How viral ‘demure, mindful’ TikTok trend changed creator Jools Lebron’s life: ‘Finally said it without crying’

The beauty influencer behind TikTok’s “demure” trend has revealed she can pay for gender transition thanks to the success of her videos.

Jools Lebron, who identifies as a transgender woman, shared a satirical clip on why women should present themselves conservatively in the workplace, recommending that employees opt for looks that are “demure and modest and respectful”. The video now has almost 3 million likes.

“You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure. Very mindful,” Lebron said in the video. “I don’t come to work with a green cut crease. I don’t look like a clown when I go to work. I don’t do too much. I’m very mindful while I’m at work. You see how I look very presentable? The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job.”

Encouraging her followers to post their own TikTok content, the creator said in a post this week: “One day, I was playing cashier and making videos on my break, and now I’m flying across countries to host events, and I’m gonna be able to finance the rest of my transition.”

Tearily, she added: “I finally said it without crying.”

The “demure” trend has exploded on TikTok over the past week, with over 32,000 videos now using the audio from Lebron’s original post to make their own content.

“A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like Patty and Selma,” says Lebron in the short video that has found her fame and fortune.

“Not demure. I’m very modest. I’m very mindful. You see my shirt? Only a little chee chee out, not my cho cho. Be mindful of why they hired you.”

“Here’s your reality check, diva,” she added. “What’s the name you’d like me to make it out to?”

With the video going viral, Lebron began to make more content revolving around what it means to be “demure,” creating satirical videos about how to be modest in different scenarios.

From thanking her hotel staff “demurely” in one video to “doing her midnight munchies” very “demurely” and very “mindfully” in another, the content creator has turned “demure” into her entire brand.

Because of Lebron, internet users everywhere have expanded the meaning of the word by placing it in entirely new contexts, such as eating doughnuts and buying groceries. She now has 1.5 million TikTok followers and close to 100 million likes across the videos on her profile.

The “demure” joke appears to poke fun at influencer trends like the “clean girl” aesthetic, which focuses on minimalism and self-imposed classiness. The “demure” trend, then, as been interpreted as the antithesis to Charli XCX’s “brat” mindset, with the latter favouring being brash and bold.

Unsurprisingly, “demure” has now become a buzzword on TikTok and X/Twitter.

“I can always tell when there’s a new TikTok buzzword because I saw 73 tweets with the word ‘demure’ in it today,” one person wrote on the platform, while another joked: “Brat summer, demure fall.”

Now, “demure” has become so popular that Lebron claimed she was “demured” in public, noting that fans have come up to her and recognise her in person.

She reflected in another TikTok post how she had simply “made a silly video” and it totally “changed” her life.