In recent years, there’s been a growing phenomenon on social media and in pop culture that many of us Mixed people can’t ignore: the way our features are borrowed, stylized, and repackaged for mass appeal. I call this Mixedfishing—the act of adopting or imitating features associated with Mixed race people without being Mixed or having the lived experience that comes with it.

Mixedfishing isn’t simply admiration—it’s the way society cherry-picks traits like straight European noses, full African-esque lips with a defined Cupid’s bow, high African-esque cheekbones, light brown or golden-olive skin, freckles, loose to wavy hair textures ranging from straight-wavy 2A to defined ringlet curls (3C), and strikingly light eye colors such as green, blue, or hazel, turning them into a desirable “aesthetic.” It’s about consuming racially ambiguous beauty while ignoring the complexities of being Mixed in a world that constantly questions our identity.

The ‘Mulatto Morphing’ Effect

The term “Mulatto Morphing” was coined by The Biracial Voice to describe how art, filters, and media often create a stylized, idealized “Mixed look.” As they put it:

“Everyone kinda wants to look in the middle – ambiguous – best of both worlds, but won’t admit it.”

This phenomenon stitches together features like golden-brown skin, straight noses, full African-esque lips, high cheekbones, loose curls, light or bright-colored eyes, and carefully blended traits from different races into a digital or stylized fantasy of what a “Mixed girl” should look like. It’s a curated, ambiguous standard of beauty—trend-worthy, marketable, but disconnected from the real lived experiences of Mixed people.

This is what Mixedfishing looks like. It’s not an appreciation of diversity—it’s a fascination with ambiguity, stripped of identity and truth. Society wants the “look” but doesn’t live the reality of growing up Mixed, facing constant questioning, microaggressions, and identity policing.

The Features Society Fetishizes

For many Black and white biracial people, the features that get idolized are often African-esque lips and cheekbones paired with a European nose, lighter-colored eyes (green, blue, or hazel), freckles, and loose curls that fall anywhere from wavy to tightly coiled ringlets.

For Afro-Asian Mixed people (often fondly, or slangly, called “Blasian”), it’s typically almond-shaped eyes with looser curls and lighter skin tones.

For Indigenous-European Mixed people (for example, Indigenous Mexican and European heritage, or multigenerationally Mixed communities like Puerto Ricans, who often have a combination of Indigenous Taíno, African, and Spanish ancestry), the features that are frequently fetishized lean toward more European-presenting traits—light eyes, European noses, lighter hair, and fairer skin tones—while still carrying a trace of non-European heritage that reads as “exotic.”

These “blended” features are sought after because they signal ambiguity—a look that’s seen as “different enough to be exotic” but still close enough to Eurocentric beauty standards to be widely accepted.

This fascination with ambiguous features creates a fantasy version of being Mixed—one that celebrates our looks while ignoring the lived experience and complexities of being part of more than one race in a world obsessed with categories and hierarchies.

The Mixed Experience: More Than Just a Look

Mixed people face unique struggles that are often misunderstood or erased. We are sometimes more white-presenting, sometimes racially ambiguous, sometimes caramel or olive-skinned with loose curls or European features on tan faces. Our features can resemble Mediterranean or Latin aesthetics. But the lived experience is never just “pretty” or “exotic.”

Growing up, many of us hear questions that cut deep:

  • “What are you?”
  • “Which side would you pick?”
  • “You’re not really Black, though.”
  • “You’re basically white.”

We don’t fully “belong” anywhere. And yet, the very ambiguity that gets us “othered” in real life is commodified and sold online as the new beauty standard.

Why Mixedfishing Hurts

Mixedfishing is harmful because it reduces our identity to an accessory or a filter. People want the curls, the lips, the cheekbones, the golden-brown skin tone—but not the cultural complexity, the generational story, or the struggles of being questioned and invalidated.

As the saying goes, “They want the rhythm, but not the blues.” Society often takes what it finds appealing—the beauty, the style, the “ambiguous glow”—while discarding the weight of our lived experience. They love the look but not the life.

Mixedfishing follows that same pattern. It commodifies our features—straight noses, ringlet curls, light eyes—without acknowledging the reality of growing up Mixed in a binary world: the constant interrogation, the identity policing, the feeling of never being “enough” for either side.

It’s important to say this clearly: Mixedfishing is about the commodification of Mixed aesthetics—it is not the same as the struggles of darker-skinned Black people. Anti-Black colorism is a separate and very real issue that harms dark-skinned communities in specific ways. Our struggles as Mixed people are distinct: we are romanticized for being “different,” yet simultaneously excluded, fetishized, or asked to choose a side. We’re treated like an aesthetic template, not like real people navigating complex racial identities every day.

Mixed People Are Not a Trend

Mixedfishing needs to be called out for what it is: a fascination with racially ambiguous beauty that disconnects our features from our lived experience. We are not a filter, a trend, or an aesthetic mood board.

For those of us who are Mixed, I want to say this clearly: your identity is real, valid, and whole, even in a world that often treats you like an unfinished story or demands you “pick a side.” You are not confusing—you are complex, layered, and deeply human.

It’s okay to feel hurt, unseen, or frustrated when your features are imitated while your real-life experience is ignored. That pain is valid. But remember this: you are not here to be consumed. You are here to be known, to take up space fully, and to define yourself on your own terms—not through someone else’s borrowed aesthetic.

Healing from these experiences means holding onto your truth:

  • You don’t need to choose a side to be whole.
  • You don’t need to explain your existence to be valid.
  • You are not an aesthetic—you are a person with roots, history, and a story that matters.

Mixedfishing might make someone else feel “beautiful for a moment,” but your beauty and your being are not fleeting—they’re a birthright. And no trend can ever take that away from you.