If millennials and generation Z share many values, on social networks they engage in a fierce cultural rivalry: music, language, emojis used, everything goes. “They say you can tell a millennial by the way they dress. Skinny jeans, ankle boots and a tucked-in top are surefire clues that someone was born between 1981 and 1996.quips the New York Times.
Certain Generation Y trends have recently made a comeback, but online, Internet users all seem to agree that one sign is truly distinctive of this generation born before the internet: the way of putting on makeup and more particularly, the very strong black eyeliner.
A story that is not from yesterday
Made popular by millennial celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande, this style gained widespread popularity in the 2010s before giving way to a more natural look, which Gen Zers will call the “clean girl aesthetic”, clean and minimalist.
A fact that Erica Taylor, professional makeup artist, confirms. However, she also describes this technique as a timeless trend that has spanned decades, “from Cleopatra to Audrey Hepburn, including Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez”. For the author Zahra Hankir, who wrote the book Eyeliner: a cultural historyit’s a very telling example of how quickly beauty trends become generational markers.
According to her, differences in perceptions regarding eyeliner have existed for a long time in different regions and at different times. For example, in the Middle East and North Africa, kohl has been used for hundreds of years. Young urban women will instead turn to Western formulas, which are more liquid and found in supermarkets, while older generations in rural areas stick to using the traditional version.
This online discord was started by Ilinca Sipos, a 29-year-old content creator, who had posted a video of herself on TikTok asking her 22-year-old little sister if people could guess that she was seven years older. For the youngest and thousands of Internet users, the answer was very clear: this line of thick eyeliner pointing upwards immediately betrayed her. The young woman affirmed that she would continue to wear makeup like this, indicating that it was a “iconic look”. You have been warned.
