Beginning of an End
This article concludes the saga of “Little Girls and Retinol: The Anti-Aging Crisis,” performing as a general event connection and summarization of the “Sephora girls” internet sensation.
Sourcing public domain with all rights to the content given to the original creators, let’s get into talking about the differing points of views.
Point of View of the Inflicted: Gen Alpha
Popular TikToker @evenlyngrwmofficalk, is seen in the forefront of the “Gen Alpha Anti-Aging” movement. The videos play out as Evelyn relays her opinions about a topic or tells a story while doing a skincare or makeup routine. Products that appear in her videos, including Glow Recipe and Drunk Elephant, appear a lot in other Gen Alpha “hauls” or “GRWM (Get Ready With Me)” content, as well as the additions of parodic Gen Alpha media.
Evelyn herself doesn’t necessarily make her entire image about anti-aging, but she has definitely morphed into the poster-child of the Sephora girls.
A big topic that is important to mention is internet safety in a space filled with children as young as eight in some cases. Evelyn has recently turned 13, allowing her to freely make content on TikTok without an adult supervisor, but her account is still marked as being managed by an adult, presumably a parent.
Unfortunately, a lot of Gen Alpha creators have the ability to make content in these spaces without proper supervision. TikTok has made it more difficult for search terms like “Gen Alpha” to actually lead people to youth creators, and rather leads searchers to the comedic, parody content instead, but there are always those who slip through the cracks.
Gen Alpha doesn’t know or think they are doing anything inherently wrong. To them they are just reenacting what they are seeing online. However, we as a society need to improve the way the internet is portrayed to underdeveloped children’s minds, and clearly inform these young individuals what is fact from fiction. This leads to the next point of interest.
Point of View of an Outsider: Gen Z and Beyond
Gen Z and generations afterwards have given themselves the responsibility of covering Gen Alpha media, but not in the ways one might hope. Social media has been overwhelmed with content poking fun at so-called Sephora tweens.
Although this content can be funny and lighthearted most of the time, it can get quite grating when the greater issue of internet safety and beauty industry exploitation of Gen Alpha is ignored.
What are we, the more “mature” generations, doing to actually resolve what we clearly see as a beauty epidemic corrupting the youngest minds amongst us? There should be a clear line to divide lighthearted humor from ignoring the real issues.
What can Gen Z and elders do to prevent future generations from experiencing what we are seeing now with Gen Alpha? Perhaps we could alter how the internet is run and how media is portrayed to its viewers.
How can we make these platforms safer for youth consumption and viewership without taking away content meant to be more palatable for older generations? We should also be able to turn away our focus from the viewers itself, and also look at the actions of content providers as well.
These are questions that need to be asked for change to happen, as commercializing the comedic nature of the situation has prevented us from seeing the actual issues.
Epilogue to an Epilogue
On a lighter note, content creator and singer-songwriter, Jared Goldsmith, developed a small internet-musical known as “Sephora Girls”. With just himself as the voices of each character, he wonderfully portrays the more goofy sides of what he thinks being a “Sephora tween” is like. Check out the songs on his TikTok @jaredbgoldsmith, where he also shares the fun interpretations, covers, and faux audition tapes made by his viewers.
The songs are campy and overall a nice addition to the entire charade, a diamond in the rough, if you will.
Trends that older generations see as “too much” have always found their place in history, but these modern fads have social media to further drive misinformation, poor advice, and overall corruption in how the real world is viewed.
Everyone should be able to freely express themselves, at any age, but the line should be drawn when the very basis of humankind is being told that they are not enough, they need to change, but the real change needs to be seen in society.
