"On Reddit, commenters wondered what, exactly, the newly free-standing maybes referred to. And do eight words really need four periods?"

"Some, on Instagram, wrote off the rebrand as corporate word salad. Others jokingly offered their own alternatives. 'Maybe we are born with it. Maybe not. Maybelline,' Tracy Silagi, a freelance brand copywriter, suggested on LinkedIn. Another user, on TikTok, presented a more Shakespearean spin: 'Maybe or not maybe, that is the Maybelline.'"

I'm reading "What’s. The Deal. With Maybelline’s. New Slogan. An attempt to update one of the most famous tag lines in marketing history left many consumers scratching their heads" (NYT).

Here's the ad in question:

I think the ad people were just endlessly fascinated by the happenstance of the first 5 letters of the company's name spelling the word "maybe." That was the basis for the slogan they'd been using since 1981: "Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Maybelline." The new slogan is a very slight tweak: "Maybe. We’re born with it. Maybe. It’s Maybelline." But look at all the attention they got!

A side issue is whether the presence of the word "maybe" was really only happenstance. The official story is that the company's founder had a sister named Mabel and the product contained Vaseline. Put them together and... you still need to explain the "y." I think it was just to force you to pronounce the first syllable with a long "a." 

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But people knew how to pronounce Mabel. Back when the company was named, in 1915, Mabel Normand was a big movie star.

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By the way, I had a great aunt named Maybelle. It was pronounced the same as Mabel. 

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The Carling Black Label beer slogan — "Mabel! Black label!" — dates back only to the 1950s.