Sep 23, 2026 · 8 min · 4 segments
When does cultural appreciation cross the line into blackfishing? Grace Fooden-Correy explores how white influencers can profit from Black hairstyles, features, and beauty standards without…
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So I watched a reel recently of a mixed woman who could have passed for white if she wasn't wearing braids.
And she said, when you're mixed, people constantly come to you telling you you're not black.
And I scrolled into the comments and found that many people didn't believe her.
The term was coined in 2018 by journalist Wanda Thompson, who noticed white influencers and public figures using makeup and extreme tanning and lip fillers and traditionally black hairstyles to read as black or racially ambiguous online.
And since then, it's attached itself to a list of beauty influencers caught with before and after photos showing a dramatic shift towards darker skin and fuller lips and curlier hair, none of which was real.
And it's the reason the woman with braids and light skin in the reel was read with suspicion.
Thompson wrote, instead of appreciating black culture from the sidelines, there's a need to own it, to participate in it, without wanting the full experience of blackness and the systemic discrimination that comes with it.
It's about wanting access to a beauty standard on demand and being able to opt back out of it the moment it stops being convenient.
A black or mixed woman doesn't get to log off from being black at the end of the day.
policed or picked apart on a black woman, fuller lips, curves, deeper tans, and braided styles.
But they get celebrated and monetized and rewarded with brand deals when they show up on white faces.
It just started quietly outsourcing its favorite features to whoever could wear them without the discrimination attached.
So I watched a reel recently of a mixed woman who could have passed for white if she wasn't wearing braids.
And she said, when you're mixed, people constantly come to you telling you you're not black.
And I scrolled into the comments and found that many people didn't believe her.
The term was coined in 2018 by journalist Wanda Thompson, who noticed white influencers and public figures using makeup and extreme tanning and lip fillers and traditionally black hairstyles to read as black or racially ambiguous online.
And since then, it's attached itself to a list of beauty influencers caught with before and after photos showing a dramatic shift towards darker skin and fuller lips and curlier hair, none of which was real.
And it's the reason the woman with braids and light skin in the reel was read with suspicion.
Thompson wrote, instead of appreciating black culture from the sidelines, there's a need to own it, to participate in it, without wanting the full experience of blackness and the systemic discrimination that comes with it.
It's about wanting access to a beauty standard on demand and being able to opt back out of it the moment it stops being convenient.
A black or mixed woman doesn't get to log off from being black at the end of the day.
policed or picked apart on a black woman, fuller lips, curves, deeper tans, and braided styles.
But they get celebrated and monetized and rewarded with brand deals when they show up on white faces.
It just started quietly outsourcing its favorite features to whoever could wear them without the discrimination attached.
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