‘I want people to see confidence’: Woman’s viral selfie challenges beauty norms

Naomi Pilula, a lawyer based in Zambia, uploaded a selfie in June that has been garnering her attention all summer.

Naomie Pilula didn’t expect a mundane selfie to turn her into an international viral sensation.

On June 11, the 37-year-old Zambian lawyer shared a photo on Instagram with a simple caption.

“Happy Monday,” she wrote. “The hair is hairing and the skin is skinning so I’m so happy!!!!! This is a Bantu knotout on freshly washed hair.  So even though my hair is in dire need of a retire, it still looks cute.” 

Within hours, it drew over half a million comments and shares. Instead of compliments, however, the responses cruelly zeroed in on her nose. 

“I had people telling me outright, ‘You’re ugly,’ [and] ‘you don’t deserve to be on the internet,’” Pilula told People magazine during a recent interview. 

While Pilula was overwhelmed by the negative attention — even moved at one point to make a passive-aggressive response video she deleted — she ultimately decided not to take the picture down despite several commenters’ urging. 

“I really, really want people to see God. I want people to see confidence. I am not [an] aesthetically beautiful person. I’m not, and that’s okay,” she said. “But I love myself, and I can be myself. And with that is a certain level of beauty because there is a light that everyone has and that deserves to shine.” 

The comments, particularly about her broad nose, are a painful reminder of just how little the needle on beauty standards has moved and how they continue to harm Black women. In the 19th century, pseudosciences like physiognomy ranked broad noses as inferior — a prejudice that has lingered in media portrayals and even in today’s digital filters that automatically narrow features. For women like Pilula, the pressure to alter oneself is longstanding.

“I do know that one of the most controversial features that I have, which is what blew up the internet, was my nose. It’s my father’s nose. Why would I want to remove a feature that identifies me with my father? It doesn’t make sense,” she said. 

“I won’t say that there was that one day where I woke up and I looked in the mirror and said, ‘Yes,’ but there was just one point where you looked at yourself and said, ‘I like the way I look,’” she continued. “And that was me. And once I arrived at that point, no one can take that away because they didn’t give it to me.”

It hasn’t been all negative comments. Thankfully, she has inspired nearly just as many as those who have felt the need to comment on her looks. Her follower count, closer to 1,000 around April, has grown to over 70,000, and the positive, supportive comments keep rolling in.  

She even noted that many of the worst posts about her have garnered her the largest amount of followers in return. 

“So it is the idea that if the purpose of this was destroying me, I’m not going to agree with that purpose,“ she said.