Urban Decay Recruits Self-Love Champions for New Campaign

Urban Decay loves you as you are.

Urban Decay just went off for its new campaign, “Pretty Different,” starring five trailblazers, self-love warriors and, now, UD global citizens. The campaign champions the beauty of individuality in a world overtaken by basic bitches and cookie-cutter consumers.

Lizzo, CL, Ezra Miller, Karol G and Joey King have been named spokespersons of the brand, vowing to keep doing what they do best: being their unedited selves, unapologetically and without filter.

There’s no doubt that V119 cover goddess Lizzo is a match made in heaven for Urban Decay’s initiative. The pop star has become the poster girl of self-love and body positivity. Lizzo, like the beauty brand’s latest initiative, is rebellious, outspoken and proud. CL, a South Korean singer and rapper, brands herself as the self-proclaimed “baddest female,” lending even more self-confidence to the campaign.

“Pretty Different” is a direct effort to combat the arrogant impotence typical of beauty campaigns. Urban Decay, on the other hand, is celebrating the difference, which, by the way, make the vast variety of consumers so diverse.

To introduce the endeavor, Urban Decay dropped a one-minute video. The only let-down of the clip is that it didn’t last longer. The fast-paced video opens with an army of lookalike girls wearing bubblegum pink sweat suits. Surrounded by ring lights, the girls make synchronized motions to capture the perfect selfie.

The video cuts to Ezra Miller. He sits in a dim-lit bedroom, enthralled by a wall of TV screens reminiscent of the telescreens in George Orwell’s literary masterpiece, “1984.” In the novel, the telescreens are used to broadcast propaganda and are monitored by the so-called Thought Police. Orwell’s dystopian theme is present in Urban Decay’s video. Here, the propaganda is unrealistic beauty standards, expressed through a YouTube guru’s clickbait video titled “How to be Pretty.” The Thought Police, then, is corporate beauty and the cycle of unattainable perfection that it seeks to create.

The army of girls stands ready to be made into airbrushed clones. Actress Joey King breaks free of the cycle, serving as ringleader to the women who shed their pink uniforms in favor of their natural colors, a metaphor for shedding beauty standards in favor of authenticity. Carol G, Lizzo, CL and Ezra flaunt their fiercely beat faces, radiating confidence, fearlessness and the ultimate—yet relatable—star power.

Once again, Urban Decay has proved itself one of the most in-touch, woke and reassuring beauty companies of the time. Real talk is no stranger to the brand, nor its newly crowned global citizens.

Watch the “Pretty Different” video below.

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