The 21-Year-Old Instagrammer Blending Politics And Perfect Contours

By Lily Herman


For several people, makeup is an integral segment of identity that builds confidence and provides new avenues for self-expression. Cosmetics are equipment to create a statement about who you are and why you visualize the world. Some people use concealer to buff over blemishes; others tap highlighter and winged eyeliner to explore their gender expression. And for some, like 21-year-old Matt Bernstein, doing makeup is a way to educate others — while simultaneously contouring like a pro.


A photographer and digital creator, Bernstein’s artful Instagram compositions mixture cut creases and politics into seamless palettes. His posts typically consist of a pithy and biting political message — “I was place on Earth gay, you were taught religion” and “Exposure to heterosexuals never made me straight” are two standouts — spelled out against a backdrop of impeccable makeup looks. Some days Bernstein presents the work without captions, letting each message speak for itself; other times he includes tweets, news article clips, and videos to explain the timely stories that inspired his look of the day. His unique take has earned him almost 200 thousand followers in the past year.


“I aspire to have a laugh with people who follow me, nevertheless I also aspire to keep people updated with current events and news,” he tells MTV News about the in general vibe of his profile. Although it’s become so much more than that to both Bernstein and the hundreds of thousands of people who support his work.


The artist’s foray into makeup started in the mid-2010s, while he was attending high school in a conservative area of New Jersey. And whenever he favors the Morphe x James Charles, ColourPop Pride, and Nix Ultimate Brights palettes nowadays, his first aesthetics look was DIY: He used Wite-Out to paint French hints on his nails. (“It was a thing that a lot of people commented on, yet they weren’t necessarily mean about it,” he recalls.) Immediately after, with his friends’ encouragement, he was playing around with eyeliner and eyeshadow. The end of his high school experience coincided with the 2016 election — and once Donald Trump was elected president, Bernstein started looking at his new hobby differently. “That’s as soon as things felt more grave and important,” he says.


About per year ago, Bernstein realized that he had a possibility to draw more attention to causes he cared about by using his face and body as a canvas, he started playing around with rainbow makeup — a nod to the LGBTQ+ community — as a signature look. While the artist has used Instagram for a number of many years, he originally saw the platform as a tool to promote his freelance photography work, which mostly centered on queer subjects and gatherings; eventually, he determined to merge his dueling passions for aesthetics and visual art. “I just wanted to do my own thing really badly, and Once I felt like I was good enough at makeup to put it out there without it looking wonky, that’s While I started,” he explains of the shift. “I wanted to keep the same political influence Whenever I was doing photography and transfer the medium.”


Right now, he spends two-plus hours per day on the makeup he showcases in every Instagram post, moreover to another two or three hours photographing and prepping his work for upload. The simplicity and accessibility of Berstein’s images — which, he says, are not heavily edited — are a conscious choice. “When I deliver those messages directly on my skin, there’s added impact because I’m really taking ownership of what I’m saying; it’s on my body. It’s really unapologetic, and that’s really what I go for,” he says.


Makeup has long been utilized by the LGBTQ+ community and is integral to the movement’s politics of resistance. Glitter is a symbol of queer identity with a legacy that spans decades. Purchasing and using aesthetics products is an inherently political decision for several trans girls and nonbinary people, one that can have serious consequences. Makeup is also a core facet of drag culture, which drag queen Sasha Velour recently called a “political and historical art form.”


This long history continues today, also it is proliferated across social media. On Instagram, creators like ALOK, Adam Eli, and Jacob Tobia make space for LGBTQ+ self-expression; they’re truthful about their political beliefs, and why style and aesthetics choices intersect with them. They join creatives like YouTubers MannyMUA, PatrickStarrr, and NikkiTutorials, and also makeup artist Ariel Tejada and photographer Quil Lemons, as key members of digital aesthetics culture, thanks to their undeniable talent, their brazen messaging, and the inspiration they offer to young people attempting to navigate their own selfhood.


“Seeing other people [speak up] in their own spheres … and being unapologetic is really inspiring,” Bernstein says. He cites ALOK, Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness, and the writer Florence Given as role models; while each person’s fashion stands out to him, he also appreciates their bravery and vulnerability in sharing their experiences online. “[Their] outspokenness is fantastic,” he says, noting that he often felt like he didn’t have people to look up to any time while he was a teenager.


For several young people, especially those who reside in isolated or conservative areas, their first exposure to queerness and expressions of gender behind heteronormativity, and also affirmation and celebration, is often through digital platforms like Youtube and Instagram. It’s a corrective to a more established media model, where authentically LGBTQ+ narratives are still a minority. Only roughly 8.8% of characters who were series regulars on broadcast television while in the 2018-2019 season were canonically defined as LGBTQ+, and less than one-fifth of the 110 releases from Hollywood’s biggest studios in 2018 had a LGBTQ+ character; both of those stats are major leaps forward from the relative erasure of previous years.


Nevertheless finding your community and identifying with affirming role models in real time can be a lifeline for marginalized groups, whose identities can often politicized by outsiders even if they’re attempting to simply live their best and most sincere lives. And right now as much as ever, visibility for the LGBTQ+ community can serve as an important act of resistance to bigotry that is attempting to intimidate people back inside hiding. There was a 42% jump in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes from 2017 to 2018, and at least 22 trans people were murdered in 2019, a disproportionate assortment of whom were Black trans women.


Like his role models, Bernstein’s work highlights the intersection of politics, identity, and style; he purposefully harnesses the power of the Instagram aesthetics community to keep people informed. “I’m aware that I stay in a bubble in New York City politically along with a lot of the people that I follow don’t,” he says. “I wish to engage America and the world at large in that way — [and explore] how concepts of gender and sexuality are being viewed not just in New York City.” Nevertheless he is also keenly aware that supposedly progressive places still have a long way to go, too; according to the New York Police Department, New York City had a 20% increase in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes in 2019 compared to 2018.


Bernstein is also aware that visibility isn’t routinely safe for a lot of people — and he’s understandably leery of brands that harness LGBTQ+ tastemakers without stimulating the community in an authentic way, a trend referred to as pinkwashing. While the artist has appeared in Pride campaigns for makeup giant Maybelline and style home Polo Ralph Lauren, even creating his own filters for brands like Chroma Stories, he is still selective about which brands he chooses to work with. “I have some really fabulous relationships with brands that respect my art and respect my platform so much, and I’m really grateful,” he says. “But I’m well aware that I don’t appeal to the entirety of the aesthetics world because I’m so outspoken. I love makeup, yet that’s not the only thing I care about. I want to tell a full story. If a business doesn’t aspire to purchase into that, that’s okay; that’s not where my priority is.”


He’s most overjoyed not that he’s built a brand or a following, yet that he’s fostered connections with other young people seeking community online. “One of the most gratifying parts of doing what I do has been the answer from people who are in a similar position that I was, who don’t have a lot of organic exposure to other LGBTQ+ people,” he explains. “I never set out to be that person for someone; that’s not really a tangible objective. Nevertheless hearing what [other young people] have to mention and why they’re getting through things is what inspires me the most.”


And while some people attempt to police him in comments or DMs, often by claiming that makeup shouldn’t mix with politics, he has a message curated expressly for them: “You can do whichever you want on your Instagram,” he says with a laugh.