Out to Lead by Jonathan Dromgoole

Author:Jonathan Dromgoole [Dromgoole, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781636767574
Google: 7SCPzgEACAAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 59202768
Publisher: New Degree Press
Published: 2021-08-24T00:00:00+00:00

Not to Prime is a Crime

With close to fourteen million followers, which is larger than the population of any US city, Nikkie de Jager, better known as Nikkie Tutorials, is one of the most popular beauty influencers on YouTube. “When I started my channel, I was fourteen years old and there was no money, there were no ads, so it truly started from passion and falling in love with the idea and that illusion of makeup,” she says in her documentary Layers of Me. She grew up right on YouTube, creating a world where she could be whoever she wanted and for her, that was just Nikkie. Not Nikkie, the transgender beauty guru.

Social media does not give us the complete picture. Nikkie de Jager is well known within the beauty industry for her over-the-top, vibrant makeup. Her Halloween tutorials, welcoming personality, and Dutch word of the day at the end of all of her videos draw viewers to her. She has spent over thirteen years on YouTube building a brand focused on her skills as an artist, not on her gender.

Why would someone’s gender identity have anything to do with makeup? What does it have to do with their careers? Unfortunately, perception.

Society attempts to pigeonhole LGBTQ+ individuals, but especially transgender individuals, as nothing more than their identity. We don’t pursue jobs and dreams that are only for the queer community. Just look at Hollywood, they are casting and nominating actors left and right for portraying people from our community instead of nominating films by and for our community #DisclosureOscarSnub. It wasn’t until January of 2020, over a decade after starting her channel, that de Jager came out to her fans as a transgender woman.

Nikkie de Jager is first and foremost a creative, an influencer, and a beauty icon, more so than she would likely say she is Dutch and about a hundred other things before labeling herself as a transgender woman. YouTube was a way of creating a safe space, a way of creating her world. In her documentary, she explains that “it wasn’t until later, until it started growing [my channel and fame] that I was like, ‘now there are a lot of people that don’t know’ and I really liked that idea. Now I get to be Nikkie without the past, the opinions, the side comments. YouTube let me be me without being misunderstood because they didn’t know about that part. Is it lying? Yeah, but it’s also protecting yourself.”

Remember those nuggets of gold sprinkled around to distract friends and family? Those nuggets are there to protect us, the queer individuals, as much as they are there to distract others. Well, those nuggets can also be shared now, thanks to technology with a wider audience, to billions of people. At some point, as she explains, “You live your life the way you always wanted to live it, without getting judged for who you are, what you are, for what you were in the past, and you feel so free and so understood.

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