This is James Charles, an instafamous teen who has recently been announced as the first ever CoverBoy.
Although he's only been doing makeup for a couple years, he's insanely good at it. For him, makeup is a form of art- a way for him to express himself- instead of a way to cover one's insecurities. He says in
this article the difficulty he had convincing his parents that he is not transgender, just likes makeup. It's interesting to think about how makeup has been traditionally limited to women, as if it was not allowed for boys, or if they wore makeup it meant they wanted to be a girl. Beauty boys like James are making a huge impact by questioning these gender norms that we take so much for granted. Because really, makeup does not have a gender. Makeup is not a boy or a girl. There is absolutely no reason why boys shouldn't wear makeup and why girls should wear makeup.
I've been thrilled at the emergence of Instagram's "beauty boys" over the past year, and I think James has made a huge breakthrough by branching from social media to advertising for a major beauty company, now in the public eye even outside of the makeup community.
In middle school, I remember girls would always complain and say "Being a girl is so hard, we have to wear makeup and boys don't have to." I always silently disagreed because I thought, it was unfair for boys because they couldn't wear makeup! Now that is changing, and I'm glad. I believe that by neutralizing gendered activities and expectations, we come closer to defeating the damaging pressure for boys to be masculine.
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