Skin deep: Callout strategies, influencers, and racism in the online beauty community

<jats:p>In recent years, the Western online beauty community has been embroiled in multiple racist scandals that have resulted in callout campaigns against various influencers and cosmetic companies. Through a multiplatform discourse analysis of two such scandals, this project explores how influencers, brands, and audiences utilize the affordances and norms of social media platforms to manage their roles and relationships throughout these callout campaigns. Four key strategies emerge: curation, critique, reframing, and silence. Despite the efforts of some audiences and influencers, these four strategies elided the broader social implications of brand and influencer racism as members of the community responded to the drama more than they critiqued the marginalization of people of color. Overall, this project provides insight into the dynamics at work in callout campaigns, theorizing the ways in which actors work to balance visibility, risk, labor, and control.</jats:p>