Note: This “Moore to the Point” commentary aired on NewsTalkSTL on Wednesday, October 19th. Audio included below.
I’ll confess: I’m not a huge makeup consumer – and the makeup I do wear tends to be garden variety, meaning I can readily pick it up at the grocery store or drug store or Target – wherever I happen to be shopping. So, it’s rare that I find myself shopping at Ulta.
It will likely be even rarer now.
The beauty giant made a seriously bozo marketing move last week, managing to alienate a significant portion of its customer base. You see, the company, whose target audience is obviously women, decided to highlight a podcast episode featuring two biological males made up like women tweeting it with the headline: “Trans Girls Can Do It All!” (Punctuated by the clapping emoji between each word—just so you know How. Much. They. Mean. It!)
Trans 👏 Girls 👏 Can 👏 Do 👏It 👏 All! Tune into the latest episode of The Beauty Of… where host @DavidLopezzz sits down with guest Dylan Mulvaney to chat all things girlhood 💝 Watch now: https://t.co/tCRfEryYkZ pic.twitter.com/uaXJqEBQI9
— Ulta Beauty (@ultabeauty) October 13, 2022
Look, I’m a big fan of the “You do you, I’ll do me” approach to most things. But even I find the whole premise absurd. Call it “mansplaining” – or “transplaining” – no matter how you package it, it’s insulting to women — and the infantilized “girl talk” more than a little disturbing.
Not surprisingly, there’s been swift pushback – with #Womanface trending. So much so that Ulta resorted to turning off comments on the thread.
Ulta frantically hiding replies after mocking all their female customers. pic.twitter.com/256ZP3gXyi
— Jennifer 🟥🔴🧙♀️🦉🐈⬛ 🐐 🦖 (@babybeginner) October 15, 2022
Guess they don’t really like hearing women roar?
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