There’s nothing new about the Alix Earle epidemic
If you are anything like the typical university student, you — much like me — spent the majority of winter break catching up on some much-needed rest, eating food you finally did not have to purchase and scrolling endlessly through social media. I found myself doing the latter option much longer than I intended to, and through all that scrolling, there seemed to be one woman I could not escape.
You might have heard her name, Alix Earle. Most known on TikTok for posting Get-Ready-With-Me videos while discussing her love life, nights out and experiences as a student at the University of Miami, Earle’s following surged to nearly 3.7 million followers in just a few short weeks, gaining, on average, 95,394 followers daily. This insurgence of followers caused countless dissections of her social media strategy and her rise to fame to be spread widely on the internet. People can’t seem to crack the code. How did she reach this level of success in such a short time?
Well, the answer is simple: white mediocrity.
White mediocrity is a problem that existed long before Alix Earle and has since taken on many forms. Examples of it stem further than social media; from politicians to comedians, white people are born with a specific privilege in the ability to be mediocre and fail upwards without fear.
Ijeoma Oluo, speaker and author of “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male Power,” writes, “I am not arguing that every white man is mediocre … What I’m saying is that white male mediocrity is a baseline.” The truth in this statement is all around us. People of color must be the most intelligent, or even the most engaging to be held in the same regard as white, and often male, peers. Growing up in predominantly white spaces taught me that being good was not good enough. I had to be one of, if not the best. C’s were intolerable, B’s were barely scraping by, and A’s were the ticket. It is no secret to any person of color that to get half of what white people receive; we must work twice as hard.
Outside of academia, white mediocrity dominates the art and entertainment sphere. The Golden Globes is a blatant example of this. The Golden Globe Awards, created by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, claim to celebrate the year’s best films and television shows. Yet, this same HFPA faced backlash as the Los Angeles Times revealed that of their 87 members, no one was Black, nor had a Black member been inducted in nearly two decades. So, it was no surprise that the 2021 Golden Globe nominations mirrored the stark differences in standards regarding people of color versus white media and actors. From nominations like “Emily in Paris” to James Corden — yes, late night television host James Corden — the Golden Globes proved that people of color must excel even to be considered for a Golden Globe nomination while the bar for “greatness” for media focused on white people and subject matter is much lower.
If you’re still looking for more examples of white mediocrity, take another look at social media. Axel Webber, most known for taking to social media after being rejected from his dream school, Juilliard, rose to fame in early 2022. It took a matter of days for new — yet die-hard fans — to flood Juilliard’s comments on nearly every social media platform, demanding Webber’s rejection be recanted and reconsidered. However, it took hours to discover that Webber had little to no prior acting experience when he auditioned for the prestigious university. Yet, Webber now has a modeling contract and over 4.4 million followers on TikTok alone.
This example is not to say that Webber is undeserving of his success or untalented; however, it is to point out that white mediocrity is constantly rewarded. A simple TikTok rant about not getting into a school you had no qualifications for had turned into an opportunity of a lifetime for many with little to no work. You won’t see those like me getting that kind of treatment.
Being mediocre is not a bad thing; everyone is average at something. I’m nearly twenty years old and still need to count my fingers to solve basic math problems. The issue is not in mediocrity itself but in the system. White mediocrity is treated as extraordinary; meanwhile, the extraordinary acts of people of color are treated as mediocre. My argument against white mediocrity is not a closed fist; instead, it is an open hand to recognize its impact on people of color in various spaces. Wouldn’t it be nice to use your mediocrity to truly do something extraordinary and help those around you?