not very demure of you

- Do you see how I sit down to film a YouTube video so that you understand why everyone is saying demure when we were supposed to be having a brat summer? Very mindful of me. Very cutesy. (shades clacking) That's it, that's my intro. (logo popping) Hey, everybody, you're watching Swell Entertainment, and today, we are talking about demure, mindful, cutesy, Jools, and Selena, and a couple of other things. (laughs) We're gonna talk about a couple of things, we're gonna talk about demure as a trend, as a term, being demure, because this is a trend currently, it is a state of being. It's still a brat summer, but I am not opposed to a demure summer at the same time, just because, well, demure autumn is where people were kind of moving in, but it's 102 out here, so like, I... Still summer. The word demure, the trend on TikTok, how quickly it's spread, the virality of, you know, doing well on TikTok. Who owns words? (palms clapping) We're gonna talk about that. Trendification of just words and things like that, and then, you know, the nature of TikTok fame, and things like that as well. We're gonna talk about, you know, being mindful and cutesy. I personally, as someone who is constantly floored by the things that people post online with their whole faces in it, I love the being demure, being mindful trend, okay. Because I could argue, I'm barely demure, okay, I'm a chaotic goblin lady. I can play demure on TV, but I wouldn't say that, in my existence, I am demure. But being mindful? I'm all about that, okay? Have some perspective, some self preservation, if you will. I'm not even really aware of Mercury Retrograde, but I've been told that it's happening right now, and that everyone, probably, when this comes out, who knows when it'll be, if it'll be done or not, I think it's three weeks long, I'm not certain, but apparently everyone's just saying things because Mercury Retrograde is like making them say things, and then that's why everyone's out of pocket right now. So, a trend that makes you think before you post? I love it. What does demure mean? Because so many people don't know, apparently, which is very funny to me. Demure: reserved, modest and shy. Typically used of a woman. Now, anyone can beat demure, all right? You can be demure, I can be demure, Hermes, my producer, can be demure. All right? He's not. He is a psychopath wanted in several jurisdictions, but he can play demure from time to time for the sake of this video. I think the timing of this also kind of helped with this popping off as well, it's brat summer currently, Charli XCX's brat, very wild-child, club brat fun. Love it. Okay. The essence of brat summer, if you will. So then to halt it with demure and mindful summer/autumn? (fingers snapping) (hand thudding) Hard stuff. I love when TikTok makes it to mainstream. I'm sorry, it's so stupid. (laughs) NBC News, "Why is everyone on TikTok suddenly obsessed with demure? A very mindful explainer of the trend." This is from Kalhan Rosenblatt. "On TikTok, many people are being very mindful of their actions, they're acting very cutesy. In fact, you could say they're very demure, those three phrases, but demure specifically, have consumed the platform in recent weeks after a creator who goes by Jools Lebron began using them this month to explain to viewers how she handles a wide variety of daily situations, from being very mindful when she's on vacation, to being very demure while waiting to board a plane. It's unclear how many followers, Jools Lebron, who also goes by @joolieannie, had gained since the trend went viral. She has 1.3 million followers on TikTok, but 50,000 posts on the platform have used the term demure." I said to Anarchy and Chris, who are barely on TikTok ever, I'm like, "Oh, it's giving very demure, very mindful." And they were like, "Are you having a stroke? What do you mean?" And then someone commented it on one of Chris's posts, and they were like, "Oh my God, it's not just you, like this is an actual trend of people saying demure and mindful." I was like, "Yeah!" They give me a hard time about never logging off, which, fair, but it is my job. This video from Jools is the first one I saw, and I was immediately captivated by the way that she just speaks. Sometimes like a word is just a word, but like the cadence. Like, Oratrice Mechanique d'Analyse Cardinale? I butchered that, (tense music) - [Speaker] According to the judgment of the Oratrice Mechanique d'Analyse Cardinale. We now turn to the Oratrice Mechanique d'Analyse Cardinale. - The way people were saying it, or like dancing to it, or the way it's pronounced in the game or whatever, don't ask me questions. (giggles) I have no idea what any of those words mean together in the context of the game, or whatever the heck it is, okay? But I am obsessed with the way that it's said. There was another one, God, I think there's a SpongeBob clip with the way that SpongeBob says balsamic. - [Cook] Garlic. - [Elmo] Onions, garlic, balsamic vinegar. - [Cook] Tomato paste. - [Elmo] That's a big word for Elmo. - There's like just the ways that certain things get said that becomes trends just by the way that they are said, and Jools says it in a way, that like, just the delivery from Jools is just phenomenal. Okay, I'm just gonna play the video. - See how I come to work? Very demure. I don't wear too much makeup. I don't come showing up with wing liner and lashes. I do a little hair oil on the wig, I do a little tinted moisturizer, I do a little brow gel. Very considerate, very approachable, very demure. - That was the first one I saw, and I don't know if this was the first time that Jools had said the word demure, but this is probably the biggest video that I would say that people saw from Jools. And then just kind of kept it going, where she would explain, very demure, very mindful. Like, see how I eat my salad? Very demure. See how I do this? Very mindful, very demure. Do you see how I get ready for work? I'm very demuretsy. See, I'm very cutesy, okay? Like combining, but I'm very demure, I'm very cutesy, I combine them, very demuretsy. Yes, poking fun at it, but also still keeping the tone of demure and mindful. I filmed my own demure and mindful video when I was in Vegas. - Do you see how to go and get breakfast. In the hotel, I put a sweater over my sleep t-shirt so you can't tell I'm not wearing a bra. Very demure, very mindful. Very cutesy with it. I'm gonna go find some avocado toast, because I'm very demure. - And there's been a lot of videos like that, where people are like, "Do you see (laughs) how I have my boyfriend roll my joints, because I'm very demure?" Like, it's things like that. And then people were like, "Wait, I thought we were having a brat summer. What do you mean? Why is everyone saying demure? I thought we were having a brat summer." Once the trend itself kind of starts bleeding into another trend, i.e., brat summer, okay, yes, it's because this is like a hard stop compared to a brat summer. If you want an understanding of brat, Nicole did a great video. Did Nicole not do brat summer? No, she did. She did. She had to of. She did, okay. "Chronically Online Girl Explains Charli XCX Brat Lore." Okay, good, Nicole did a brat video. I was like, wait a minute. (laughs) Did I dream this up? William, keep this in so they know I just spiraled for a second. Sorry, Nicole, I was making up a video for you for a second, and then you did make one. Okay, good. Sorry, that was not very demure of me. (chuckles) Selena has deleted her account at this point, I think because of the backlash. I don't know the full extent, so I can't get all of the videos, some of the videos have been re-uploaded. But I remember seeing the first one, and I honestly scrolled past it, 'cause I was like, "Okay, I'm not doing this. I don't wanna do this." Because I wasn't gonna make a video on the demure trend, until, obviously, all this was coming out, everyone was like, I had my dad text me, "Why are people saying things are demure on TikTok? What is going on?" Usually, once it bleeds into my father, I have no choice but to talk about a trend. (laughs) I wanna mention Devin, because hal.baddie, Devin Halbal, has also made a reference to like being demure, being cutesy, being a doll, et cetera. - I'm demure. You're undemure. - It's interesting, because some people like, I don't even think Devin has made any comments or references to like being the first to say demure or anything like that. And again, the first to say demure is an insane flippant sentence, because it's a goddamn word, but it's like making it a part of your brand, making it a reference to your brand. Again, we're gonna talk about a couple of different things here. But Devin I don't think has, she's just kind of like once again re-brought it up into her content again, and not been like, "Oh, I was the first demure." And then people in Devin's comments are like, "The original demure doll." "Everyone, this is where demure come from, the word demure that has that quality." "The OG demure queen." But I don't think she herself has been saying anything about being the first, the way that I believe Selena has. Amara commented on Jools post, "I learned demure from Devin Halbal. Baddie, I have no idea who Selena is." And Jools replied, "Devin reaching out and giving me nothing but love was mindful." But I wanted to bring up Devin, because I didn't wanna erase her from this conversation, because Devin is just kind of like traveling the world, and being like, "I'm very demure," and then like having whole like fan meetups in other countries while all this is going on on TikTok, and I just find that a little funny, and so I wanted to bring it up. - I could have hit this person up directly, but at the same time, this person is benefiting from it, and it's not necessarily that I would want this person to take the videos down, like that's not even like where I'm going with this. The whole demure trend is literally something that I made back in 2020, 2021. I'm somebody who reads along. So, the word demure pops up in a lot of my literature, and there was this whole thing about just like, there was this funny trend about like, at the time, about being super petite. And I was like, "Oh my God, that's so demure." So, there was one particular video that went really super viral, this is back when I had my old account, I had 2.1 million followers, so a lot of my videos and audios would go viral regularly. One of the first demure videos is about me ordering a salad with a Diet Coke, and how, to me, how demure, and petite, and tiny I am, that the wind would blow me away because I ordered a salad and a Diet Coke. It would've been nice even if it was just one video where somebody would be like, "Hey, like you know, Selena did this trend back in the day." Like, you know, I appreciate and love, and just show me some love, 'cause I show everybody that I have in my own following thing love." - And all of Selena's like main profiles have been deleted from TikTok, including the video, so it was a lot of references. But basically, Selena posted a video where she said, "I would've liked some credit, because I am the first one that said demure on here back in 2020-2021." And then posted a video where it was, an older video where it's like, "See how I'm so demure and petite? I only eat Greek salads," and basically making demure, as in, also being small, basically. Again, it's a word that existed, it doesn't, "I used it first." Like it, it's kind of like, let me put it this way. All of my reviews, like my actual product reviews, and event reviews and such, fall under my playlist, because it's a type of content that I make called my "I Tried It So You Don't Have To" series. Now, imagine if I started saying that I was the only one that could do "I Tried it So You Don't Have To." In fact, I remember in 2019, 2018, when I first started making videos a little more consistently, but before my channel took off, my friend messaged me, and she was like, "Oh my god, Gabby Hannah stole your video concept." She said like, "I tried eating keto for seven days" or something, "So you don't have to." Like, this was back forever ago, and I was like, "And?" (laughs) Like, what do you mean? People did it before me, they're gonna do it after me. Like, that's crazy, it's just the style of content that I do. I don't even really call it that anymore, like, in the video, because it's just lengthy. And again, same thing with demure. Like, I'm sure I've said the word demure at some point online in the internet. If I got up here and was like, "Actually I am the first person to say demure online," that would be... You guys would be like, "Oh, she's lost the plot. She's going crazy." Not very mindful, not very cutesy. I get it, if you say something, and someone does it better, then yes, that is insulting, that hurts. Insulting is not the word, sorry. That is, I guess, hurtful. There's things where it's like you encourage your friend to like something like, hey, I'm sure a bunch of people are feeling this, where you've been encouraging your friends to look at Chappell Roan, okay, or listen to her music for a few years now, and then suddenly after Coachella, they're like, "Oh my God, have you heard Chappell Roan?" Like, it's like, "Yeah. (giggles) So have you, because I told you about it. I paged you Pink Pony Club." (giggles) Like, it's the same concept essentially, where it's like, yes, I would like credit for going first, but also, finding music existing, as a person, being a fan of something, saying a word, it is just kind of a state of being, and not really something that you can kind of like, you can't trademark saying something first necessarily. And this is what we call foreshadowing. Especially a word that already existed, you know, that has been used on the internet. There's definitely people on TikTok that have said the word demure. I know there's a lot of these women on TikTok that speak about hypergamy, or like dating and things like that. I am 100% certain that at least a handful of them have referenced being demure on dates, or demure on social media, so that you can get a high value man or something. I am certain of that. So, again, fuck, it's a word. (giggles) I'm trying to be demure, I'm trying to be mindful, but like it's so ridiculous. And someone in the comment section said, "Never heard of it before Jools, so. And ain't about who did it first, it's about who did the best. The energy is so different between demure, petite, and demure, mindful. I don't know." Which I do agree, because it's like demure and mindful, like be aware of how you present yourself. Demure and petite, be aware of how you are, basically, in existence. Someone in the comment section said, "She did for me, like, Selena was the one who I learned the word from, but it didn't stick at all, and that was years ago." You try and make fetch happen, but it's not gonna happen, so you give up using fetch, and then someone finds your videos, and they're like, "Wait, I kind of like that. Fetch." And they don't tag you. Because why would they think that you came up with the word? You know, they just heard you saying it one time, or something, you know? And again, you didn't come up with demure. Which I think is why Selena ended up deleting her page. On one of Jools's videos. Someone commented, oh, Selena went live, and people were just, you know, replying with tomatoes in the comment sections and things like that, trying to explain it. Some people were probably saying demure in reference to Selena before this, but again, it's like, there's a trend cycle as well. And it's like, if you were not at the top of the trend cycle when it's coming back around, then you're gonna be moved out, you know? And type of things. And when it comes to something like a dance credit, like I fully believe like if you're gonna do like a dance, like, yes, credit, the person who created the dance. Fully, okay? But this is a fucking word. Selena in the video herself even says like, "I could have messaged this person directly, but they're benefiting from it, so I'm posting it publicly." That's a choice. When it comes to like someone hurting you, your side of the story, I don't think people are owed privacy in that regards. Like, "Oh, you should have come to me privately." I think if... No, I take that back, because I do think there are instances where you should reach out to them privately. However, this is not serious, this is not life or death. In my opinion, the way you explained this, Selena, based on this video, I feel like you were just trying to hurt Jools' pocket. That is how I interpreted that. Selena's old account had gotten deleted, okay, for whatever reason, I don't know why, not the current one where she posted these videos, but another, her original account where the original demure video apparently was. And it's one of those things where it's like, yes, forever ago, your audio, doing well, things like that. Audios come and go, if someone uses your audio now, and then it becomes a trend, and it's like it kind of gets watered down, or like, oh, they reused your sound, things like that, it's kind of a gray area. But again, it's a fucking word. You didn't make up the word demure, because I read a lot, I'm sorry it's crazy. (laughs) That's such a lot. And you said so yourself in this video like, "Oh, I'm an influencer, I'm gonna influence people." I've talked about this previously, where it's like influencers are mad that they've influenced people, and they especially get mad when they've influenced other influencers, whether credited or not, or it's like been inspired by them or things like that. Or there's just where, you know, people have common life experiences, and they have common things. Like, dolls saying demure is not new. It's something that always floors me, because it's like, if you are an original, again, if you're comfortable in yourself, things like this bother you a lot less. Yes, it sucks when something that you believe that you came up with, someone else did, however, okay, and it performs better? Sure, that sucks. But the answer is to then do something else. Keep it pushing. Do something more demure and mindful. The answer is not to go and do a "woe is me" calling out this person for not crediting me for saying a word. Forget being demure and mindful, I don't think that's a good business move as an influencer or content creator. Like, for example, there is a creator that, I'm not gonna bring up who this person is, they have an editing style that is very cool, okay, for short form, and they post very infrequently though. So like, their videos do very well, but they're not constantly in people's awareness, so like, the editing style is more recognizable than they are as a person, okay? And so they got onto this conversation with a couple people I know, and they were like, "Oh my God, so and so posted, stole my idea, they copied me, I need to call them out." And they were like, "You have a posted in three months." No one even knows that that was your style, they're not copying you, they just edited the video in a similar way. It's like, why would anyone think that they were copying you? Because there's nothing to copy currently. Like it's like, oh yeah, maybe they saw that and they were inspired by it, but also you don't own an editing style at the same time. You know? It's things like that. Again, you can't be mad that you influenced someone, and then they do it, you know? It's like being creative, being an artist, being an influencer, being a content creator, whatever, you're going to influence people. You can get mad at people feeding it into AI, I'm all for that. If someone comes up to me with an AI bot saying the words demure and mindful, I'm punching it in the face. Or in the screen, whatever the fuck, same thing. Jools got invited to a Patrick Tall launch to do something with Chris Appleton, which is the Kardashians' hair stylist I believe. Off the top of my head, I'm blanking. - You see how I meet Chris Appleton? I'm not like you other girls, I bring the product that I stole from the store. (laughs) (Chris laughing) - Jools posted a video that said, "Make the videos, TikTok has changed my life." And I always talk about this, because I have a lot of people, it's like, "Oh, I don't know where to start with content creation. I don't know what to do. I have all these AI, YouTube automation people in my emails. Which one should I reply to?" None of them. Also, leave me alone. The AI cannot go to an event for me, leave me alone, okay? But I always recommend posting. Like just start posting, posting content. You could follow all of these structures, and rules, and YouTube gurus, which is basically an MLM now, all you want, but just posting and you know, whatever, is gonna be your best bet. And Jools posted this video, which I thought was nice. - Pendeja, maybe you should, maybe you should make the videos. Maybe you should make the videos. Because, one day, I was playing cashier and making videos be on my break, and now I'm flying across country to host events, and I'm gonna be able to finance the rest of my transition. I finally said it without crying. - And I love that. I love that Jools, you know, just from posting TikToks for fun, is now able to finance the rest of her transition. I just, I really think that that's great. And I wanted to add on a nice note, because I think that that's nice. And of course a random man had to come and ruin everything. So, a man named Jefferson Bates in Washington filed a very demure, very mindful trademark, and Jools made a video saying that she was devastated that she didn't trademark fast enough, the video has since been deleted. Trademarks take a long time to go through, it's not something that you file, and then you can just like automatically start being protected by, essentially. This is also why I waited to put this video out a little longer, 'cause I wanted to see how this would play out a little bit. Trademark lawyers, it seems, have spoken with Jools, and are like, "Oh, because there is a very clear first use case here, Jools should be able to get her own rights for 'very demure, very mindful' specifically." Unfortunately, this is something that happens quite a bit on TikTok. This is an ongoing issue, where people are actually just randomly trademarking people's trending audios and things like that on TikTok. I don't know if this is still an issue, but it was about a year or so ago, where a lot of people realized that a lot of their audios had been trademarked by a handful of people. Now, obviously, because we've talked about, you know, first use and things like that here, again, the issue with Selena was that the word demure is what was being discussed. This is the phrase, "very demure, very mindful" in its entirety, all right? So it's the phrase versus the word. Jools did make a follow-up video saying that everything is being handled, so I'm hoping that she is in contact with a good lawyer and can continue to get her bag. Be demure and mindful. I hope this trend persists through the rest of the year, frankly, 'cause some people are not thinking before they post, and you're gonna end up on a watch list, some people. Gosh, anyways, just be demure, be very mindful, be very cutesy with it. And this can be... I am a chaotic goblin lady, but I can play demure and mindful on TV, and that's going to be it. Have you seen Jools' videos? Have you seen Hal Baddie's videos? Did you see Selena's videos? Have you heard just random people in your life being like, "I'm very demure, very mindful." "You're being very demure." Let me know, comment down below. Reminder, I stream on TikTok. Reminder that Swell Entertainment is now available on Spotify, reminder to use code SWELL for 10% off on Gamer Supps. Shout out to my patrons, we are closing down the Patreon. I officially have YouTube membership set up, we have things down below. There's already beef roll over there. You guys should go check that out, and if you'd like to follow me on my other social media, be all up here. (upbeat music) And that's gonna be a hell of a day. Goodbye. Do you see how I sit down to film my YouTube videos on my scheduled filming days? Very demure, very mindful. Very cutesy, very demuretsy. Thank you, Adira, Amy, Andrew, Ayonna, Cameron, Donnie, Elliot, Freya, Jeffrey, Jenny, Literal, Maywest, Michael, Nathan, Oz, Pallas, qtwyeuri, Robert, Tasha, Tenzin, Thomas, Timothy, winters, zwink.