This week on Eyes on Social Media, I discuss the role that YouTube and TikTok play in influencing young consumers to buy makeup and my own personal experiences of being influenced by the YouTube Beauty Community
Brands have been using influencers to get the word out there about their products for decades. However, in the last 15 years, the methods have changed drastically. With the rise of video platforms like YouTube and TikTok, in the beauty industry makeup tutorials and reviews are how brands are pushing their products.
Starting in the early 2010s, the beauty community on YouTube began to rise drastically with channels like NikkieTutorials, Michelle Phan, and later on Jeffree Star and James Charles. The focus of these channels was to provide those who were just getting started in makeup easy to follow tutorials that they can actually see and mimic what they’re doing. Through these tutorials, people were seeing these products and purchasing them to do the same looks. On top of this, these YouTubers also post reviews of certain products, either by buying them with their own money (and making sure the audience knows that at least five times during the video) or by reviewing products received in a PR package from large brands like Urban Decay, Elf, Too Faced, etc.
This is where my part of the story comes in. I loved makeup since middle school. I started wearing makeup in eighth grade and the obsession continued throughout high school even to this current day. What started as learning how to do my makeup with my drugstore products turned into amassing a collection of palettes from luxury brands with the money I saved from birthdays and Christmases. The reason for this: the YouTubers I was watching on a daily basis. Before I bought any makeup I had to watch at least three reviews from NikkieTutorials and Jeffree Star so I knew what I was getting into on a daily basis.
I was not the only young person influenced to buy expensive makeup, this phenomenon continues to this day with the rise of TikTok influencers. The content is similar, with short form tutorials, reviews, and get ready with me videos that mention these products. TikTokers like Mikayla Noguiera, and Darcy Mc Queen have amassed millions of followers in the last few years and their opinions on products have influence. Videos on TikTok are seeing the rise of the skincare brand Drunk Elephant for example, with 13 year olds buying these expensive products because they saw it on TikTok, just how I “absolutely needed” the Urban Decay Naked 3 eyeshadow palette that I saw in a YouTube video.
No matter how much changes in the world of makeup, one thing will stay the same: there will always be a new generation of influencers and influenced.
Eyes on Social Media 