Is the ‘fox eye challenge’ racist? Why some Asians are giving the side eye to social media trend popularised by stars like Bella Hadid and Kendall Jenner

Article via SCMP

• The look, with almond-shaped eyes lifted at the outer corners, is inspired by celebrities like Bella Hadid, and tips to recreate the look are popular on TikTok
• Asians have taken to social media to call the trend out for its replication of a facial feature that, growing up, they were bullied for having

The “fox eye challenge” is a social media trend inspired by famous women, including model Bella Hadid and actress Megan Fox, who have almond-shaped eyes lifted at the outer corners to smouldering effect. The trend’s hashtag, #foxeye, has gained more than 10.1 million views on TikTok alone.

Ways to achieve the desired look include shaving off the eyebrows after the arch and redrawing them, and applying a heavy-handed cat eye with eyeliner.Shaving off the end of the brow creates a straight which makes the face appear narrower, while redrawing them with an upwards slant creates the illusion of upturned eyes. Bella Hadid uses thick black liner to make her eyes appear elongated.

Other women use more drastic measures such as brow lifts or thread lifts, in which temporary sutures lift the skin and pull the eyes into the desired shape.

The trick for success, as many videos have pointed out, is to make sure the brow is shaved from the point directly above the outer rim of the pupil, while the winged liner should be drawn at a 45-degree angle.

To complete the look, one can also contour the cheekbones and nose to create a sharper, more pointed face shape.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by mar! (@martincantos) on Dec 11, 2019 at 2:05pm PST

The fox eye look has inspired a popular photo pose, in which people deliberately pull at their eyes with their fingers and smoulder at the camera. The pose has rubbed many the wrong way.

TikTok star Melody Nafari’s (@melodynafarii) video of herself posing in this way has gained more than 1 million views and thousands of comments. Some have come from Asian social media users, such as one calling herself Sheena, who remarked: “I remember when I was in primary [school] people were making fun of Asian eyes doing this, now it’s a trend.”

Asian-American TikTok user Melissa (@chunkysdead) has been vocal about how uncomfortable the trend makes her, explaining that seeing its popularity with Caucasians – who used to pull the same face to mock her for her heritage – was unpleasant.

Just as “dimpleplasty”, a type of plastic surgery used to create dimples on the cheeks, became popular after the angelic big eye-look of Australian model Miranda Kerr was all the rage about five years ago, this look’s popularity has popularised blepharoplasty – plastic surgery that modifies the eyes.

Angelo Tsirbas, an ophthalmologist in Sydney, Australia, told Beautycrew.au that the looks of Kendall Jenner, Hadid and the Kardashians are the ones most requested by his plastic surgery patients.

This slanted-eyes trend may not have deliberately emulated the characteristic Asian feature, but many Asians see it as an act of appropriation that ignores the racism and discrimination many have faced in Western countries and communities.

View this post on Instagram throwback A post shared by Kylie (@kyliejenner) on Mar 22, 2020 at 10:28am PDT They have called the trend out for turning one of their largest childhood insecurities and traumas – their looks – on its head. Where they used to be teased and bullied for their features, how they look is now considered a new standard of beauty.

Kim Hee-jae, a student at University of California, Davis, in the United States said she was mocked in the streets by strangers for her eye shape and called a Chink, an offensive word for a Chinese person. She says that she finds it “amazing how opinion of Asians has changed so swiftly”.

“Is being Asian a trend now? It kind of feels like it is … The fox eye thing itself is probably just an aesthetic, like a beauty trend, not racism. But it doesn’t mean that we [the Asian community] don’t feel slighted. They used to insult us for that.”

Some Asians view the trend positively. John Son, a second-generation Asian-American high school student, says he feels good that Asians are gaining popularity and are being seen in a positive light.

“I feel like we’ve become the cool kids – we used to want [to be seen as more white] but now it’s the opposite, especially because of social media. So like, in the current generation of teens, everyone is more accepting and we take things as jokes, at face value. We don’t get so pressed.

“Beauty trends are just that. Trends that come and go. We’re all just people underneath it all, and I think people are starting to see that.”