Lucy Edwards

Will Butler:

You're listening to Say My Meme, the podcast that describes the Internet's best memes for those of us who can't see them. This week we have a very special guest host. You might know her from YouTube, TikToK, or the BBC, the blind, beauty expert and journalist, Lucy Edwards. Thank you so much for joining us on Say My Meme.

Lucy Edwards:

Thank you so much for having me, Will. I'm excited to deep dive in.

Will Butler:

Caroline, have you ever watched any of Lucy's videos?

Caroline Desrosiers:

I love Lucy's videos. They're all so interesting and unique, and I just love that recently 5.9 million people watched you light a candle.

Will Butler:

What? I did see you this one.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. Literally. 5.9 million people. It's a bit crazy, but you know-

Will Butler:

Tell people who don't know a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah, so I'm Lucy Edwards. I'm in the United Kingdom currently. I'm 25. I live with my retired guide dog, Olga, and my beautiful fiance. I am a broadcaster, journalist and online content creator. So I'm a trained journalist with the BBC, and now I make TikToK videos most recently, and YouTube videos, all on life without sight. Just exploring how we can be able to do lots of different things. See the ability and disability, that kind of stuff. Specialty is talking about makeup and beauty all the time.

Will Butler:

How does the BBC feel about you making TikToK videos?

Lucy Edwards:

I think they're okay with it. There's another journalist called Sophia Smith Galer. Don't know if you know of her on TikTok? She is bossing it too. She's amazing.

Will Butler:

And then, who are these 5.9 million people who watched you light a candle?

Lucy Edwards:

That was on YouTube. If it was just so random. I love it. It's on the new shorts feature. It was another short video and it just went completely viral, Will. What can I say? Caroline, honestly, I don't know what's going on it. I think to be honest, it's the jeopardy, isn't it, of lighting it and going, "Oh my gosh, is she going to burn herself?" So that's the thing.

Caroline Desrosiers:

I think it was maybe the element of danger or something. People were like, "Okay. I just want to find out how this works." Yeah.

Lucy Edwards:

I think it's when I shook the batteries at the start. I think they were like, "Oh my gosh, doom. She can't see." Yeah, so funny.

Will Butler:

Lucy Edwards is edgy now. That's what it is.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah, exactly.

Will Butler:

I love it. Well, we're so happy you joined us, Lucy. And you actually submitted a request to Say My Meme. You requested some beauty memes. We went to work, looking for the exact right memes to meet your request. And Caroline, how did we do?

Caroline Desrosiers:

It wasn't hard, I'll have to say that. Because there are so many beauty memes on the internet it's amazing. I think it's because we're all struggling with our personal style or what to do. Makeup fails. This is just something that is a part of life.

Will Butler:

Lucy, you live in this beauty world. You make videos about it, you talk about it, you speak at big companies about access to beauty. Did you know that there were all these memes out there?

Lucy Edwards:

You know what, Will? I came on the call and said to you guys, "Oh my gosh, I feel like I've been living under a rock with it." I'm so on social media and swimming in loads of beauty content day to day, this completely passed me by as a non-sighted woman. And I'm kind of flawed that Caroline, you're saying that you found loads, but it makes sense. But it's definitely a whole culture that I have never explored, which is so interesting.

Will Butler:

Our whole mission is to uncover those memes for our community and describe them. So should we just dive in, Caroline? Should we start with some beauty memes?

Caroline Desrosiers:

Let's do it.

Will Butler:

Amazing. All right. What's the first one we've got?

Caroline Desrosiers:

All right. Danny DeVito wearing a white wig that looks like a poodle that's been teased out for too many dog shows. Tagline, "Why don't you let your hair dry naturally?" Me.

Ongo Gablogian:

Hello.

Speaker 5:

Hello.

Ongo Gablogian:

Ongo Gablogian, the art collector. Charmed, I'm sure.

Speaker 5:

Yes.

Ongo Gablogian:

I'm going to invite you to a show.

Speaker 5:

Okay.

Ongo Gablogian:

But first allow me to destroy your gallery.

Lucy Edwards:

That is quite cool, but it's so ... Literally everyone always says to me, "Lucy, you hair dries so wavy." But I think there's a lot of people out there that has really frizzy hair if they leave it. I know my auntie's one of those. She's like, "If I don't dry my hair, I look like a poodle."

Will Butler:

I've been wondering about this because my hair is incredibly long now after the last year. And I let it dry naturally, but I have very straight hair. Should I be blow drying it or what? How do you dry your hair?

Lucy Edwards:

Well, it depends. You need some styling products, Will. We got to go there. If you're going to heat style your hair, hun, you've got to have some possibly ... Well, I love a bit of a GHD styling lotions and all that sort of stuff. You've got to protect it. So, if you're going to go into that game. It would be maybe a bit sleeker. You could get a round headed brush and just bouffant it up a little bit, possibly.

Will Butler:

Oh yeah. It always falls in my face. That's the big problem. I want to get it out of my face.

Lucy Edwards:

You could have some of that hairspray, that whole Gorilla Glue thing that went round. I think it was the Schwarzkopf Got To Be Glued. I love the hairspray myself, but a lot of the internet, it's like, "Don't use that hairspray. It will glue your hair into oblivion." Firstly, that would definitely hold your fringe.

Will Butler:

Yeah, yeah. That might be my last resort.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah. Or you could just keep going and go for the man bun. Just let it grow.

Will Butler:

Between you and me and all of our listeners, that's what I've been doing.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Nice.

Will Butler:

Don't tell anybody though.

Lucy Edwards:

New style.love it.

Will Butler:

Okay, beauty meme number two.

Caroline Desrosiers:

All right. Tyra Banks loses her shit like she's the one eliminated from her show by the ungrateful models that will never be better than her. Ever, ever, ever. Tagline, when you've been growing out your nails for weeks and one breaks. Subtitle caption on this GIF is, I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you.

Lucy Edwards:

Next Top Model.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yes.

Lucy Edwards:

I love it. I used to always watch that.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah, I know.

Lucy Edwards:

But honestly, I feel that pain. I don't know whether you guys do, whether you guys get your nails done. But if my nail lady sees that I have a split nail she's like, "Lucy, what have you done?" I'm like, "I know." It's painful. It's painful.

Will Butler:

How do you as a blind person take good care of your nails? Are there any non visual ... I don't even think about it. I just feel them, but is there-

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. Nails off every tactile. Because of my eye condition actually, I have very ridged nails. It's part of my Incontinentia Pigmenti that I do have ridged nails. So I just, honestly, I have some nail oil to put on my cuticles when my nail technician isn't here. Because we've been in a lockdown for so long in the UK and I can't wait to see her. But she's like, "Don't bite them." And I have such a habit of biting them. If I don't have nail polish on them, it's like, "No, Lucy. Your nails look like absolute rubbish." But no, basically I just ... The short answer there, Will, instead of all my waffle is, basically I get someone else to look at them for me.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Right. Right. It is massively disappointing when you've been trying to grow them out and they are looking nice, and then one of them breaks and it's of course like it really does feel like that. It's like, we were all rooting for you and now we have to go shorter because of you so we can be even.

Lucy Edwards:

Yes, I totally agree. It's like all of them are talking to each other, like they've got little faces and they're like, "How dare you." Yeah sorry, that was probably a bit creepy. But no, honestly, I feel like it's horrible that they all have to be the same when you break one. It's like all that effort just in the bin.

Will Butler:

Is there nothing you can do? You can't add onto them? Put a little extra nail?

Lucy Edwards:

You could. But then I feel like that severely hurts your nails.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Right. It's not natural.

Lucy Edwards:

I don't mind glue-on. I don't know about you Caroline. Do you have them or do you feel like you just can't do anything? I can't wash up with the longer nails, add-ons.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah. I give up at that point. There's no correcting it because then if you try to fix it and put a fake one on there, then it's going to be not only short, but really unhealthy.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah, exactly.

Caroline Desrosiers:

So you can't help it. But this is an actual moment from America's Next Top Model and an actual caption. She was full on screaming this at someone.

Lucy Edwards:

Was she?

Will Butler:

Oh. She was really saying, "We're all rooting for you."?

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah. She got really upset at one of the contestants who was just very, it sounds like she was very disconnected from the competition and not caring. And Tyra had to give her what for, and scream in her face about caring about it and we were all rooting for her and how disappointing she was.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh wow.

Will Butler:

so the thing about some of these memes, Lucy, that I didn't really fully understand was that in many cases they're using subtitles from real programs.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh, right.

Will Butler:

So like something that someone actually said in a movie or a TV show, and then they're adding on top of it to create the joke.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh nice. So it's like the freeze frame?

Will Butler:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh, okay.

Will Butler:

Or in this, case it's a GIF.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah. It's a GIF and she's like, because it's a looping GIF, she's just continuing to yell at you and she's whipping her hair back and forth and she's in a full blown rage. So this is just playing on repeat and someone's written the first part of this caption and then paired it with the actual subtitle of this moment. Very clever.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh wow. See how that would be quite eye-catching, like how you would stumble upon that over everything else on the page, I guess, if you could see. That's very dramatic.

Will Butler:

Tyra Banks losing her shit?

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah.

Will Butler:

All right. Beauty meme number three.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Okay. When the pool water isn't wet enough, you rinse your face with wetter water from a bottle. Tagline, me using a facial mist after I've applied my essence, serum and moisturizer.

Will Butler:

Okay. I don't get it.

Lucy Edwards:

I sort of do but ... I know that I apply 70 different products to my face. That's a given. But I don't quite understand that it's wetter. I guess you just don't apply everything.

Caroline Desrosiers:

I know. I kind of knew that this was ... It was like the the caption I couldn't resist writing, but I knew that it was too abstract.

Lucy Edwards:

I love it.

Will Butler:

Okay. So then you probably brought some back up description here.

Caroline Desrosiers:

I did. I did. So it's a side view shot of a water polo player treading water in a swimming pool. And he's, for some reason, pouring water from a plastic bottle onto his forehead and it's running down the front of his face. And he has on this red and white water polo cap with ear protectors. Then there's dark blue painted lanes in the pool. So, he's swimming laps or he's playing water polo, but for some reason it's just kind of like an, and this one's used quite often. I think because people are quite perplexed as to why he's in a pool, but pouring water on his face.

Lucy Edwards:

Okay.

Will Butler:

Wow.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah.

Will Butler:

So Lucy, would that be just kind of a joke about how fricking wet you get when you're putting on all these different things?

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah, I think so. That was my goal go-to reaction to it. Definitely you have to wait 15, 20 minutes before each layer. My skin care is a whole thing. Ion my Instagram Lives I literally apply like seven, eight things to my face, which I absolutely love. It's definitely a routine that I have every night so I can see why, if you didn't have time for that, it's definitely product after product after product after product. Yeah, you get quite wet.

Will Butler:

Are the things that it says? Serum, and what were the other things?

Caroline Desrosiers:

So its essence, serum and moisturizer.

Will Butler:

What are essence and serum?

Lucy Edwards:

So basically, a general sort of cleansing routine is like cleanser, an essence or a serum, a toner, moisturizer. Those are the key components of a routine. An essence and a serum, basically they're meant to be lighter products that seep into the skin but can run down your face. A serum tends to, it's not limited to a pipette bottle, but you do pipette it onto your face. And it could be like a chemical exfoliant or it's basically the product that then lets all of the other more, I guess, moisturizing products after the fact, seep into the deeper layers of your skin, if you like. They are like the wetter layers. You do have to like rub them in quite quickly because they're quite runny, I guess. Yeah, before the moisturizer stage.

Will Butler:

I am learning so much. This is incredible. I had-

Caroline Desrosiers:

I feel like you just get talked into buying a whole line of skincare. Because you're like, "Please help me. I don't have a clue what to do." And then you end up buying this series of skincare products and you're like, "Just put them all on." And you're like, "Wait a second. I don't even think I need the mist at this point."

Lucy Edwards:

Honestly.

Caroline Desrosiers:

But it's next in line.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. The kind of science behind the mist is you spray it onto your face and then everything then .... If your face is wet, basically, more things seep into it apparently. And hydration station, all that things. So yeah, it makes sense. It's quite funny. It definitely is this whole like every brand has several projects and you're meant to just apply them all to your face. But I love it. I'm very biased. I'm like, "Yes, do it please. Give me all the products."

Will Butler:

I feel like I'm getting a free consultation session.

Lucy Edwards:

Well, there we go.

Will Butler:

This is great.

Will Butler:

Okay. Beauty meme number four.

Caroline Desrosiers:

All right. A classic art closeup on a woman's face with the unfortunate definition and coloration of an undercooked flapjack.

Lucy Edwards:

Ooh.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Tagline, when you run out of time so you can't watch the contouring tutorial video before your date tonight with Greg.

Lucy Edwards:

So she's put it all over her face?

Caroline Desrosiers:

No, actually she's just got ... It's a cropped portrait image of the Virgin Mary. So this is a classic art painting and she has this very pale complexion and a high forehead that, for some reason, to me looks a bit lumpy. And her face is like rather large and round and it's like accentuated by this thin line of soft, orange ringlets that are kind of hugging her face a little too close. And it just looks like she has no definition at all and some really small features as well. So to me she kind of looks like a pancake. Like an uncooked pancake and in desperate need of contouring.

Lucy Edwards:

Heightening. Yeah. Oh, okay. So the idea is she hasn't put ... I thought she would've put to much. I don't know why, at the start I thought because she looked baked in my head, like she was red or possibly the color of bronzer. I don't know why I clung onto that, but that's funny.

Will Butler:

Oh my gosh. So what is contouring? Is it like a ... Oh my gosh. I'm so oblivious.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Honestly, it's wild. And Lucy explain it, because you can literally change the look of your face and the structure of your face with contouring.

Lucy Edwards:

Honestly, I probably would look like pancake if I didn't have it on. Also, you have to place it in exactly the right places for your face. So contouring basically accentuates the cheekbones, and you can put a little boop on your nose. Or if you want to look a bit sun kissed, you could put a bit on your forehead and buff it out. And sometimes people go for that aesthetic of having a sharper jawline so may put it just underneath their jaw. Contour is used everywhere, but it definitely makes you look like you're radiant and glowing and out in the sun.

Lucy Edwards:

And it's kind of like a sister to blusher and highlighter. Highlighter goes on the high points of the face, and blush it on the apples of the cheek right up ... Actually, a lot of the fashion at the moment in 2021 is to go higher with all of those products. Like high, high, high. Higher blusher placement. It used to be, like back in, I don't know, 2015, '16, you'd go lower with those projects. It's definitely culture and I think it makes your skin just look so gorgeous and sun kissed.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Right.

Will Butler:

Well Lucy, you know there's only been four months in 2021?

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. I know. There's a massive culture of placing your blusher higher on TikTok at the moment. And bronzer. To be honest, a lot of the culture is blusher. The makeup looks are shifting towards blusher and radiance and kind of your skin, but better. Makeup looks, but kind of looking like you don't have loads of makeup on.

Will Butler:

Can I ask a random question?

Lucy Edwards:

Go on.

Will Butler:

Where are we at with men's makeup?

Lucy Edwards:

Last year I watched Dragon's Den here in the UK. I don't know if you're aware of the program, but basically it's this show where small businesses go and bid with the dragons. It's a BBC show and they sit and they say, "Look, I've got this really cool, innovative product, and I want you to take it to market with me." Anyway, there was a men's makeup brand on there and I was really, really interested in seeing how that would go. And I think it's really popular now. It's definitely, and [inaudible 00:20:10] is more high-end over here in the UK. I can't for the life of me tell you what it's called. The name escapes me so this is probably all useless information.

Lucy Edwards:

But I think that definitely there is a culture for men's makeup. I see loads of men on TikTok rocking it, which I just think is amazing. And yeah, Will, if you want to, go for it. Go for it. If you want some tips.

Will Butler:

I'll try anything once.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. Why not?

Caroline Desrosiers:

We'd all like to see that as well. It's interesting. These contouring memes I would say are very popular. I found so many of them and I think it's because when you're in the midst of doing your contouring, you've got stripes of different colors all over your face, right Lucy?

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Like you've drawn on dark parts and light parts and you look really strange at one point. So a lot of these memes are like, the wifi cut out right when I was in the middle of the tutorial video. What am I going to do now? I'm left this way.

Lucy Edwards:

Literally. But don't you think, hun, when you basically put your foundation on, you're matching your neck. So, because my neck's really, really light, if I don't put any of those contouring products on, I do look just completely like I've got no color in me. So yeah, I totally agree. It's such a problem. I can see why there's loads. I love it though. I want to know more.

Will Butler:

Wow. Okay, do we have one more Caroline?

Caroline Desrosiers:

We do. Okay. Next meme. And this one is, I'll say, a GIF with an audio punchline. We've never done this before. Kind of interesting. From atop a mountain, a scared, stiff marmot screams with the fury of a thousand bad hair days. Tagline, when I accidentally trim my beard too short.

Will Butler:

Wait, so this is like a screaming ... What is this little thing?

Lucy Edwards:

Is it a pterodactyl?

Will Butler:

It sounds like a guy.

Caroline Desrosiers:

It's a marmot. Yeah. Okay. So what's going on here is it's a GIF, like a short video of this furry marmot that's perched in front of tall pine trees and a meadow in the distant background. And he's standing very stiffly up on his hind legs and his arms are dangling straight down in front of his body. And then all of a sudden he lets out this like forceful, man's scream that has this effect of echoing through the valley. And then like waits for a beat turns towards the camera, and then straining its neck, lets out a second scream. But what's happened here is that ... Okay, if you don't know a marmot, what would you compare this to?

Lucy Edwards:

I was going to say-

Caroline Desrosiers:

They're little mountain creatures.

Lucy Edwards:

Okay. Is a marmot an American term, guys? I have never heard that terminology.

Caroline Desrosiers:

It could be.

Will Butler:

It must-

Caroline Desrosiers:

It could be. Yeah. Maybe you call them something else.

Will Butler:

Marmot, let's see.

Lucy Edwards:

Possibly.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah, but they're very small and they squeak actually.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh, wow.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Like they have this high pitch squeak. So they've replaced this marmot's squeak with a man's scream.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh, wow.

Will Butler:

A marmot is a relatively large ground squirrel.

Lucy Edwards:

Oh, okay. Okay. So I guess they might not have it in the UK. Okay. I'm picturing of a big squirrel. Nice. Okay.

Will Butler:

Yeah. So that was the one for me. I get it. I get what you're saying, Caroline, and I can relate to that for sure.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah. So this was one for you, Will, because a beard is a man's makeup, or could be a man's makeup, right?

Will Butler:

Well, we all hide behind it, that's for sure.

Caroline Desrosiers:

But has this happened to you?

Will Butler:

Yeah, of course.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Have you-

Will Butler:

Yeah. And the thing is, when you're trimming your beard, you're using one of these easily electric buzzer things, and one false move and-

Lucy Edwards:

And it's gone.

Will Butler:

It's like a chunk is missing.

Lucy Edwards:

No.

Will Butler:

There have been-

Lucy Edwards:

It's like, "No."

Will Butler:

The neighbors have been concerned. Yeah. Yeah.

Lucy Edwards:

But also, do you have a-

Caroline Desrosiers:

So this is quite accurate?

Lucy Edwards:

Do you have a full beard, Will?

Will Butler:

It's like a short beard. But if you ever see a guy who randomly shows up somewhere with just a mustache after he's had a beard for a long time, it was usually preceded by one of these screams.

Caroline Desrosiers:

That answers the question.

Will Butler:

And he'll pull it off like, "Oh no, I just thought I'd try something new." But really, he accidentally cut his beard [inaudible 00:25:17] and he realized he couldn't do it anymore.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Oh my gosh. That's so funny. Yeah, next time I'm going to be like, "So what really happened?"

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah.

Will Butler:

Just send him the marmot meme. Like, "I know. I feel your pain."

Lucy Edwards:

I understand.

Will Butler:

Yeah. Well, what an incredible group of memes. Thank you, Caroline, for putting these all together.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Yeah, absolutely. It was fun.

Will Butler:

Lucy, what do you think? Do you feel like you have a better grasp on what's going on over there in meme culture?

Lucy Edwards:

You know what? I really do. I feel like I want to pick your brain, Caroline, way more. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, can you do more?" I might literally, as we get off, get your email out and be like, "Any more that you saw?" Honestly, it's so cool. Thank you so much.

Will Butler:

Yeah. And for those listening, you can submit your beauty memes, or any type of meme, by just shooting us a voice memo. You can just email it to hello@saymymeme.com. And who knows Lucy, maybe we'll get some more beauty memes for you to listen to it in the podcast feed.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. Yes, please. I'm all ears.

Will Butler:

Everyone go check out Lucy's YouTube channel. Lucy, any other projects where you want people to hit follow?

Lucy Edwards:

Oh, if you guys are on TikTok, that'd be awesome. But also, I just wanted to shout out a video that I did on COVID-19 tests. I actually opened a COVID test with Be My Eyes, which I thought was very apt for this pod. And it went really well.

Will Butler:

Oh yeah. You called the Department of Health on Be My Eyes, right?

Lucy Edwards:

I did. I called NHS Test and Trace.

Will Butler:

NHS.

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. Over here. And they're really helpful. Yeah. It's awesome.

Will Butler:

And you were able to do it all from home?

Lucy Edwards:

Yeah. All from home. They sent me the test. I actually rang them a day before I filmed that video of me doing the test, and this lovely Irish guy answered the phone and he booked my test for me. I gave him my deets and then it came, literally in less than 24 hours to my door. I opened it up with the lovely lady on the phone and there you go. Posted it back.

Will Butler:

Amazing. So cool.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Fantastic.

Will Butler:

So cool.

Lucy Edwards:

It is cool.

Will Butler:

Well, we're happy to have you, Lucy. And you're welcome back anytime on the podcast.

Caroline Desrosiers:

Thanks Lucy.

Lucy Edwards:

Thanks so much. Bye, guys.

Will Butler:

Do you want to describe your favorite memes for our community? Send a voice memo to hello@saymymeme.com. That's hello@saymymeme.com.

‍