BM's demonic wind blows again
BM is popular again.
This time, it was because of a part-time monster.
According to the survey, the hourly salary for part-time jobs in BM Beijing stores is as high as 80 yuan.
You should know that the hourly salary of Starbucks next door is only 17.5 yuan, which is more than 4 times the price.
Of course, high hourly wages are only one aspect. What really makes BM "out of the circle" is still the "perverted" requirements for clerks.
is not the most harsh, only more harsh.
clients are internet celebrities per capita, they are very outstanding and thin, so thin that they are simply desperate. Their average height is 175cm, but none of them weigh more than 100%.
A blogger of Xiaohongshu
can't help but make people sigh, these days, part-time jobs have become like this?
such harsh conditions failed to persuade the participants to withdraw, and a group of people flocked to them.
After all, not everyone has the qualification to be officially stamped with the title of "Big Beauty". After the incident of
became popular, the comments were divided into two factions.
Some people said they were too envious and wanted to lose weight and quickly join the part-time team.
Another group of people who objected think that BM is just promoting body anxiety. Can such clothes be worn by people?
Things have developed to this point today, maybe BM himself did not expect it at the beginning.
After all, BM was originally established to give small-size girls who couldn't buy fitted clothes.
And, the design of the clothes, such as the collar leaving a lot of white space, is also very friendly to girls with not long enough necks and big breasts.
started with a perfect approach. In order to "benefit" consumers, the brand claims to be "One Size Fits Most" (one size is suitable for most people); the price is not expensive, and a white short-sleeved piece is about US$18 (equivalent to RMB 116).
. Long before diversified propaganda and ideas became popular, BM was on the road to pioneering.
doesn't invite big stars and models to promote it. The girls in the early propaganda pictorials were more like amateurs.
They have a lot of children not tall and their figures are not perfect. Not only do they have no legs in the girl group, but they are even wrapped in tight white T-shirts, and the fat on their waists is quite conspicuous.
official promotional map
But somehow, things are getting more and more biased the more they develop.
The so-called code suitable for most people to wear is found to be XS to S. The main style can be summarized in three words, "short, exposed, tight". A vest on the official website of
BM, with a length of 19cm and a bust circumference of only 62cm. According to statistics, the waist circumference of its products is basically 60-63cm.
, and a 2016 survey by the CDC of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the average waist circumference of women between the ages of 13 and 19 was 82.8cm.
is obvious. Only a few people can wear it, and they have to be very thin.
can wear BM itself, which becomes the capital to show off.
Beauty used to be all kinds of strange things, but now there is only one assessment standard - can you stuff yourself into BM?
Just one sentence "One Size Fits Most" has become a walking weight ruler, and I can't say I'm not convinced.
weird weight standard spread throughout the network
used to define the figure BMI, but now it has become a BM.
A girl with a height of 168 and a weight of 98 pounds has become thinner according to the BMI ( referred to as body mass index, which is a common international standard for measuring the degree of weight and whether the human body is healthy and is healthy ). But under the BM standards, it is just "barely passing". The standard code of
has become a small code, and "slightly fat" has been redefined. Girls who can't wear BM are all offended.
However, although a large group of people are spared no effort to express their dissatisfaction with this harsh standard ( is also black ), BM is still becoming more and more popular with the naked eye. What exactly is
? It turns BM from a humanized small-size women's clothing into a so-called beautiful measuring ruler, and the darker it becomes, the more red it becomes?
Who is the driving force behind it?
BM girls, there are actually two types.
The first type is that I really like the BM style and its brand philosophy.
Another type is to try to get closer to the aesthetic standards derived from BM's style.
The former one just bubbling and immediately became overwhelmed by the latter one.
causes this situation, and the brand cannot blame it. Since
is specially created for "small girls", it means that the product is not suitable for most ordinary consumers. After
became popular, making adjustments was a more appropriate strategy, but BM was determined to support the slogan of "One Size Fits Most" to the end.
An ordinary piece of clothing has become a tool for thin girls to "show off their figure" without any trace.
After tasting the sweetness, BM even evolved it into the exclusive value of the brand - when you wear our clothes, you are the "BM girl" that everyone envies.
brand has skillfully packaged and marketed women's bodies as products, which stirs up the nerves of girls who love beauty and evolves their pursuit of beauty into a real desire for consumption.
I have to say that this move was quite successful.
potential consumers express their yearning for BM without any concealment: " My dream is to wear BM, because it only has S size, and wearing it means being young and thin. "
Not everyone can wear it. This exclusivity actually sharpens the brand image, enhances attractiveness, and makes consumers loyal [1].
As early as 2014, the Financial Times quoted analysts as estimating that BM's annual sales had reached US$125 million, with annual sales growth of 20% to 25%.
Whether in Shanghai or Beijing, the BM store is always overcrowded.
BM opens grandly. Xiaohongshu blogger @Duoli
In an interview with the official account "Sansheng", the 16-year-old girl Xinxin said that in just one month since the opening of the Beijing BM store on May 29, she has rushed to buy several times and has consumed more than 4 digits.
There are also algorithms that help the evildoer.
steps are roughly as follows:
good-looking celebrities, internet celebrities, and kols have been promoted, and various platforms have also distributed them vigorously, and their influence has begun to rise.
Some friends saw it and sent you a photo of BM.
Not long after, you opened INS, Xiaohongshu, and Weibo and found that the screen was full of BM girls with thin waists and long legs.
This has become some kind of verification - everyone is discussing BM, BM is really popular.
When it comes time to buy clothes, BM will automatically jump out of his mind.
and after this, you are likely to become a member of the "promotion".
Under the driving force of the algorithm, consumers unconsciously fell into the information cocoon of brand choice ( refers to the phenomenon that people pay attention to is habitually guided by their own interests, thus shackle their lives in the phenomenon that is a "cocoon" like a silkworm cocoon.
In the book "Aesthetic Capitalism", the author cruelly pointed out the truth:
"Consumers think that they rely on their free will to force producers to realize their desires, but in fact, 'free will' is the easiest to be measured and controlled, which leads to producers who can benefit from it by formulating the necessary conditions to stimulate it."
You think we like the BM wind, so it is so popular.
But in fact, it is capital and algorithms that jointly calculate us, making you feel that you should like BM wind, so it becomes popular.
women were secretly "disciplined"
BM is so popular because it hits the actual needs of many women.
According to American scholar Irving Goffman in "Self-presentation in Daily Life", we are all actors.
Public occasions, whether it is reality or the Internet, can be compared to the stage.
On stage, people will not truly present themselves, but will play an idealized and socialized self to a certain extent, and demonstrate their identity and status through various means such as dressing.
Therefore, wearing BM is not just as simple as being able to wear small-size clothes.
BM girls’ good figure and dressing style on Xiaohongshu are carefully set. An excellent shooting location is needed, and the right angles and postures are combined to present the most perfect posture.
This is a "taste performance", and it is necessary to attract enough praise.
Through sharing and self-presentation on social media, they create an idealized personal image.
also greatly satisfied the vanity in this "stage performance".
looks like this, it seems like a win-win situation.
displayers think they are endorsing the United States, while spectators have more beautiful materials to appreciate.
But why are there still many dissatisfaction sounds?
"This size policy has greatly harmed women's self-esteem"
"This value judgment is too single, which is equivalent to dividing the figure of a person's body"
"This is clearly materializing women and inducing women to eat unhealthy diets."
...
"1WHY Business Intelligence Bureau" vividly describes this phenomenon: BM builds a castle, and people outside criticize, while those inside are singing and dancing to the level of peace [3].
BM girls have paid too much in pursuit of the so-called beauty.
A girl from Hangzhou, Qingqing, is 158 tall and weighs 95 kilograms, and is definitely not fat.
But since she bought a BM style suit with S size, she has developed severe body anxiety.
Qingqing decided to lose weight, and the goal was set at 82 kilograms. In the later stage of losing weight, you can only eat one meal a day. "I am so hungry that I can't stand it, so I eat the protein bar."
In just two months, she lost 11 kilograms. The price paid is health. "The clothes look much better than before, but I feel like I have anorexia if I don't eat."
This is not an isolated case, there are many similar BM girls.
dieting without caring, just to stuff the body into the so-called small clothing, which is almost self-abuse.
Where does the so-called idealized self come from? Why is the satisfaction brought by praise born?
The admiration for white and thin young under the cultural background makes it the core standard of beauty.
With this principle, capital firmly controls consumers and even has the "final right to interpret beauty".
no one forces you to buy it, but they can set an unattainable standard to create some kind of anxiety and threat -
can be fine without wearing BM, but that is equivalent to admitting that you are not beautiful enough and your figure is not good enough.
part-time clerks who stand at the top of the contempt chain will not be said to their customers even if they comment on them.
But they themselves have to accept the "trial" in turn.
According to former employees, the hourly salary in the store is not 80 yuan, and it will be divided into different levels according to its appearance. You have to take selfies every day, and you may be fired if you are fat and ugly. Not to mention, there is a risk of being replaced by better-looking people anytime and anywhere.
perfectly verifies what Foucault said in "Discipline and Punishment": "Any power operation cannot be separated from control and slaughter of the body."
In this case, it is difficult for women not to be "disciplined" by aesthetic prejudice.
They even actively participated in the construction process of being materialized and becoming consumer goods, but they were completely unaware of this.
Whether we agree with the aesthetics of white and thin young, or are we tired of appearance anxiety, there is always an irresistible force that makes us like a machine that is winded but full of faults, jumping repeatedly on the verge of pursuing appearance and giving up, but we can never escape the mission of transforming our bodies [4].
body introvert and female competition are also caused by this.
Women not only need to be beautiful, but also more beautiful, and the "body show-off" pointed behind BM has become the best outlet.
However, at the very least, BM is just a small booster and will eventually disappear like all popular ones. The capital party is just being held in it.
What really does evil is the inherent aesthetic prejudice faced by women.
Before BM became popular, American Apparel, the same type of clothing brand, was also popular.
Without BM, there will be CM, DM... one after another, emerging one after another.
There is no winner in this pursuit of beauty.
Written by: Zou Yu
Editor: Mediterranean Crab
Editor: Lin Wei
Image source: Picture source from the Internet
Partial reference materials:
[1] Exploring the store is popular in Ins and Xiaohongshu, is Brandy Melville's "BM Wind" growing password? , Retail Krypton Planet
[2] In-depth | Why is Brandy Melville, a girl brand that opens a store in China so popular? , Fashion Headlines
[3] Do you really like the BM style, or are you PUA by algorithms? , 1WHY Business Intelligence Bureau
[4] It is difficult to stop losing weight, but stop "fighting" with your body anymore, look at the ideal
[5] Pilgrimage to BM | Close-up, Three-tone
[6] From BM style to Uniqlo children's clothing: How does deformed aesthetics become a trend? ｜The micro world, Yangcun spreads
Today's recommendation book ➠ "Self-presentation in daily life"
Today's recommendation book ➠ "Discipline and Punishment"
Book list Here is a group of old-school scholars, sharing their thoughts with you. When the world sinks, we read.
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