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You know what, I love us. The natural hair communiity online, at meet ups, and even the random ladies I give head nods to on the street because they have dope hair, makes the journey so much more enjoyable. But too much of a good thing can go wrong, so these are five times when I think we took it too far.
1. Pi Nappa Kappa Sorority
In the summer of 2011, a time which the Huffington Post claimed “the natural hair craze […] reached a new level”, the Pi Nappa Kappa Sorority was created by Leola Anifowoshe, the same woman behind the Nzuri Natural hair shows. The sorority’s Charter states they exist “to provide a platform for natural hair women around the world to come together to discuss their natural hair and living lifestyles.” At a time when the number of resources available for natural-haired women was still growing, many felt that it would be a great thing to formalize this sense of community. However, only 2,407 people pledged before the end of 2011 (though they now have over 16,000 likes on Facebook), so perhaps it was an idea before its time. The sorority has since evolved but is still around and taking members, so if you’re interested, you can join by heading over to the virtual PiNK house (gotta admit, that’s cute), where you can get a line number, paraphernalia, and join in on their forum discussions and events.
2. Inversion Method
This was hot for a bit, but somebody somewhere realized that holding your head down for minutes at a time, for days at a time, could magically make your hair grow inches more than it usually does. While I’m all for a forward fold as a core yoga position, I’m not sure I can understand the necessity of holding your head upside down to promote your scalp’s blood circulation, which is thought to speed up hair growth. I’m surprised there weren’t more blog posts about neck cramps whiplash.
3. Petition for Motions to revoke Taren Guy’s Sponsorship
Thankfully only 132 people saw this fit to lend their signature, but an anonymous “Concerned Black Woman” believes that Taren “continues to damage the core and the fiber of what it means to be a black woman in this country” and thus should not be backed by Motions or it’s parent company Unilever. The individual specifically refers to Taren’s child-bearing decisions… aka her personal business. There’s an entire blog dedicated to Taren shade/hate/beef, which I can only imagine was started by a natural. Regardless of whether you like a blogger, making it your duty to come at their life is doing entirely too much – and is the ultimate example of divisiveness within the natural hair community.
4. Bull Sperm for Hair Growth
I won’t spend much time on this since BGLH already covered the facts, but the weird products that naturals come across in the pursuit of length has got to stop!
5. When we drove Solange away
Remember when Solange was one of the faces of Carol’s Daughter? They enlisted her along with Cassie and Selita Ebanks to promote their Transitioning Movement back in 2012. But then we bothered her too much about her hair, called it unkempt and such, leading her to quit her ambassadorship, stating she never signed up to be the “team natural vice president”. Even though Solange still serves as a great representation of natural hair’s versatility and beauty in the celebrity world, especially for kinky textured naturals, it is a shame that we pushed her away from being more involved.
Be honest, did you participate in any of these moments when we collective went too far? Are there any other times when the natural hair community did entirely the most?
Made and packaged by hand
Food-grade all natural ingredients
Woman-Owned business
I had no idea there was a natural hair sorority nor was I aware that some obscure, unhappy internet mongrel dedicated their life’s work to hating Taren Guy. How absurd is that?? Some people just have too much time and not enough sense. But yeah I remember the Carol’s Daughter thing with Solange. I feel like bloggers/vloggers go through the same things, especially if they have natural hair, but particularly if their online presence has nothing to do with their hair.
solange with carols daughter made sense to me it was Selita and Cassie who didn’t. I don’t think the sorority is bad at all though I won’t be joining
Wow, I wasn’t aware of any of the “controversies” involving Taren or Solange. The natural hair world is not unlike many communities in that regard though, we could all benefit from a little more empathy.
If someone’s gonna put herself in the public eye some negativity has to be expected, but a whole ongoing blog full of private information is beyond obsessive! That can’t be good for that blogger’s heart nor psyche. And if I were Solange I would do the same, because why advocate for people when you don’t feel their support. I would honestly feel hurt. Empathy people!
Lol at # 5. So true!! That one broke my heart at the time..lol
The Motions petition did what it was intended to do, which is to shine a light on the Taren Guy’s shameful past and present. It’s not about how many kids she has with how many men. It’s about the charges of neglect and the lack of transparency about who her kids are with and why. It’s about the money that disappeared with Faces of Autism. It’s about the fact that the VP of her new “tv network” is her married lover and latest baby daddy. It’s about the fact that she expected the natural hair community to hand her $80K… Read more »
Wow a whole blog and petition dedicated to hate a person? smh…umm
Before you decide that the Taren Guy petition is BS, be sure to look at all of the recent receipts that have come up on Taren and her married lover. And the fact that she lied about the amount of money she raised for the Faces of Autism Campaign and never fully explained where the money for that “organization” and the t-shirt line.
And then she recently tried to raise 80K for an ambiguous campaign with no business plan or full explanation of what this Areya thing is.
Part 1: http://www.lipstickalley.com/showthread.php?t=655405
Part 2: http://www.lipstickalley.com/showthread.php?t=714271
Here’s a sypnosis of why people are mad at Taren: credit to emarldine. “VTaren Guy is a waning Youtube hair ‘guru’ with about 225k subbies who actually gives more advice about lifestyle than hair. She is apparently popular mostly because she is fair complexioned and has the type of 3c curls that some impressionable black women think should be the standard for all hair–4a and 4c included. Whether she’s attractive or not is a matter of opinion, though around here you might hear her referred to as troutmouth or goatmouth or crispy curls, in honor of her perpetually parched hair.… Read more »
Lol, the real question is why do y’all care so much about what’s going on in this woman’s life? Like, handclap for you guys to being Ace Detectives, but if you don’t like the woman just go on your way. Sure, she may or may have not taken part in some questionable decisions, but it has nothing to do with any of your personal well-being.
Come off it already, jfc
daaammnnnn Gina….
Seriously, I don’t know what is true and what isn’t, but this post truly left a sour taste in my mouth. This website has always been about uplifting our sisters celebrating natural hair. I don’t want to see it overtaken with bitchiness. I’m not here for that. Let us preserve this space as a positive forum. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I just want a little bit of online space that hasn’t been poisoned. Peace.
Not reading all that. Who spent all that time researching a freaking hair vlogger though. Did they do a background check for some reason unknown. What is the poin in tearing this woman down?
Kind of seems like she tore herself down honestly
I’m reading all of this and I still can’t/won’t care about her life. If any of this is true about her (doubting it because I don’t personally know her) I still can’t muster up any effs to give about this. I grew up in the hood, so I’ve seen my share of trifling women. It all just sounds like hood stories. But my question is: what grown woman is doing background checks on other people and obsessing over their lives like this?! She’s not sleeping with my man and she’s not taking care of my kids or taking my money,… Read more »
While I am aware, how someone chooses to live their life is their own personal decision. I am happy to know things about Ms. Guy. I do not support campaigns where the money just disappears and I do not know where my damn money has gone. had I NOT read and heard of this chick’s business practices, I would not know that so many of my co-workers gave to that bogus “autism” program, they lost money too. We never knew where the money went, or what even happened after we gave our donations. I NOW know that she does not… Read more »
NOTE TO THE WRITER: DO YOUR HOMEWORK! There is so much more of this that you are not writing about. Taren Guy is the most horrible person for what she did to her children and how she went about breaking up a home. This woman is a liar and a thief. She had her children taken away by CPS for neglecting her special needs boys while she did drugs and leaving her 1 yr old home ALONE! Again, do your homework.
I have two Ivy league degrees, so I’m pretty confident in my ability to do homework. This post was not about Taren or whether or not the allegations against her are true. Prior to writing the article, I had read all the information regarding the controversy (how do you think I came across the petition?), and I have my own opinions, but they are irrelevant, again because this post is not about the controversy, but about the petition. I included discussion about the petition because I felt that it is a gesture of going too far – it’s one thing… Read more »
“I have two Ivy League degrees…” What does that have to do with anything? Acquiring higher education from such an institution is great and noteworthy and all; however, it does not in any way help save an individual from receiving criticism. I don’t agree with all the feedback and jabs regarding the article/author. Just confused by this response.
@Kristen, I agree. How does that information change anything? Not that it matters but Most if not all of the contributors to this site and other blogs a like also acquired higher education. I don’t see them going around responding to criticism in this manner and I’ve seen worse criticism.
Indeed. Not very classy to mention that. Education (or lacktherof) doesn’t make an individual more or less able to do “homework” on a topic or smarter than someone who doesn’t have any Ivy League education. That statement only makes me think the author is stuck up or bougie.
There’s enough material here for a whole other thread! Lol
I know Taren in real life and I’ll just say that I wouldn’t want her to endorse toilet paper. She is an outright scammer and has pushed a number of her friends away with her disgusting behavior and general inability to get her life together. I did not realize that she was online and had branded herself as some sort of life/spiritual/hair guru while her life is a complete mess. She’s stolen money from her subscribers just as she’s scammed money from people in real life, she lies, used drugs, doesn’t have custody of her children due to her neglect,… Read more »
Wow. Taren Guy appears to be so free spirited, open minded and positive. How can someone so positive have so much hate? Something is off here. Why would people go through so much just to make her look bad? Where are all these allegations coming from? I am not going to put her on a pedestal nor am I going to believe everything I read about her. I am going to sit back and observe. This is just all so very strange.
Like we’ve said, who put all this time into digging into her personal life? It’s one thing to inquire about her fundraising fails/myths/flaws/inconsistencies,by all means find the money because that’s just shady business, but the rest is just too much. You know what they say about pointing a finger!
Yeah, “we” didn’t drive Beyonce’s sister anywhere, her stank attitude did it. I see nothing wrong with number 1 or number 2. Horrible article.
I don’t really miss solange.
Laughing so hard at #2! I’m all for exploring different growth retention methods but I’m not trying to break my neck to grow my hair.
I’ve no knowledge about any of the other issues, so I’m gonna avoid Googling and just leave them in the past.
I hate how every commenter is making this about Taren and why that blog was created. I see the points everyone makes about Taren. But if only the creator of that blog, put the same effort into something that could actually make a difference in society or around the world. There’s plenty of people out there that are like Taren and there’s plenty of people who do worse than Taren. We’d be here all day if we tried to petition against people like her. No issue just magically disappears, but it’d be nice if this same effort was put into… Read more »
Hmmmm….so making a petition against a fraudulent Natural Hair “Guru” who has tried to scam her subscribers (whom she doesn’t respect by the way) is going too far, but inclusion of white women into the Natural Hair Community via Curly Nikki is NOT?
Get your life and do the education already.
Black women…. WHY??? The Taren hate… Seriously?? STOP!
Because she stole money from folks.
Taren Guy raised $12,000 from her subscribers(the emails where she admitted this are on the web) for an autism non profit in the name of her children that she lost custody of for neglect and she used that money to fund her trips around the world and do what God knows what. Years went by and she never gave her subbies any explanation about what she did with their hard earned money. When she tried raising money for another scam she finally addressed the situation to which she lied about stating she only raised $1000. As far as I’m concerned… Read more »
You can’t blame the site or others who are uncertain of the truth. It’s not like we go out of our way to look up any and everything on Taren. Everything so far is all hearsay. If valid sources are available for us to make our own informed decisions then fine but until then I will just remain wary of both sides. Show us the VALID sources.
Finding out way more info than I should in this post. Not good.
Wow I knew about Taren’s multiple baby daddies. But I had no idea that she’s taking on married men and her children were taken from her. One must be quite vile to have their kids taken. I guess it should come as no surprise that she is out here scamming folks.
No, my cousin got her kids taken from her and she’s not vile at all. Just a misunderstanding. Her boyfrind took their 1 year old daughter to work..she went their to pick her up..they had a little agrument on why he would bring the baby to his work and he called the cops (there was no hitting or yelling but he called the cop and she was on private property so she got arrested.) When they went to court an arrest was on her record so she got her child taken away also she didn’t have money for a baby… Read more »
you probably should’ve left out #3, or at least the links, if you really think people are doing too much. you’ve just increased traffic to all that mess.
I included links to all of the things I decided to talk about, so people can continue to do their own further reading, and ultimately decide whether they agree or disagree that it’s too much
You’re messy, I love you.
Wow….Some of you “ladies” are far too deep into the personal affairs of others. Yes everyone should be made aware of a scam artist but if she want to channel Jezebel that’s her prerogative…
Ok nik, the truth or whom ever your pretending to be. Who cares about a bloggers personal life. I mean gees its a blog. It seem like you know her personally and might be a jealous. Just my opinion. I don’t understand why black people act like crabs in a bucket. So stop it!!
IF you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything. I don’t understand why black people act so doggone passive and accepting when it comes to issues of being scammed. Black people are always supporting their oppressors and those seeking to scam us. Acting like the white man’s ice is colder. Why do you continue to have empathy for a perpetually unemployed scam artist who seeks to scam black women out of their money because she knows they want her hair type. In this regard, we love supporting BS but then claim victimhood, even when warned about something malevolent… Read more »
OK, if these allegations are true, then what valid source can we look into, so that we can make an informed decision on our own vs relying on another person’s perceptive, their arbitrary assumptions or listening to someone who may have their own personal agenda against her.
Are there any valid sources where we can confirm these allegations. Are their any public records via IRS or organizations a like that can verify these claims? Because I can’t just sit back and go by hearsay.
Even if what you are saying is true. Who the F cares? Live and let live. If you are too smart not to fall into her “scam” why do you care that others do.
Yessssss!!! I have absolutely zero doubt that if this woman was black with 4cd hair and scamming people she would be persona non grata in the nature; hair community.
PREACH
I remember the issue with Solange and I feel bad about it. I loved her coily undefined fro and the fact that she was actively representing natural hair. People didn’t need to nag about her hair and push her away. I also remember the bull-sperm-for-hair-growth issue. One word… Eeeeww! That was my reaction then and is still my reaction now. The natural hair sorority sounds kinda cool actually. The inversion method, if it really works, means that I have more benefits to gain from doing yoga. I honestly don’t know what to say about the whole issue with Taren Guy.… Read more »
Why don’t you ask Taren Guy what happened to the Faces of Autism money? Ask her why she lied and said she made only $1000 when in fact she made $12000? Why did she delete the video after people called her out on that? People deserve to know what happened to their money.
Totally agree and if the petition was JUST about that it would make sense. Dragging her personal life into it makes ppl ignore the real issue
Wow. I heard rumors about Taren’s personal life, but I ignored it because all of us are in some sort of sticky situation in our lives at some point. That has nothing to do with us, all I want to see is her hair tutorials. I hadn’t heard about the donations to the autism and tv network. I think it is horrible, if she is scamming her subscribers, no respectable hair line should support her. The links to the blogs about her personal life are just unnecessary and messy. The author threw shade at the author of the blog, but… Read more »
Klassy Kinks, you need to do your research about people before you put your cape on. Taren Guy scammed over 12,00 from her subscribers for her Faces of Autism campaign. Then she had the nerve to recently ask for 80K for her “network”. Combined with her nasty personal life, that’s why people aren’t here for Taren anymore.
I actually did all the research, read the threads and the blog. I know all the allegations and I believe them (though that’s irrelevant). Nowhere did I say that I supported Taren… I simply said it was too much to have a whole petition about her sponsorship based on “moral reasons”. If we have an issue with what a blogger says or represents (or fails to), I definitely believe we should decide not to back them anymore… however, making petitions is above and beyond.
I fully agree. Even without knowing most of the allegations against her, I stopped following because it became clear from following her videos that she was kind of a flake–from her lecture tour to the Salon Series and now the tv station, she seemed to have a habit of getting really excited about a given project, throwing tons of (other people’s) resources at it, and then getting bored and abandoning ship. I don’t know that she’s actually intending to con people or if it’s just flakiness, but either way I wanted to spend my youtube time on someone else. As… Read more »
how is that too much to ask that corporations be mindful of who represents them? sorry, but i’m not okay with having a thief who scams her followers and exploits her own disabled children for material gain (to say nothing of her scandalous personal affairs). if you have no problem with this, then you probably feel the people up in arms over the “personal business” of abusive athletes like ray rice are overreacting too?
Lol number 3 messyyy.Before anybody jumps to defend her do your research.
TAREN GUY STEALS FROM HER FANS THAT’S THE MAIN REASON SHE GETS DRAGGED. I REFUSE TO INCORPORATE WHITES,AND THIEVES IN THIS NATURAL HAIR MOVEMENT. THE PETITION IS LEGIT. SHE’S A CROOK!
this is so sad…perhaps posting the link wasn’t a good idea. I understand the intention but can we go back to talking about how to retain length and stuff?
I do not follow Taren Guy or hold any youtube hair “guru” on a pedestal for that matter. A person can create any image while sitting behind a computer screen. And usually it’s vastly different from their private image. Just like the majority of online users. With that being said, yes, it is fair game to call out Taren if she has committed fraud using her autism charity. However, this can be done without dragging her private life into the discussion. How does knowing her children are fathered by different men relevant to proving she committed fraud? That doesn’t matter.… Read more »
What a mess. I don’t give a darn about this Taren person’s personal life. For one, i don’t idolize and fangirl over these YouTube gurus or their hair. Secondly I would never give some Internet hair expert money for autism research. How are those things even connected? There’s plenty of legit autism charities out there!
Also I don’t think naturals ran off Solange. Solange has a horrible attitude in general. Before she attacked Jay z, her hair was the only thing keeping her semi-relevant.
I joined the sorority lol
Thus post was a bad idea
I including many others knew nothing of tarens case but the curiosity has lead us to go to the blog and read up on it
Um, the multi-blogs about Taren. Can we say, with resounding confidence, STALKER(S)!!!
Wow. wow. and wow again. I smell a restraining order, followed by criminal charges, followed by a civil suit for damages, coming on.
And rightfully so.
STFU! I have not seen one threat made to Taren, her kids or anyone on any of the blogs.
These “scare tactics” won’t work.
Her being talked about is no different than your average Joe, average YTer or your average celeb being talked about negatively, so bah to your claims of people stalking her.
Besides, when you scam people, this is what happens. People have a right to let the public know that someone is scamming on a huge scale, so consider all the blogs, websites, etc. as the Yelp for Youtubing scammers.
I don’t think number one is a bad thing. I know some colleges have regular meetups too. It’s no different from the get togethers other groups have.
As for the rest, I have no opinion.
http://www.coilsandglory.com
It takes a whole lot of energy to dedicate a whole blog to a person they don’t even know. I’m too busy getting myself together. Sounds like the creator of that blog needs to do the same.
U left out ‘the time 80% of blgh commentators collectively cried like little girls because a white girl was on (another) natural blog’ loool ! Still smdh at that one
I just signed the Taren signature even though I didn’t know who she was before this article. Her “child-bearing decisions” (sounds like something someone who supports abortion would say, trying to tone down the truth) and the fact that she’s apparently she’s a scam artist is too messy to ignore. Who cares if it’s in her personal life, if I went and killed someone in my “personal life” should my blog followers not discuss that because it’s personal? I made my life open to them in the first place, so of course they’re gonna speculate why I killed that person… Read more »
You’re comparing killing another human being to making poor choices with men?
I’m going to assume this is a joke. I’m sure you have your own demons that you need to deal with rather than spending your time pointing out alleged wrong-doings of others.
Wow, I knew nothing about any of this…and I am thankful.