bare minimum and chapstick and mascara twitter

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The depressing feud between ‘bare minimum’ and ‘chapstick and mascara’ Twitter

The terms mock women for having depressingly low standards.

Photo of Tiffany Kelly 

Tiffany Kelly

Internet Culture

Posted on Nov 29, 2017   Updated on May 22, 2021, 9:36 am CDT

There are a couple of new terms circulating on Twitter dot com that you may have noticed: “bare minimum Twitter ” and “chapstick and mascara Twitter.” What do these mean? Are they basically the same thing? Is one related to the other? We looked into the terms, and it’s all terrible. Really, just leave now. You don’t want to know about Twitter feuds that critique women with depressingly low standards for their partners. Oh, wait, you do? OK, fine. Here’s what it’s all about.

Bare minimum Twitter

“Bare minimum Twitter” is people who congratulate men for doing the bare minimum as a decent human being/partner. An easy example of this is the people who praised the man who talked about loving his curvy wife on Instagram. The critics of “bare minimum Twitter” think that men should not receive accolades for simply existing. We should (rightly) have higher standards, they say.

Here are some other good explanations of the term,:

https://twitter.com/Abdalazizawill/status/935407051974602757

https://twitter.com/TheQueenBLife/status/934532295062679559

Chapstick and mascara Twitter

In the last week, a couple of viral tweets used the term “chapstick and mascara Twitter.”

https://twitter.com/cakefacedcutie/status/934616917389795329

Chapstick and mascara Twitter is very similar to bare minimum Twitter. The term is referring to those women who claim to not need to wear makeup and just walk out of the house with some chapstick and a little mascara—and these women also bash on those who love to wear makeup. The term chapstick and mascara Twitter is pointing a finger at these women and telling them to stop judging women who choose to wear makeup.

https://twitter.com/ESHAXQ/status/844416396348051456

https://twitter.com/tashawashaaa/status/835185674642935808

People have been using the term chapstick and mascara Twitter since last year, but it didn’t really take off on a wide scale until this past week, when people used it to call out women who excuse bad behavior from men. And the reactions to the term have been great.

https://twitter.com/ThatsSondrea/status/935332944536891392

https://twitter.com/davcha8/status/935171627272335360

Some people are now using the term interchangeably with bare minimum to identify people who praise men for treating women with an ounce of respect.

https://twitter.com/C4554NDRA/status/935069632402038784

The term is also another way of calling a woman basic.

https://twitter.com/loalexandriaaaa/status/935042501353750529

What’s the difference?

There is a lot of confusion, though, about the terms. Can you be a part of both bare minimum and chapstick and mascara Twitter? It seems like you can, although it’s probably not a good thing if you identify strongly with these groups.

https://twitter.com/hciwtfel/status/935523884962648064

Yes, you can be a person who uses minimal makeup AND has high standards for the men in your life. You can also be a person who loves makeup and has low standards for men. But these terms are referring to a small subset of women who are fine with minimal everything, from makeup to positive treatment from men.

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*First Published: Nov 29, 2017, 12:52 pm CST

Tiffany Kelly

Tiffany Kelly is the culture editor at Daily Dot. Previously, she worked at Ars Technica and Wired. Her writing has appeared in several other print and online publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Popular Mechanics, and GQ.

Tiffany Kelly