Maybe it’s a new tagline. Maybe it’s more punctuation. Maybelline’s 35-year-old slogan has an update

Alyx, I hear a certain makeup brand has updated its tagline. Why is this a big deal?

The jingle that has been burned into the minds of women around the world since its Christy Turlington-helmed debut in 1991, “Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline”, has received what has being described as a “modernisation”. In a new campaign with Miley Cyrus, the “she’s” will be replaced with “we’re”, which both changes the observer’s perspective to something a little more self-directed and makes it more inclusive. But it’s a punctuation change that is raising eyebrows.

Replacing “she” with “we” feels like a positive move. So what’s turning heads?

They’ve replaced a single comma with a pair of full stops. The slogan is now: “Maybe. We’re born with it. Maybe. It’s Maybelline.”

Maybe. That’s. A. Bit. Confusing?

Not according to Sandrine Jolly, global brand president of Maybelline New York. She told WWD that, previously, “the jingle was giving ambiguity – it was more of a question”. Now: “The ‘maybe’ is not a doubt or a hesitation any more. ‘Maybe’, period, is a statement of possibility, and that is what we want to be for women.”

A statement of possibility?

Maybe. That’s what you say when you’re too polite to say no.

What has been the response from the public so far?

“Running to the comments to find the other Virgos with an eye twitching at these misplaced periods,” according to one remark on WWD’s Instgram post about the change. Or, more bluntly: “Terrible grammatical choices.”

Was it written by AI? Or is this proof it’s 100% human-made?

I think it might have been written by the screenwriters of Succession. It’s very We Here For You.