00:00 Oh no, I can't go on a date right now, I haven't shaved.
00:02 What a ridiculous thing to say.
00:03 I would never say it, oh sorry,
00:05 I should cut my hair off before I go on this date.
00:09 It's kind of vulnerable, isn't it?
00:10 (upbeat music)
00:13 ♪ I know that now it's summer ♪
00:17 ♪ And it's getting kind of hot ♪
00:19 ♪ And it might be a bummer ♪
00:20 ♪ If you're worried about your bod ♪
00:22 ♪ So all I wanna say is ♪
00:24 ♪ If you're scared to wear a bikini ♪
00:26 ♪ Just wear one anyway ♪
00:27 ♪ 'Cause you do not have to be skinny ♪
00:29 ♪ You got a bikini body ♪
00:31 - Hi, my name's Jo.
00:32 Also known as Jo Brown or Jo Vlogs on TikTok.
00:35 Over lockdown, I stopped shaving
00:38 for various different reasons,
00:39 mainly due to laziness.
00:40 ♪ You are beautiful in every way ♪
00:42 ♪ Because you are a queen ♪
00:44 At the time I was starting a TikTok channel,
00:47 which was initially kind of a creative outlet,
00:49 but also kind of slowly became a body positivity channel
00:53 to kind of encourage and inspire young people
00:55 to love their bodies and think a bit more
00:57 about what they choose to do with their bodies
00:59 and not just feel the pressure to conform
01:02 and do whatever else is doing on social media.
01:04 I appeared in a video with my armpit hair on show
01:08 and then got instantly trolled for it,
01:10 which I found really funny.
01:11 Just your daily reminder that you can be sexy
01:13 and have rolls at the same time.
01:15 Oh, and body hair.
01:17 That's all.
01:18 Bye-bye now.
01:19 As a rebuttal, I decided to actively
01:21 kind of stop shaving and started making
01:25 a few videos about it.
01:26 It really shocked me that so many people
01:29 had something to say about it
01:30 and were so disgusted and repulsed by a woman
01:32 appearing on camera in her normal body hair.
01:36 I kind of enjoyed it.
01:37 I felt quite liberating and quite empowering.
01:40 And I kind of saw it as a new version of beauty.
01:45 We're so used to seeing what we see in the media
01:47 with hairless women, perfect tan, slim, skinny bodies,
01:51 all this kind of airbrushing that we've seen
01:54 over the last few years.
01:56 I know girls who will wake up,
01:59 they'll stay at a guy's house,
02:00 they'll wake up, go and touch up their makeup
02:03 and get back into their other boy
02:04 and be like, "Perfectly made up."
02:07 I was like, "What?"
02:09 I was like, "I don't do that."
02:10 I wouldn't say I'm against shaving.
02:17 You should do what's right for your body
02:18 at the end of the day.
02:19 I think it's a shame that we kind of get brainwashed
02:23 into conforming to these social standards
02:25 and these social beauty standards at a very young age.
02:27 I started shaving when I was 11
02:29 because I thought it was the damn thing
02:31 and that's what my sisters did and friends were doing.
02:34 I've never enjoyed shaving my armpits specifically.
02:37 It's just a real, really sad that we live in a society
02:40 where it's just the norm because, you know,
02:43 once upon a time, someone decided
02:45 that they were gonna encourage women to do it.
02:46 You know, I think it comes from the '80s
02:49 porn industry massively.
02:50 You know, back in the 1920s, women never shaved.
02:53 So it's just really in the last hundred years or so.
02:55 I've seen firsthand the damaging content there is online.
03:05 Even the filters on Instagram and TikTok
03:07 and women are being told that,
03:09 "If you wanna be beautiful, you need to look like this."
03:12 That's not true.
03:14 We should be encouraging women to learn and study
03:17 and like, love themselves and like,
03:19 work on their brains and their bodies, you know,
03:22 not work on their beauty.
03:23 I share a lot online.
03:31 I'm a massive advocate for helping others
03:32 and like, trying to inspire other people
03:34 and I know there are a lot of women out there
03:36 who aren't as confident as I am.
03:38 My channel is all about self-love and self-acceptance
03:43 and encouraging people to not judge everyone
03:46 and just be themselves and not feel the need
03:48 to like, rip other people apart
03:50 and tell them what to do with their bodies.
03:52 It's ridiculous that we think we're in an age
03:54 where people can just comment on a video
03:56 and have such a direct impact on someone's life
03:59 and what they choose to do with their body.
04:01 It's so bizarre how we have these weird relationships
04:04 to hair all over your body.
04:07 It's just hair.
04:08 It's just hair.
04:10 (upbeat music)
04:13 (upbeat music)
04:15 (upbeat music)
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