Written by AllDolledUp

Disclaimer: Before we dive into this blog post, I'd like to emphasize that this post addresses sensitive issues regarding racism, colorism, and practices that perpetuate harmful racial stereotypes about people of color.

This topic and post are very necessary in the digital age, when teenagers and adults who are not people of color use digital blackface as a form of clickbait, and to garner attention on social media. This post will cover these issues and address how members of the Stardoll community can differentiate between digital blackface and playing dress up.

I am a university student that has spent a considerable amount of time researching social conflicts, racism, regimes, political and cultural history, genocide, diasporia and exile of peoples in times of great crisis. Educating ourselves is crucial, especially now amidst a global pandemic. I hope that the knowledge I share is taken with great consideration and sensitivity.

Let's kick this post off with relevant terms and their definitions.

 

Blackface is defined as the makeup used by a non-Black performer playing a Black role. This kind of makeup is portrayed with a brown or black pigmented color smeared on the face, and leaving the area around the mouth exposed with the color of flesh to emphasize exagerated lips.

The contrast this makeup creates is meant to look clownish and dehuminize black people and in result enhancing the white identity's own virtues. Blackface will always be linked to racism, and minstrel shows.

The second a non-black person wears blackface, they are objectively regarded as racist. Racism itself is described as a system that enables disadvantages to people of color due to race. When you wear blackface, you are making an insensitve choice that objectively mocks and perpetuates harmful stereotypes about black people. 

Blackface in the 19th and 20th century was used to literally get cheap laughs, and mock the black features as well as the diminish the black identity to racial stereotypes such as lazy, hypersexual, deviant, and dumb criminals. This is linked to how after slavery was abolished in the United States, Southern states began practices of mass incarceration of black people for petty crimes in order to get free labor and stabilize ther economy after the Civil War and abolishment of slavery affected the system's economic stability. This is what racism is: a system that puts people of color at a disadvantage and oppresses them.

RACIST FACE STEREOTYPES include Arabface, yellowface, blackface, brownface, Jjewface, and redface. In the Western World, racist face stereotypes have been used to enhance the white identity, by mocking marginalized POC. These stereotypes reduce marginalized people of color to superficial, inaccurate, and exaggerated depictions that have profoundly affected how we perceive one another, how we relate to one another, and how we value ourselves. Racist facial stereotypes are dangerouns due to how they are historically linked to social conditioning and propaganda campaigns that eventually lead to genocides, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing.

Examples include: Nazism and anti-semitism of Jews, that also exagerated and destroyed the Jewish identity with propaganda that dehumanized Jewish people. Indigenous people and others have historically dealt with stereotypes that diminished their humanity and erased their history, with slurs such as "savage" in order for imperialists to try and justify colonization and genocide. The same patterns show up in the dehuminization of Western people by terrorist organizations and authoriterian regimes who aim to justify anti-American, anti-European, anti-capitalist agendas. Unfortunately, blackface is used in the Eastern World in the present day as well. In the Western World, there has been a rise in anti-Asian propaganda and hate crimes against Asian people all over the world due to the global pandemic. These are some of the reasons that using harmful stereotypes destroys the identities of people of color and leads to social conflict.

"Arabface"

Earlier this year, a Sicilian ceramic head vase (traditionally depicting Moors, but in this case it was white) was released in StarPlaza, and then removed by Stardoll staff, when they were alerted by members that this traditional Italian piece of "art" is regarded as offensive by members from the Arabic community due to its stereotypical depiction of a Moor, or alleged Arabface decorated with accesories that may be seen as historically significant to some, and downright inaccurate to those offended. Stardoll staff understood the issue and removed this problematic decor item. Conclusion: It's not up to people who are not part of a targeted marginalized group to decide what is offensive and what is or isn't racist. 

"Performative activism" is a pejorative term referring to activism done to increase one's social capital rather than because of one's devotion to a cause. It is often associated with surface-level activism, referred to as "slacktivism."

"Virtue Signaling" Sometimes used disparagingly. The sharing of one's point of view on a social or political issue, often on social media, in order to garner praise or acknowledgment of one’s righteousness from others who share that point of view, or to passively rebuke those who do not: The virtue signaling of solidarity with the victims can be a comforting affirmation of community. But outraged virtue signaling sometimes comes across as contrived.

 DIGITAL BLACKFACE:  refers to white people using GIFs, memes, emoji, and other images of black people to express various emotional reactions online. (This is not different from real-life blackface, which is used to mock and imitate black people.) 

Example of Instagram face  (Kylie Jenner cult following)

"The gradual emergence, among professionally beautiful women, of a single, cyborgian face. It’s a young face, of course, with poreless skin and plump, high cheekbones. It has catlike eyes and long, cartoonish lashes; it has a small, neat nose and full, lush lips. It looks at you coyly but blankly..." and often, it features dark, tan or unrealistic skintone to enhance the contrast of the features. From the imitation of large full lips of black women, melanin enhancers, Eastern-inspired eyes, strong drag queen or Eastern thick influenced eyebrows and high cheekbones all finished off with a wig, contour, and highlight. 

 

How is this different from wearing a racially stereotypical face? On Stardoll, we play with dolls, and it is safe to say that most young members are not intentionally trying to perform black face when they are wearing Instagram face, because this has been equated as a new beauty standard on social media. However, lines are crossed when you intentionally make your skin darker, to the point, you no longer are a white or light skin person and become an image of something regarded as exotic and use it for profit and attention. This is wrong. My advice? Don't follow this "trend." Dare to be unique.

Dolls in general have historically been linked to twisted metrics on standards of beauty, and this brings up issues of other kinds. I personally think that children and adults should be allowed to play with any kind of doll of any kind of skin color as long as its not a racially stereotypical face as discused earlier. If we promote that all skin colors are beautiful, in a respectful, healthy, and most of all, accurate manner, then you won't be offending anyone.

Is pretending to be black online creepy? Of course it is! Catfishing is creepy, and so is blackface. Do I wish people tried to embrace their real ethnicities online and in the digital spaces we are often in? Yes! I have an Afro-Latina background in real life, and proudly recreated my doll to reflect this and who I am. Do I think everyone should do this? That is not up to me to decide. There are people who come here to be creative, and to be something, or someone else: this website is home to a big LGBTQ+ community. Dolls are played by girls AND boys. We can't assume ethnic background, gender, or sexual oriantion of others, but that should be more of a reason to not pretend or claim to be a race you aren't for 'clout' or likes. Be culturally aware, and sensitive to issues. Educate yourselves!

If you make your doll inspired by a celebrity, you aren't trying to harm anyone. However, you must think before doing this and try to be sensitive regarding this kind of behavior.

For as long as I've been a Stardoll member, I've witnessed appropriation and digital blackface used by trolls, bullies, rulebreakers, and misguided people. Some of you may even know what I am referring to. Making a doll pitch black, giving it a twisted, clownish smile, and unruly hair and proceeding to mock black people while trolling members is very disturbing behavior that is unacceptable.

Furthermore, there are many misguided individuals on social media and on Stardoll whom have used Black Lives Matter and racism as a way to elevate their status, win contests, gain profit from designs, and in the process paint their real face or doll's face brown or black. Please read the following words very carefully:

IT IS WRONG TO PAINT YOUR DOLL OR FACE BLACK / BROWN, AND MAKING YOURSELF DARKER IS NOT HOW YOU SHOW SUPPORT TO PEOPLE OF COLOR.

This behavior has been historically called blackface and doing it digitally contributes to mocking people of color everywhere and diminishing them to inaccurate stereotypes.

Examples of this behavior on social media:

- Influencers painting themselves black during the rise of BLM protests,

- White teenagers performing "blaccents" and displaying "ghetto" or "gang" behaviour on Tiktok to look "cool," get laughs, attention, followers and likes. 

- "Instagram Face" and digital blackface (injecting lips or face, and melanin injection to skin to look ethnically ambiguous or black, in order to get more likes on social networks, wearing wigs, and enhancing face with edits and filters to make the face look ethnically exotic for financial gain and attention).

As for Stardoll members whom paint themselves black, and make their dolls darker to "show support:" PLEASE STOP DOING THAT.

The only correct answer to being an ally is to listen to marginalized people, respect their rights and wishes, and to educate yourselves and recognize how you may contribute to racism. Donations, petitions, and protests are all tools used by activists to raise awareness and fight for change, but change must also begin with every individual by seeking to change their own implicit biases and educate themselves on these very sensitive topics.

PLEASE CHECK OUT MY MY ALLYSHIP POST AND MY PETITIONS AND EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES BLOG POST!

Educational Articles + Video titles to search for relating to the topics discussed in this post: