From Brat Green to Beige Moms: How the New Right is Recoloring Our Feeds

Anyone who has gone to a SciencesPo Expose event has heard of it: Y2K. The beginning of the 21st century was marked by this movement of freedom. A trend all about crop tops, mixed colors, and vibrant fabrics. Y2K fashion embraced optimism and the novelty of the era with a “can’t-stop-me-now” attitude and a carefree, futuristic-retro vibe as a response to the uncertainty of the new millenium.

While we thought that this iconic era was killed by the skinny jeans and galaxy leggings of the 2010s, all of a sudden, 2024 came. Vivid green, hyper-pop, and dance trends, summer 2024 had it all. Charli xcx’s Brat album took over our feeds and reinforced Gen Z’s will to break free from societal molds.

This wasn’t just a viral album from a famous pop star, but the peak of a generational desire to defy gender and behaviour norms. Her album explores diverse themes, fleeting relationships with Everything is romantic, artist’s insecurities through Sympathy is a knife, but also criticises a conservationist system and its expectations, especially towards women and LGBTQ+ people.

It quickly became a trend and overtook the Internet, especially through social media such as TikTok. In the context of the US election campaigns, Kamala’s HQ (her instagram and tiktok campaign account) surfed through the trend and rebranded itself to integrate not only the themes conveyed by this younger generation “hymn,” but also its aesthetic.

Harris was the one who was going to do it: a woman of colour, above all, was going to defeat conservatism and all of its rules. “Kamala is Brat”, as they all said on social media. But, suddenly, on the 6th of November 2024, conservatism returned, and Trump’s red orange made our green apples rotten.

Summer 2024 was the summer of freedom, happiness, and acceptance, but no one was prepared for the cliffhanger. Indeed, after Donald Trump became President of the United States, everybody could observe a fast change in their digital content. If Kamala was Brat, Trump’s Administration embodied the complete opposite, a return to more conservationist values revolving around family, religion and traditional gender roles . The norms that were once defied were now sublimed. Thus, heated political tensions, bizarre debate clips, scary, violent, and hateful rhetoric took over social media. What was once hidden on the darkest YouTube channels and TikTok accounts was now for everybody to see.

This shift all started with X. As soon as Musk bought Twitter, now X, he introduced a series of changes to the moderation system. He removed most of the independent moderation, and he also allowed the blue certification to be purchased, increasing even further the ability of X-users to spread and present misinformation posing as trustworthy content. Those measures were quickly followed by other social networks, especially those owned by Zuckerberg’s company, Meta.

These measures have created a digital environment where spreading misinformation and hateful comments aren’t just allowed but encouraged by the algorithms. As everybody guessed, our feeds started to be filled with conspiratorial and hateful content. Manosphere podcasts were everywhere, criticising and reducing women to mere conscious objects. These harmful posts weren’t hidden in the depths of the internet anymore.

Whether you are a pure leftist or an “Alpha Male”, everybody has had the pleasure (or displeasure) of seeing thousands of videos pushing forward hateful content. The most notable being incel culture with Ben Shapiro, Alex Hitchens, and others saying that women who are alone at night are 100% hookers (while most of them are gym bros posting thirst traps for views).

Some may argue: “Yeah, but what is wrong with men spewing harmful rhetoric online for views? If it bothers you, just block them.” If someone made a digital conservatism blocker, trust me, I would have invested more than any SciencesPo consulting group. However, the rise of those ideologies on social media now also impacts our lives in the “real world.”

The UK and France now consider that incel culture poses a terrorist threat, with cases like Timothy G, who was arrested with two knives in his bag, wanting to attack women. Conservatism did not just give men the urge to blame everything that is happening in their lives; it has completely reshaped our culture and the content we consume.

Men weren’t the only “target” of this complete shift in mentality; women were also affected by the “Tradwife epidemic“. If trad wives have been mocked for a long time and criticised, they now have come for revenge, armed with aprons and a ring light. Vegetarian Guru, survivalist women all disappeared from our For You Page and were replaced by “tradwifes” such as Hannah Neeleman, Nara Smith or Haneia, who present an idealised version of domestic life centered on submission, motherhood and “feminine grace” inspired by conservationist Mormon values.

I’m not arguing that seeing Nara Smith making a Capri-Sun from scratch for her kids at 6 am isn’t impressive. However, we have to keep in mind that they are sharing and glamourising a conservationist narrative, influencing what and how we consume, dress, and see ourselves. A stark difference from the pluralism and diversity embodied by Brat summer.

Suddenly, the “trad” aesthetic is everywhere. The most blatant example of these changes is the brand Pretty Little Thing (PLT). At the beginning of March 2025, TikTok and X were shocked to see that the brand once known for neon, streetwear, and plus-size friendly collections had been rebranded into a temple of browns, beiges, and impossibly thin silhouettes. The “clean girl” look reigns supreme with slick buns and beige palettes, and the algorithm gently erases piercings, tattoos, and colourful hair in favour of the “uniformisation era.”

This shift goes beyond aesthetics; it actually reflects a slow, deliberate reshaping of our feeds. Unapologetic GenZ with vivid tops, every inch of their ears pierced, and fantasy tattoos all over their arms, are now incentivised to remove everything to fit the new norms. This “fade effect” is everywhere, from our feed to our living rooms, since “beige moms” even started to paint in beige and brown their kids’ bright coloured toys.

At the same time, the feeds promote a silent return of fat-shaming, disguised under hashtags #skinnytok advocates for “wellness,” “clean eating,” and “discipline,” while in reality giving body dysmorphia and disordered eating habits to every kid scrolling on these pages. The Body Positivity campaigns that briefly flourished during the Brat summer are now overshadowed by right-wing women “influencers” encouraging women not to speak and to work while making millions with their Bibles and brand deals .

What emerges is not just a trend but rather a slow and powerful cultural shift induced by the rise of the far right. From Brat green to Beige Moms, the new digital right has recolored our feeds pixel by pixel.