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If you are one of those who live chronically online, you may have witnessed through the screen the rise of a new aesthetic known as the ‘demure’ trend. A fashion that evokes a moderate and calm lifestyle, which has now also been unlocked in the form of food choices. In a specific way of eating or behaving in restaurants.
The end of summer 2024 is being BRAT, but also demure. A term popularized by trans influencer Jools Lebron, ironically, when she sat in her car to declare that we should all aspire to be demure. ‘Demure’ is whatever that means to you. It’s being conscious and considerate of the people around you, but also of yourself and how you present yourself to the world,’ Lebron says of this new digital religion that parodies the archetype of the traditional demure woman who is demure and restrained in her actions and decisions.
A sarcastic archetype
Lebron herself says it’s about skipping the wings after work and going for a salad, but I don’t think salad and mindfulness here explicitly mean dieting, just being ‘just enough’.
The rest of the Internet has also echoed the trend with videos reinterpreting this way of eating or behaving at the table, which have been simultaneously archived on the web through the hashtag #demurefood.
Even stardom personalities such as Jennifer Lopez, with her way of drinking the cocktail of her brand Delola, have joined this movement that most of the users have versioned in a ‘memeifying’ key. All of them show very different ways of being ‘demure’ in relation to food, such as tutorials on how to spread butter on toast or delicately cut slices of chocolate cake.
In this sense, Tiktok Tradwives like Nara Smith have become clear ‘demure’ reference types, speaking softly, taking up as little space as possible while making adorable handmade treats for their children. ‘I sent my kids to school this week with a bunch of Beaver Nuggets in their lunch that I bought at the Texas roadside stop and demure death trap, Buc-ee’s.’
