The most unexpected way influencers are influencing us

Long ago, humans blamed the stars for shaping their destiny. Verona had its star-crossed lovers, say, just as stars aligned, or ancient armies struck disaster, literally an event “against the stars”.

Zodiac obsession has since abated, yet stars still enjoy their sway. Online, I mean. YouTube and make-up stars. Instagram influencers. People like Jools Lebron, a TikTok sensation whose vocab has added a fresh nuance to the dictionary, zhooshing a stuffy adjective that’s been around for 800 years.

Somehow, demure sounds like what it means. Shy. Reserved. On the page it feels mousy, self-effacing. Demur (no “e”) is its fraternal twin, meaning to raise objections. The two share the root of demorer in Old French, meaning to stay. Over time, demur adopted the legal tangent (to stay an action), while demure fell more into the staid basket.

Fittingly, the coy descriptor has barely flinched for centuries, stuck like a wallflower in a Jane Austen novel until Lebron waved her curling wand. The transgender influencer has given the Chaucerian virgin a makeover and she’s looking ah-mazing. In one mascara whisk, Jools is reducing “the obscurity of demurity”.

“The way I came to the interview is the way I go to the job,” she tells more than 2 million followers. “A lot of you girls go to the interview looking like Marge Simpson and go to the job looking like Patty and Selma. Not demure.”

Unstated elegance, in other words. Ladylikeness. Sexy without the overreach. Fun, too, with scope for self-mockery, as plenty of Lebron vids display demure’s opposite, the TikToker dancing in a Vegas club, then zigzagging back to her hotel, despite all her sober aspirations before the night began.

Cheekily, Lebron’s tag line is now “very demure, very mindful”. That phrase alone has influenced other influencers, including J.Lo and Khloe Kardashian, anyone who’s anyone trafficking demure as a vibe, be that soberly or satirically. Drag star RuPaul, in a promo for Allstora, the online bookstore, says to camera: “See how I’m reading this [electronic] book? Very demure. I don’t dog-ear pages …”

Dictionary visits reflect that trend. More than shy, demure is now a contrary state of mind, implying your inner mess as much as your restraint. Since August there has been a spike in search numbers at Dictionary.com, the word drawing 1200 per cent more visits than last year. If not a new nuance, demure has gained a lot more admirers, obliging the house’s editors to crown demure as their word of 2024.

Nor do things end there. Across the web, lifestyle idols are exerting change on English. Browse other words of 2024 to see the residual stardust. Collins awarded its tiara to brat, the noun upgraded by Charli XCX’s album of the same name, where the one-time snotty child also means a fun-loving, confident soul with a strong streak of independence.