Fan Behavior : What That Glamdemon2004 ‘Pharaoh’ Tiktok Got Wrong
I do a big think in this one
Or, how I learned to stop worrying about beauty and start ruminating on beauty instead
This Tiktok, which made the rounds several weeks ago, has re-emerged with a vengeance. Its first go-around on the viral train left it drowning in (frankly) knee-jerk, superficial critique regarding Glamdemon2004’s statements being classist in some way. I didn’t quite comprehend where the classism was, but I knew then that something else about it was tickling me in the wrong way. It’s stuck in my mind since then, and I feel I have finally put this matter to rest in my mind. For now. Here, I finally gather all my thoughts and ruminations for your reading pleasure.
When I first saw the video (and its many responses) scattered throughout my Tiktok ‘For You’ page, I made a quick video response, leaning on my own stream of consciousness to carry me through what I believed at the time to be a piping hot take. Predictably, it received few views and even less commentary, and I left it alone to be buried under my subsequent posts.
Several days ago, I came across yet another Tiktok about Glamdemon2004’s infamous clip, this one staunchly on the defensive side.
The poster, user Snoopdiamond, called to the classism critique a ‘chronically online take’, and focused on the absurdity involved in the opposition’s assertion that calling for people to read a book is classist. The usual ‘libraries exist, poor people can certainly read’ sort of defense. Totally understandable considering how even I, in my disagreement with Glamdemon2004’s video, found that particular gripe a little silly. Either way, the negativity that Glamdemon2004’s video still provoked in me compelled me to reply. As an avid, aggressive Tiktok commenter, I couldn’t help myself. I commented, “that’s not *all* she said.”
Usually when I comment on Tiktoks, I abandon ship immediately. If no other users engage with the comment in question, it’s virtually impossible to track them down— a situation I have embraced wholeheartedly. I appreciate the ephemerality of engagement on that app. This comment was to be no different than my usual one-and-dones, but to my surprise, Snoopdiamond replied, writing: “but basically”.
I took this to mean that because the majority of critique focused on that ‘classist’ element of Glamdemon2004’s statement, it was equally fair to condense what she had said down to that basic thesis. Because it was one of those days, I pressed on, replying with, “there were things to criticize about what she said that had nothing to do w classism but they’re a lot more to do w the context she’s speaking from.”
This elicited a pointed, wry, “Like?”
I could have retreated gracefully at this point, but I kept at it: “It’s far too much for a comment tbh…I think I made a video about it a while ago if you’re curious 🥴but I had a lot of thots about it in general.” I wrote this halfway hoping that an invitation to view my personal content would kill the discourse, but Snoopdiamond surprised me again by asking to be tagged in the video I had made. I pored it over (not for very long, I am impulsive and chaos-seeking at my core) and tagged her, adding the caveat that, “upon rewatching this I think I could elaborate on it more cogently but still”. Here is the video in question:
Snoopdiamond’s reply to my video made the solid point that “it doesn’t matter how others view you it’s about how you view yourself. Like if your looks were taken away what else do you have and what else makes you feel good about yourself? I think her being pretty even adds to that point tbh.”
Because several things can be true at once, I had a good long think before I felt comfortable responding.
There are certainly germs of truth both in Glamdemon2004 and Snoopdiamond’s statements, intended levity or facetiousness notwithstanding. In the world we live in, perhaps too much time is spent worrying about one’s appearance, especially when it comes to women. But this particular element of the argument isn’t news to me, and shouldn’t be for most people. Whether you’ve lived it or read about it, the fact that appearance is culturally assigned outsized importance is undeniable. The concept that one should cultivate other ways of building confidence isn’t news either… I suppose, unless you’ve somehow been beautiful your entire life. I have trouble grasping the idea that it’s even possible to have always been comfortable with how you look, but that’s a difficulty informed by my own experience. That experience is that I have more or less always felt ugly. This belief was partially created and perpetuated by (negative) input from other people and the world at large, but it mixed dangerously with my own organically poor self-esteem to create a life of never feeling like beauty was something worth investing in. It seemed obvious that this wasn’t going to dictate my life’s ‘success’ , though, because the novels and stories I devoured as a child always featured some ugly, bookish protagonist who wins the day through sheer force of will and that special thing they spent all that free time (not ‘wasting time’ being beautiful, I guess) learning about. In that way, the process of growing up ugly can be one of lying in wait. This idea that cultivating the mind is more valuable than cultivating the exterior is one that seems self-evident.
So I made a quick video response to Snoopdiamond’s comment— we came to the easy conclusion that we had both made salient points that didn’t contradict each other in any meaningful way. But then, about three days later, the video re-emerged on Twitter.
It was this moment when I realized that just because what Glamdemon2004 was saying wasn’t new to me didn’t mean it was the thing that bothered me. It was more the fact that she was saying it as if it were news, as someone that (as far as that video is concerned) succeeds at representing every beauty standard I never felt I could. There was a petulant and punitive side of me that lashed out against this, like, how annoying to see a pretty girl criticizing other pretty girls for something ugly girls have known their whole lives! To punish myself for my inability to be a girl supporting girls, I made an attempt to reframe my entire thought experiment.
My initial video response focused on the demonstrable fact that sometimes, for women, their beauty can be the only thing that makes their intelligence worth caring about. This doesn’t make it right, it’s just still something we haven’t completely eradicated from the cultural zeitgeist. In that video, I use the popularity of Glamdemon2004’s video, and her other content, as a perfect example of this: Glamdemon2004 seems perfectly smart, but not every woman can really cultivate that kind of audience with her intelligence alone. A woman’s intelligence or expertise is certainly more easily recognized and appreciated if it is packaged appropriately. Adherence to certain beauty standards is part and parcel (some pun intended) of that packaging. Incapability or lack of desire to do so can sadly result in less attention, for better or for worse. This obviously doesn’t represent every experience, but it’s not something worth ignoring, either.
Two comments I received on that original video were well-intentioned strangers sympathizing with my insecurity and telling me they thought I was pretty. Those people may well have sincerely believed that (thank u, btw) but their feelings, still, are immaterial to my overarching point. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a cute sentiment, but serves no function here: it becomes incredibly bothersome when people use it to deny or ignore the fact that beauty standards exist and are demonstrably shaping who is seen, listened to, and admired. We all ought to know by now how people acquire followings online, and it would be absurd to deny that even in spaces where the visual is less important, the prettiest people still seem to get the most hits. If someone wants to be acknowledged for their intelligence, it can be difficult to achieve that without beauty giving you that extra boost. It’s not impossible to do without, but it certainly helps. That assistance, and the way Glamdemon2004 seemed to avoid recognizing that assistance, may play a part in what was bugging me about her video.
Furthermore, even if one’s goal isn’t to get famous, the pressure to adhere to beauty standards, even in a small way, is potent enough to affect those with no interest in recognition or admiration. It becomes another task we introduce into the tedium of life because of its potential to allow us to move more comfortably in the world. I don’t think it would be entirely far-fetched to say that if we lived in a world free of these standards, far fewer people would feel any obligation to conform, even in the small ways.
Sadly, we live in this world, plagued by incessant demands to alter, remove, pluck, shrink, and grow; all to be deemed acceptable when we walk out the door. For some, the reality may be that the fear of what could happen if they don’t perform beauty is exaggerated— it’s possible that no one cares. However, for others, that fear is not only built by years of abuse but reflects the very real risk that even if they’re just popping out for a coffee or a walk that someone might say something nasty. Are all the people who perform beauty in light of this fear vapid, vain, or stupid?
Beyond that, who is anyone to say that even people who comfortably perform beauty, who luxuriate in it and find joy in the practice, don’t also spend their time doing other things? Every beautiful person I’ve met, whether it was beauty sustained through painstaking work or naturally, did spend the rest of their life doing things that had nothing to do with their appearance. The work they may have put in to truss their exterior appropriately cannot be held as inalienable evidence that they don’t spend their time pursuing other interests.
On that note, the fact that people want to build their confidence by affirming their beauty also cannot be held as evidence of their intelligence or lack thereof. I myself don’t feel the need to build confidence by ‘reading a book’ or ‘spelling Pharaoh’ because those superficial performances of intelligence are what I have had the privilege to have been appreciated for. However, my confidence comes to a grinding halt is where beauty is concerned. While I don’t necessarily feel served by these particular kinds of affirmations, I understand their utility for others.
It felt like Glamdemon2004 was addressing people who seek to build confidence in their appearance, but failed to recognize that the vast majority of those people choose to do so because they barely, if ever, had confidence in that part of themselves anyway. They don’t need to be told to spend time building their confidence in other, more ‘intelligent’ ways because, for the most part, they already have.
Regardless, the more I pored over the video and the responses to it, the less clarity I seemed to have about my own actual opinion of it. I certainly don’t cosign Glamdemon2004’s sentiment the same way others do, but I think the thing to criticize about it lives in such a nuanced gray area that barely any of the dissenting takes I read satisfied me either. So, to be honest, I don’t know how I feel. Negative, definitely, but that might be because I’m not the intended audience. I don’t tell myself I’m hot, that’s my issue, so maybe that’s why I felt so impotently incapable of understanding what Glamdemon2004 was trying to say. I don’t harbor any bad blood towards her, so I myself am still somewhat in the process of identifying why this video in particular struck me like it did. Its lasting power in the various internet realms I inhabit absolutely helped to those ends, but even so— it sparked so many discussions and critique that there must be something in there we’ve all missed that gives it that ‘spicy take’ quality that fuels us to comment.
Either way, it really made me do a big think and for that I must thank both Glamdemon2004 and Snoopdiamond— the former for sparking the discourse, and the latter for asking me all the right questions.
What do you think? Tweet me @giulia_ak