No Innocent Text

Abstract:

​

This study analyzes 25 images from millennial beauty brand Glossier’s Instagram account. Glossier launched in 2014 and has since become a billion dollar company. I conducted a semiotic analysis of the first 25 images posted in 2018 that contain womxn's bodies in full or part.  I examined those images through the lens feminist theory and within the discourse on issues of representation. The public is continuously inundated with advertisements. That is increasingly true with the rise of social media marketing, and with line between reality and advertising becoming blurred by influencer marketing. It is imperative that advertisements are critically analyzed and brands held accountable to and for their content. The images (advertisements) we are exposed to every day create and shape our culture. Examining those images closely and unpacking subliminal messages within them helps lead us towards a more conscious, inclusive culture. While Glossier has certainly made strides towards creating an inclusive beauty line, this study found that there is work yet to be done and encourages further analysis as the brand ages.

​

​

 

Introduction:

​

It’s no secret that advertisers have exploited female bodies and created a media culture in which women are objectified and sexualized. From American Apparel to Burger King to Budweiser, women are poised as open, ready and willing sexual objects and little more. These ad campaigns played off of stereotypes and misogynistic tropes and became so pervasive for so many years that they were eventually taken up as cultural norms, despite pushback from the feminist community since the early 1970s. Currently, with a strong third wave of feminism and an increasingly loud social justice narrative made possible by modern day media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, emerging brands are taking a stance and getting political, perhaps most notably, within their marketing campaigns. One of those emerging brands, Glossier, was remarkably successful early on. Glossier is a beauty and skincare brand founded in 2014 by Into the Gloss beauty blogger and Conde´ Nast assistant Emily Weiss. Weiss, now 34, founded the company with a mission statement to “democratize beauty.” Glossier touts a “skin first, makeup second” narrative under which it proclaims that imperfection is beauty and that makeup is a choice and fun option available to people (note, not just women) rather than a necessity. Using social media as its primary sales and marketing platform, the company boomed in record time. The website launched in 2014, after Glossier employees had already been hard at work getting an expansive social media campaign up and running- primarily via influencers. As one of the first brands to have so successfully harnessed the power of social media to market and directly communicate with its consumers, it is hailed as a “unicorn” by The Cut, and JumperMedia listed it as one of their best beauty brands on Instagram. Currently, the brand is valued at $1.2 billion.