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The beauty influencer behind TikTok's 'modest' trend has revealed she can afford to transition thanks to the success of her videos.
Jools Lebron, who identifies as a transgender woman, shared a satirical clip about why women should present themselves conservatively in the workplace, recommending that employees opt for looks that are “modest, modest and respectful.” The video now has nearly 3 million likes.
“You see how I put my makeup on to go to work? Very modest. Very conscious,” Lebron said in the video. “I don’t come to work with a green crease. I don’t look like a clown when I go to work. I don’t do too much. I’m very conscious while I’m at work. You see how I look very presentable? The way I come to the interview is the way I come to work.”
Encouraging her followers to post their own content on TikTok, the creator said in a post this week: “One day, I was playing cashier and making videos on my break, and now I’m flying across countries to host events, and I’ll be able to fund the rest of my transition.”
Through tears, she added: “I finally said it without crying.”
The “modest” trend has exploded on TikTok over the past week, with over 32,000 videos now using the audio from Lebron’s original post to create their own content.
“A lot of you girls go to interviews looking like Marge Simpson and go to work looking like Patty and Selma,” LeBron says in the short video that has brought him fame and fortune.
“I’m not demure. I’m very modest. I’m very conscious. See my shirt? Just a little bit of chee chee, not my cho cho. Keep in mind why they hired you.”
“Here's your dose of reality, diva,” he added. “What do you want me to name it?”
When the video went viral, Lebron began creating more content revolving around what it means to be “modest,” creating satirical videos about how to be modest in different situations.
From thanking her hotel staff “demurely” in one video to “enjoying her midnight snacks” with great “demureness” and “conscientiousness” in another, the content creator has turned the word “demure” into her entire brand.
Thanks to Lebron, internet users around the world have expanded the meaning of the word by placing it in entirely new contexts, such as eating donuts and buying groceries. He now has 1.5 million followers on TikTok and close to 100 million likes on the videos on his profile.
The “modest” joke seems to poke fun at influencer trends like the “clean girl” aesthetic, which focuses on minimalism and self-imposed elegance. The “modest” trend, then, has been interpreted as the antithesis of Charli XCX’s “bratty girl” mentality, as the latter prefers to be brazen and bold.
It’s no surprise that “modest” has become a buzzword on TikTok and X/Twitter.
“I can always tell when there’s a new buzzword on TikTok because I saw 73 tweets with the word ‘modesty’ today,” one person said. wrote on the platform, while another joked:“Summer snotty, autumn demure.”
Now, the word “demure” has become so popular that Lebron claimed she was “demure” in public, noting that fans have come up to her and recognized her in person.
In another TikTok post, she reflected on how she had simply “made a dumb video” and it “changed” her life completely.
