manners-maxxing and the personal style crisis
manners-maxxing and the personal style crisis
demurity as satire, etiquette as aesthetic, and why politeness alone won't save society
Today we are talking about…manners.
This essay will delve into:
the rise in etiquette content and its history within women’s lifestyle magazines
why manners-maxxing is a response to the personal style crisis
the limits of politeness as an indicator of social utopia, using the west’s perception of japanese societal norms as a case study (featuring an interview with my friend kana!)
manners are having a moment
the internet fixation on manners started gaining momentum in june when the nyt published a “guide to partying” article focused on “etiquette takes” from 43 people, including heiresses, celebrities, and well…people who have the resources to be preoccupied with how to act at parties! a certain miss rebecca gardner got roasted for saying it’s rude to ask guests to remove their shoes (clearly she doesn’t have asian friends lol) but tbh, that quote was probably thrown in there for rage bait.
fast forward to august and demure is the vocab word of the month. this term has been previously used by several trans people of color on tiktok, and was catapulted into virality due to creator jools lebron’s videos where she discusses how to behave in a “demure, considerate, and mindful” way in various situations. their usage of “demurity” is meant to be satirical and tongue-in-cheek, because the trend stems from trans women of color whose femininity and presentability is always under scrutiny within a white hetero-patriarchy. however, as more creators (and of course, brands) jumped in on the trend, the term has lost its original tone of satire.
so now you have a lot of people are talking about manners—what’s rude, what’s considerate, what’s demure, but they’re approaching it from fundamentally different perspectives and intentions.
the nyt party hosting article essentially tackles an age-old question crammed down the throats of the american middle class: how can i maintain and improve my position in polite society, to obtain social approval from the group i wish to be a part of? however, the demure trend (in its original inception) approaches it from a different angle: how can i use internet satire to critique the oppressive standards of polite society, which is essentially a euphemism for the white upper class?
amongst this backdrop, i also noticed an increase in etiquette-themed newsletter posts within the substack verticals i am most familiar with: fashion & beauty (largely a female demographic), and culture.
to describe this phenomenon, i landed on the term manners-maxxing—because i