+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
Pop Culture

TikTokker Elyse Myers has perfect response after being criticized sporting her curly hair

"Please imagine someone telling you that your natural hair is a shock and it took a few days but they've learned to accept it."

elyse myers, curly hair tiktok, curly hair tips
@elysemyers/TikTok

"I have a solution for both of us."

In a day and age where inclusivity and individuality are more widely encouraged than ever, you wouldn’t think that something like the hair on someone’s head could be the subject of ridicule. But alas, here we are.

Sometimes these offhand remarks are a masked insult against a larger aspect of a person’s identity, like their race or culture. Other times it’s simply continuing the stigma against that which does not fit into extremely rigid beauty standards. Either way—it can be isolating, humiliating and painful for those on the receiving end.

TikTok comedian Elyse Myers, who normally is the first to bust out a self-deprecating joke, recently found herself the target of some hair-related jabs…and let’s just say she didn’t find it funny.

While on the red carpet for The Podcast Academy Excellence in Audio Awards, Myers swapped out her usually straightened hair for her natural curls. While the response was mostly positive, some people criticized her appearance, some even going so far as to give the backhanded compliment that they are still fans in spite of the “shocking” hairdo.

"It was a shock, but after a few days... We're here because we want Elyse, and whatever hair you have that day is part of you," the person wrote.

@elysemyers guys we did it 😂 #doitscared♬ Elevator Music - Bohoman

Myers ended up throwing their own words back at them, writing: "Please imagine someone telling you that your natural hair is a shock and it took a few days but they've learned to accept it."

She then posted a follow up video addressing the critics on a wider scale.

"The amount of people that have made it their life's mission to let me know that they do not like my hair is so incredible," Myers says in the video. "And I have a solution for both of us. Next time you go into the hairdresser, don't give them a photo of me and my hair as inspiration for your next haircut — and then I think it'll work out great."

@elysemyers

“im a huge fan of you, but this hair is terrible.” 🤍😂

♬ original sound - Elyse Myers

Previously Myers shared in an interview with People that being bullied for her curls in childhood caused her to do everything to get rid of them throughout adulthood. It wasn’t until after her son was born that Myers wanted to set an example for what true self acceptance looked like. "It was raising my son that really made me lock into this season of, 'Okay, either I'm going to fully accept myself or I'm not, and I've got to decide that now, because he's starting to understand what's going on around him,' and my hair felt like a really good place to start with that,” she told People.

Myers recalled that it wasn’t easy at first. “The first few times I did my hair, I would look in the mirror and I would see the girl that got teased. I could not separate myself from that person in the mirror. I actually tried to get my curly hair back a few other times, but I could not get over the emotional block of hating myself."

Speaking as a curly haired person myself, who had been told on more than one occasion how her head resembled a “rat’s nest,” I can fully attest to the heavy amount of soul searching and self esteem bolstering it takes to put down the straightener that once seemed like the only thing standing between your head and a bully’s taunts. Honestly, it takes years. No joke—appreciating the unruly waves is an unspoken, yet almost universal (and yes, high emotional) rite of curly girl passage.

Perhaps this is why Myers felt inclined to clap back. Not so much to defend herself, but to encourage other people to not feel embarrassed by their authentic selves. Going by her other wholesome content, that does seem to be her MO.

Negative comments about our appearance can feel highly personal. So often it brings us right back to a time when the thing that made us special or unique also made us somehow not belong. Hopefully Myers’ video is a helpful reminder that—critics be damned—we can feel good about ourselves exactly as we are.

From Your Site Articles
community
Science

Astronaut shares the profound 'big lie' he realized after seeing the Earth from space

This change in perspective could change humanity.

via Rubén Moreno Montolíu/Flickr

Our home, from space.

Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.”

The overview effect makes man’s squabbles with one another seem incredibly petty and presents the planet as it truly is, one interconnected organism.

Keep ReadingShow less
space
Identity

Woman’s experience scheduling an EEG highlights the unconscious bias of textured hair

Though her scalp was exposed for the procedure, they still insisted she take her twists out, making it harder to get to her scalp.

Sadé Naima|TikTok

Woman can't schedule EEG due to unconscious textured hair bias.

Getting a medical procedure done can be scary, or at the very least nerve-wracking, no matter how many times you've had it done. It's something that's outside of your normal routine and you're essentially at the mercy of the medical facility and providers. Most of the time, the pre-procedure instructions make sense, and if something catches you by surprise, it's usually easily explained.

Sadé Naima recently had an experience while attempting to get an EEG that wasn't easily explained away. In fact, the entire situation didn't make sense to the TikTok creator who experiences migraines. Naima uploaded a video to the social media platform explaining the sequence of events that happened after her doctor referred her to receive an MRI and EEG.

An MRI uses a magnetic field to generate images and an EEG uses electrodes that stick to your scalp to create images of your brain waves.

Keep ReadingShow less
unconscious bias
Family

Wife cooks nachos for 'picky' husband who refused to eat her salmon. But she has a point.

Should she be cooking two meals?

via TheMamaBrianna/TikTok

Brianna Greenfield makes nachos for her husband.

A viral video showing a woman preparing nachos for her "picky" spouse after he refused to eat the salmon dinner she cooked has sparked a contentious debate on TikTok. The video was shared on April 26 by Brianna Greenfield (@themamabrianna on TikTok) and has since earned over 2.5 million views.

Brianna is a mother of two who lives in Iowa.

The video starts with Brianna grating a massive hunk of cheese with a caption that reads: “My husband didn’t eat the dinner that I made…So let’s make him some nachos.”

“If I don’t feed him, he literally won’t eat,” she wrote. “This used to irritate me. Now I just blame his mother for never making him try salmon,” Greenfield wrote. The video features Meghan Trainor’s single “Mother” playing in the background.

Keep ReadingShow less
marriage
Joy

Heroic train conductor spots and saves 3-year-old autistic, nonverbal boy lost on tracks

He was dangerously close to the third rail.

via MTA info/YouTube

An MTA employee rescues a 3-year-old child on the tracks.

Five Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees are hailed as heroes for their quick thinking and diligence in the April 6 rescue of a young boy. Locomotive Engineer William Kennedy was operating a southbound Hudson Line train near Tarrytown, a few miles north of New York City, when he noticed an unusual object on the northbound track.

That “object” was a 3-year-old boy.

Kennedy sent an emergency call out to all trains in the area, catching the attention of a northbound conductor, Shawn Loughran, and a trainee. Loughran slowed down his train as he approached the child, who was straddling the electrified third rail.

When the train screeched to a halt, Assistant Conductor Marcus Higgins didn't waste a second. Leaping down the tracks, he sprinted 40 yards ahead of the train, scooping up the young child like a guardian angel.

Keep ReadingShow less
rescue
Health

Here’s how we can use the power of awe to make our lives more fulfilling

Being amazed by things outside ourselves is tremendous for our mental health.

via Benjamin Davies/Unsplash

A young man looking into the sky

The exhilaration of a rock concert. The feeling of deep serenity you experience during a religious ceremony. That sense of connectedness you get while walking through a dense forest. The lightness that flows through your body while dancing and the dissolution of the ego you experience on psychedelics. These are all experiences that give us the feeling of awe.

Most of us love having at least a few of these experiences and believe they help us grow. But now, a team of psychologists has explained why cultivating a sense of awe can benefit our minds and bodies and how we can create these experiences ourselves.

Maria Monroy and Dacher Keltner posit that a sense of awe can help solve the crises of individualism, excessive self-focus, loneliness and a culture of cynicism, and can even improve our physical health. They explain it in a research article titled “Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health.”

Keep ReadingShow less
mental health
Pop Culture

Woman flawlessly breaks down how luxury bags—and other designer brands—keep people 'poor'

"They're targeting the people who want to look rich—middle and lower class folks who don't have a lot of money or savings. That is the bread and butter of designer brands."

Cara Nicole/Youtube

Not worth it.

It feels safe to say that we are all hoping to be more mindful about how we spend our money these days, whether it’s to be kinder to the environment, align better with our values, improve our finances or simply exercise free will against the siren call of consumerism.

That’s why this video essay created by Cara Nicole (who gives all kinds of financials and sustainability education on her Youtube channel) feels so timely.

In just under twenty minutes, Nicole astutely breaks down how luxury brands like Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Rolex create the fake illusion of wealth through “manufactured exclusivity” and getting free marketing from celebrities and influencers—who often don’t even pay for the products themselves. Meanwhile, most real rich people wouldn’t be caught dead in the flashy brands, and in reality consider them "overrated." But still, the illusion persists. Because advertising.

Keep ReadingShow less
finances
Trending Stories