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Social media is a peculiar place and can also make one do the most peculiar things. After becoming a staple in the day-to-day lives of almost every scene and sub-culture in the world, social media has given us the Brazilian butt lift era, the Tumblr era, the TikTok era and now we are on the precipice of another aesthetic era making its way to our shores.
The aesthetic is called bimbofication, and its reasons for becoming as popular as it is today are even more complex and strange than one would imagine.
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A bimbo is defined as a good-looking but unintelligent woman who navigates the world by using her body and sex appeal. While bimbofication is defined as feminising and transforming one's self into the perfect airhead, usually in a satirical sense.
Bimbofication may sound dehumanising to the woman's form and regressive to feminism and what feminism means and looks like today; however, it is an intersectional movement that challenges the status quo by actively participating in it.
The history of the bimbo is laced with misogyny. During its rise in the 20th century, bimbos were nothing more to men than feminine airheads whose only priority was being pretty. This classification led to an ignorance of men who only deemed women valuable if they catered to their every need and looked pretty while doing it.
Generation Z has been the first to take back the word and make it something different, much like racial slurs and gendered slurs that have been used in positive ways by the groups they belong to. A new-age bimbo has a deep understanding and complete 'allyship' to radical leftism and racial movements, such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTIQA+ rights and women's rights. The new-age bimbo says what she wants and is absolutely right in saying it and, considering the fact that she is an airhead, there is no fault or blame that should be linked to her radicalism.
“Who is the Gen Z bimbo? ...a bimbo isn’t dumb, I mean, she kind of is, but she isn't that dumb. She's actually a radical leftist, who’s pro-sex work, pro-Black Lives Matter, pro-LGTBQA+, pro-choice and will always be there for her girls, gays and theys. I don’t do this for the misogynistic male gaze, I do this for my gaze, and damn, my tits look good,” says Chrissy Chlapecka, a self-proclaimed and proud bimbo, whose TikTok video went viral in 2021.
@chrissychlapecka who is the gen-z bimbo? here’s ur answer ?? luv y’all xoxo #bimbo #ihatecapitalism #ily ? original sound - chrissy
Throughout history, people, such as Marilyn Monroe, Karen Smith, a character from the hit film Mean Girls, and even Dolly Parton have been considered the most aesthetically accurate representation of a bimbo, blonde, skinny, hyper-feminine and white, but as the practice has grown, its boundaries are also being pushed.
In 2015, the world came to know twins who would become revolutionary in the bimbofication movement.
Shannon and Shannade Clermont, also known as the Clermont twins made their debut on the show Bad Girls Club. Very skinny, very feminine and personifying the term airhead, no one could have predicted what would come after.
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After their Bad Girls Club departure, the twins underwent countless plastic surgery procedures and became world-renowned models, featured in campaigns for famous designers, including Yeezy by Kanye West.
With double the big butts, big lips, big breasts and sex appeal, the twins almost had the entire world in the palm of their hands, with a new form of bimbofication that took from the plastic surgery trends of the late 2010s and personified them to give new meaning to the word bimbo.
While it seemed like the twins were only getting plastic surgery to fit new-age beauty standards, they come from fashion and design backgrounds, giving their bimbofication a kind of calculated and sexy edge that challenged the status quo of women in our society, and gave a deeper and more inclusive meaning to the bimbo movement.
So, what does all this actually mean?
The bimboism or bimbofication movement is revolutionary because it not only challenges society but also challenges the framework of feminism. Classically, feminism has called on men to accept women as equal participants in society.
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The bimbofication of feminism plays on the misogynistic idea that women are less intelligent and useful than men to shake up and dismantle the structures that patriarchy has placed on women, which is absolutely genius.
Bimbosim makes the future of feminism more vibrant and colourful and will change the paradigms of feminism in society forever.
