A white woman says she’s been accused of trying to look ‘racially ambiguous’ because she wears her hair curly, has had lip fillers and loves fake tan
A white woman says she’s been accused of trying to look ‘racially ambiguous’ because she wears her hair curly, has had lip fillers and loves fake tan.
Robyn Warren, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stoke-on-Trent, says ‘ignorant’ online trolls regularly tell her she’s ‘blackfishing’ – and have even trawled back through old photos of her to try and prove she once had straight hair.
The 22-year-old, born to white parents, says people have accused her of trying to attempt to change her natural features to appear mixed race.
One anonymous troll even set up a account to investigate her heritage, digging up old photos from her family members’ social media accounts in an attempt to prove she used to be more ‘white-looking’.
She says her TikTok account has been targeted by people attacking the way she looks, accusing her of ‘blackfishing’ and trying to look racially ambiguous
Warren says she ‘can see that blackfishing is an issue.I’ve seen people when you know they’re white and all of a sudden they’ve got box braids and they’re raiding the sunbeds – it’s obvious that they’re trying to look black’ – but says that not what her own style is about
Some of the comments Warren has received on social media – she denies that she’s trying to look different from her white heritage, saying ‘not all white people look the same’
Warren says she has Italian heritage on her mother’s side, which means she tends to tan easily
The TikToker insists that she has never claimed to be or attempted to look mixed race and her curly locks are natural, saying she ‘can’t help how she looks’.
The customer service worker also says that the backlash against fillers and fake tan is ‘unfair’ as she believes it’s the ‘norm’ amongst girls her age.
Warren said: ‘The whole reason people initially started attacking my appearance is because they couldn’t get their head around how a white person can have curly hair.
‘Alongside that I wear fake tan and I had 0.5ml of lip filler.
‘It’s literally a tiny bit of lip filler, before that my lips were naturally big anyway and I don’t even wear that much fake tan – I go darker when I’m on holiday.
‘Because of all three aspects people just think I must be mixed race and when they found out I wasn’t they said ‘you’re trying to be black then’ but that’s not the case.
‘I personally don’t think I look mixed race at all and I can’t help how I look.My mum’s side of the family are olive skinned and tan really well so that’s why I tan well when I go on holiday.
Robyn Warren, a 22-year-old betting shop worker from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Stoke-on-Trent, has tight highlighted curls, full lips – thanks to fillers – and admits she loves fake tan
One TikToker set up an account to investigate her heritage, webpage claiming to have found photos of Warren with straight hair to prove she’s had a perm
The customer service worker reveals she had 0.5ml of lip filler injected into her lips in April this year to even out her lip shape on her already ‘naturally big’ pout
‘A lot of them say I backcomb my hair and try to make it look like an afro but it’s literally just my hair – I get out of the shower and put a bit of product in and it dries the way it dries.
‘Once you admit you’ve had a bit of filler people automatically say ‘you’re trying to be black, you’re not happy with your white features’ but the majority of girls I know have had lip filler and wear fake tan, it’s the norm.