Makeup Metaphors To Replace Sports Talk With At Work

Buzz Feed

14 hours ago

If you're a woman in business, a woman in a male-dominated workplace, or simply just, a woman, you've probably heard one or two sports metaphors overused at work.
There's nothing particularly wrong with sports lingo — They're fun! It works! — but sometimes, they are just...overdone. What would it look like if the metaphors were pulled from a different kind of...playing field?
Like, say, makeup? That's exactly what Ari Kraemer, a 32-year-old marketing professional from Minneapolis, decided to explore. In a viral video, which has since racked up over 3 million views and 401,000 likes, Ari hilariously reimagined what office talk would look like if makeup metaphors replaced the usual sports clichés.
"I know we want to move forward with this, but...are we adding the foundation before the primer here?" Ari began in the video.
"I'm seeing buying signals, too, but the deal's not over 'til we add our setting spray," she continued with another metaphor idea. "I want to make sure we're finding that balance between dewy and greasy."
Ari said she was inspired to come up with makeup metaphors after attending a work seminar where the speaker couldn't refrain from using a sports metaphor every other minute. "It kept distracting from his point," she told BuzzFeed. "My female colleague and I joked about it, and I thought, why not flip the script? Why do we always default to sports and war when talking about business?"
Without too much thought and her phone camera in hand, Ari posted the skit on a whim, and it instantly caught on. In the comments, thousands of people loved the idea. "See this is what the Barbie script was missing," one person wrote. "Great analysis of how gendered language is," another said.
Of course, the feedback prompted Ari to share more makeup metaphor ideas. Such as, "Yeah, I think that's good for now. Let's let this bake, and we'll dust off tomorrow."
And, "You're trying to add the lashes before the glue's even tacky."
Or, "We can't dry shampoo our way out of this. This is gonna require a full wash."
And lastly, "Look, I just feel like we're highlighting without structure. Where's the contour here?"
In the comments, people couldn't resist sharing their own:
"we're aiming for a natural glow, not a full beat."
"I think we're veering on blush blindness with this, let's scale back."
"Let's make sure there's no lipstick on our teeth before the meeting."
"The client wants Charlotte Tilbury quality on an NYX budget."
"We're already cutting it close. Now's not the time to add a winged liner."
Everyone's pretty much saving these in their back pocket for later. "This is the matriarchy I want to live in," one person wrote.
Some see this as a way to flip the script and take some power back. "I need a skit now of a room full of women talking this way with a confused male coworker lmaooo," one said. "YES, and then when a man doesn't understand you can just belittle him for not understanding [every] metaphor."
Ari said she's already started replacing metaphors at work. "I love slipping them into meetings," she told BuzzFeed. "They get either knowing laughs or blank stares from non-makeup-wearers. It's a fun role reversal. Some of the guys I work with have started catching themselves overusing sports analogies, and have been able to poke fun at themselves."
She said others have reached out to her to start switching up their workplace lingo, too. "I've heard from over 100 women who've tried the metaphors at work at this point. And guys have chimed in, too, saying they're tired of the sports talk and fully support switching it up," she said.
As for what she hopes comes from her makeup metaphors, Ari explained, "I hope it sparks more awareness about how language can include or exclude, especially in a professional setting. Language should reflect a wider range of interests and identities."
Well, I'm genuinely thinking about how I can insert these into my everyday life. What others can you think of? Let us know in the comments.
Ari has since turned her viral 13-second skit into a small book collection of 50 makeup metaphor phrases, titled Touching Up. You can also keep up with Ari on TikTok and Instagram.