After Khloé Kardashian outed her little sister Kylie Jenner for getting lip injections, mainstream fashion magazines and news outlets praised the 17-year-old's lips by publishing photos and tutorials on how to fake a plumper pout.
The press has treated Jenner's new look as a notable style moment, but labeling the reality star as a trendsetter for having big lips is problematic. The notion perpetuates an unrealistic standard of beauty, which had influenced young girls to take extreme and dangerous measures to copy the reality star's look.
It also highlights what many consider to be a double standard. Derrick Clifton wrote on Mic last month that the public fanfare over Jenner's full lips was the latest example of how women of color are often ignored or even worse -- degraded -- for their natural features, while white women who mimic the features (often with the help of cosmetic surgery) are celebrated. "It seems when black women have features associated with black people, they are called 'less beautiful' or ignored, while white people embodying these same features often receive kudos for pioneering trends," Clifton wrote.
We see this when style experts (ahem, Giuliana Rancic) rave about beauty trends worn by white women, and then throw harsh criticism at black women in similar styles.
Long before everyone was busy trying to "Keep Up with the Kardashians," black women were often ridiculed because of their naturally full lips. Silent films, minstrel shows and mammy caricatures paint a brutally honest picture of the racial stereotypes that existed in America during the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries.
So it's no surprise that as Jenner's lips made headlines, men and women who might have felt otherwise ignored turned to social media to celebrate their natural features. Thus began the #NoKylieJennerChallenge, a hash tag campaign that portrays positive images of people from diverse backgrounds embracing their features, full lips and all.
So, forget the haters and flaunt your full lips!
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