel Roan’s camo hat merch — sold out in 30 minutes. The demure trend tells us people want demurity, leaders and celebrities that are honest and authentic, that earned their spot instead of being born into it. As brat warns us, internet lingo and fun trends never stay on the internet — they become marketing buzzwords, a cycle demure is both reacting against and born from. The only question is: will the trend resist brat’s marketization or will this thirst for authenticity be used as a campaign turned back against us?
