Have your friends been describing everything they do as “very demure, very mindful”?

What’s not demure: the buzz around whether Jools Lebron, the influencer behind the trend, lost a trademark.

Jools Lebron…

… is a Chicago-based TikToker who posts beauty tutorials. Her video about doing her makeup in a “very demure” manner for work became a viral meme earlier this month.

She’s racked up 2.1m TikTok followers, appeared on “CBS Mornings” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and scored collabs with brands including Verizon and Netflix.

Meanwhile…

… three people who aren’t Lebron have filed related trademark applications with the US Patent and Trademark Office:

• Jefferson Bates of Washington State for “Very demure… Very mindful”
• Kassandra Pop of California for “Very Demure Very Cutesy” — seemingly the same Pop who founded Hive Social
• Almondia White of Ohio for “always demure and very mindful”

A trademark is any word, phrase, symbol, etc. that identifies a company’s products. For example: the Nike swoosh or its slogan, “Just do it.”

But an application is just that

It has to be reviewed — and there’s a backlog — before an opposition period, during which Lebron could step forward.

Law professor Deborah Gerhardt told NPR, “If she can show that consumers view her as the source and that [Bates] came to the scene later, she could have superior trademark rights.”

That may be what Lebron is doing, as she told her TikTok followers the situation was “handled” and that she’d “leave it at that.”

Plus, as The Verge noted, Bates applied for “all industries,” which isn’t how it works. You must define the industry in which you’d actually use the trademark.

A “trademark troll”…

… is a person or company that tries to abuse trademarks. Monster Energy is a notorious example, bullying any other company that attempts to use the word “monster” in any other context.

Bates apparently has a history of doing this as well. One of his pending applications is for “Broncos Country, Let’s Ride,” quarterback Russell Wilson’s catchphrase when he played for the Denver Broncos.

Given Lebron’s newfound fame, this may not go well for Bates; applications are public and usually contain the applicant’s phone number and address.

Several people have already rated Bates’ home on Google Maps as a one out of five stars, with one calling it “not very demure.”

• Oh, great: Plastic now constitutes 0.5% of our brains. That’s 50% more plastic than was found in 2016 samples of human brains, and 7x-30x more compared to the microplastic contents of other organs, according to a new study from the University of New Mexico. Microplastics have been found throughout the human body, including in testicles and placenta — and unfortunately, there’s almost no avoiding it: they’re in everything from toothpaste, sugar, and salt to beer, tap water, and even the air we breathe. Although the health implications for humans are unclear, we’re gonna guess they aren’t good.
• Craving pizza but short on funds? Pizza Hut will let you pay with TikToks. Pizza Hut UAE is letting customers dance for their meals as part of its “Pay With Your Trend” marketing campaign. While influencers getting free food in exchange for posting content is nothing new, you don’t need to be one for a slice of the deal — the promotion is available to anyone willing to post on the social platform (with the appropriate tags), regardless of what you do or how many followers you have. The catch? You have to purchase a My Box meal to be eligible, meaning there’s still no such thing as a free lunch.
• Tokyo’s tax office is auctioning off a $390k Ferrari and other cool AF things. Taxes are boring, but tax department auctions can apparently be pretty exciting — at least in Tokyo, where its tax office is selling a two-seater Ferrari NV 488 Pista Spider, which it seized from a guy who now probably regrets not paying his dues. The 700-horsepower model can cost as much as $820k+ fresh off the lot. Other goods up for bidding include a rare bottle of whiskey, a golf course, and a Pokemon card set. By comparison, the IRS auction site is far less interesting.
• An Austrian surgeon let a middle schooler drill holes into a patient’s skull. The doctor, who seemingly got caught up in a father-daughter bonding moment by letting his 13-year-old operate on a patient in critical condition, has been fired and is being investigated over the incident. The 33-year-old alleged victim, who’d been receiving emergency care for a serious head injury, reportedly only discovered the guinea-pig nature of his surgery months later through the news. Given the procedure was ultimately successful, the teen may have a great medical career ahead of her, though her father definitely doesn’t.