Elf Cosmetics’ #ELFGAMEUP Campaign Is Off To A Messy Start

Drug Store makeup brand Elf Cosmetics has decided to launch a Twitch channel yesterday with their new #ELFGAMEUP campaign, which “is about empowering female gamers and content creators.” This alone is incredibly tone deaf as “females” are not the only ones buying makeup and playing video games. It’s actually quite embarrassing that a brand that has this on their website:

Their site even shows men and non-binary people wearing makeup, but they couldn’t be bothered to use inclusive language in their campaign about gaming and makeup.

https://twitter.com/itslucillexoxo/status/1391589552251449344?s=20

Moreover, the streamers that they decided to select for this campaign were all cis-gendered white women. How diverse is that? It’s baffling that a brand that has BLM and Stop Asian Hate on their page, but doesn’t have one single black and brown woman represented on their debut stream.

And to make matters worse, the panel of women discusses how difficult it is to find makeup that match their skin tone. This would be a perfect conversation to have from people who have real difficulty finding makeup matches which is darker skinned women. Fair skin women get catered to the most in the beauty industry. Having no dark skin women to discuss their experiences was a huge missed opportunity to show real inclusion and diversity.

https://twitter.com/itslucillexoxo/status/1391584172670656517?s=20

Brands that post about Social Justice seem to always fall short on execution. Many of these things could have been avoided if they had better intentions and people who cared about the issues they carry around as accessories. The bottom line is that they want more people to buy their makeup. In order to do that, they need to reach as many people as possible. Given that “Just Chatting” is the No. 1 genre on Twitch, many brands are using it as a vehicle to market their products and services. This isn’t inherently a bad thing. AOC had one of the biggest streams on the platform recently just playing Among Us and talking to potential voters. The problem is they want to seem like the company that cares about its customers. In reality, they care only to the point of sale. Maybe Elf’s Twitch channel will turn things around. Who knows? Right now, it’s time to put the elf on the shelf.

(Big thanks to @itslucillexoxo for your thread)