BBC News Deletes Article Linking Bare Nails Trend To “White Supremacist” Beauty Standards After Story Went Viral In MAGAsphere

The BBC has taken down an online news article linking the bare nails fashion trend to white supremacy because it fell below the British broadcaster’s editorial standards.

On Saturday, BBC News published a story, headlined ‘How the bare nails trend became a class issue,’ which examined the enthusiasm for naked nails.

The story included a quote from a New York City-based beauty journalist, who said the phenomenon promotes an “erasure of culture and identity that is so important to black and brown communities.”

The journalist added: “They are often called elegant or tasteful, and these are often usually euphemisms that perpetuate white supremacist standards of beauty.”

The article was lampooned in comment pieces in British newspapers and went viral in Conservative media circles in the U.S. Fox News picked up on the story, while the likes of radio host Dana Loesch shared it critically online.

The BBC removed the article on Tuesday after an editorial review. Social media posts linking to the story have also been scrubbed from the internet. The piece is archived here.

In a statement on its corrections and clarifications page, the BBC said: “This article examined the trend of bare nails and what might be motivating it, hearing from a range of contributors as well as looking at the cultural significance of manicures.

“It was removed on 29 September pending an editorial review. Following this review the article was permanently removed on the same day because it reported criticism of the bare nails trend without sufficient context or challenge and so did not meet our editorial standards.”

In an op-ed headlined ‘Your Outrage Is Out of Fashion,’ The Wall Street Journal attacked the article for being “embarrassingly retrograde – displaying outdated intellectual fashion – in its attempt to locate offences against social justice in the decisions of individual women whether of not to paint their nails.”

In The Telegraph, Celia Walden — wife of Piers Morgan — wrote: “No, BBC. Bare nails are not racist.”