Lizzo is having a moment.
Just announced as one of the faces of Urban Decay’s new Pretty Different campaign, the R&B singer/rapper/flute player/epic twerker is on everyone’s lips. First, let’s talk about this campaign, which highlights racial and gender diversity:
Pretty great, right? We love to see fashion brands embrace the range of their customers and the beauty in all of them.
But back to Lizzo, everyone’s current shero. She can make the flute hot. Wired named her single “Juice” as the most patriotic song of 2019. And she has exposed a ton of women to the body positivity movement. She will be the first to tell you that she is also new to the body positivity movement, but she has used her platform to infuse the movement with a new energy.
In an opinion piece for NBC earlier this year, she wrote about how self-acceptance is more than “self-care,” the latest buzzword to seep out of brands trying to sell you a moment’s peace:
“I’m excited that treating mental illness and the idea self-care are becoming part of the zeitgeist — but I also don’t want it to turn into something that loses its weight or validity. Self-care is more than just going to the spa, getting your nails done or drinking a mimosa ’cause it’s Sunday.’ It is so much deeper than what commercialization is going to try to turn it into.”
Self-care is really rooted in self-preservation, just like self-love is rooted in honesty. We have to start being more honest with what we need, and what we deserve, and start serving that to ourselves. It can be a spa day! But for a lot of people, it’s more like, I need a mentor. I need someone to talk to. I need to see someone who looks like me that’s successful, that’s doing the things that I want to do, to know that it’s possible.”
So, tell us what self-care means to you. How often do you equate it with therapy, mentorship and seeking emotional fulfillment?
Lemonada will be discussing empathy, accessibility and maybe even Lizzo on As Me with Sinead, coming this fall.
Image from the “Truth Hurts” video.
