Andrey Petrov

The image in the photo

The frame shows a young man with neatly styled hair combed back, defined eyebrows, winged eyeliner, and bright red lipstick. He holds several tubes of liquid eyeshadow and a palette with a flashy angel design, and wears a choker with a ring. The pose and angle are composed like a promotional shot for a beauty blogger: face in close-up, product in the foreground, and the viewer’s attention directed to the makeup and accessories.

Starting out on YouTube

Andrey Petrov began running a channel about cosmetics and skincare in the mid-2010s, when male beauty blogging was still rare in the Russian-speaking segment. He posted reviews of decorative cosmetics, makeup tutorials, and vlogs about his life. He gradually built an audience with a look unusual for the niche: long bright nails, bold makeup, and a deliberately theatrical presentation.

Public coming out and a surge of attention

Petrov gained wide recognition beyond the narrow beauty audience after he openly spoke about being gay, a topic that traditionally draws heightened public controversy in the Russian media space. The admission sparked a wave of discussion, part sympathetic and part condemning. In either case, it sharply increased the blogger’s visibility and the number of articles and posts about him in the media and on social networks.

Why he became a meme

The combination of a recognizable visual style (bright makeup, long nails, extravagant outfits) with the status of a blogger who speaks openly about his identity made Petrov a convenient figure for screenshots, reactions, and joking captions across the Runet. His beauty-product photos are used as illustrations for topics such as modern male beauty blogging, changing images, and gender stereotypes in the beauty industry.

In comments and reposts, the photo is often accompanied by lines like “when you did your makeup better than half the girls on Insta” or “a new level of male beauty blogging.” These captions highlight the contrast between conventional ideas of masculine appearance and the deliberately bold makeup in the frame.

Continued visibility

In the following years, Andrey Petrov remained a prominent media figure. His name regularly surfaced in news tied to high-profile episodes of his public life, and his image kept circulating on social media, no longer tied to any specific video or post. This cemented his status as a durable, recognizable figure of the Runet rather than the subject of a single random photograph.

Alongside discussion of his look, the media regularly ran pieces about his biography, professional path, and public conflicts, from analyses of his early videos to reports on scandalous events involving him. Such sustained presence in the news is rare even for major bloggers, and it is what sets Petrov apart from many less enduring beauty influencers of his generation.

Audience response

The Runet’s reaction to Petrov has always been polarized. Some see in him an example of courage and professional makeup artistry; others see a reason to mock the very idea of male beauty blogging. This polarity fuels the meme life of his photos: the same frame with a palette of eyeshadows can be used as a compliment to skill or as an ironic comment, depending on who reposts it and in what mood.