I'm smart and I need everyone to know it

Our obsession with appearing intellectual and cultured is fucking up with our minds and ability to create art

If you live on a different side of the internet than me and have never heard about the “thought daughter” concept, it originated on TikTok as a variation of the gay son or thot daughter ‘would you rather’ scenario.

The “thought daughter” is an intellectual. She overthinks her every decision, has emotional depth, and reads Plath, Didion, Rooney, Moshfeg, and Kafka. She is an existentialist. One of the most obvious examples of this is the rise of "bookstagrammers," content creators, primarily women, who pose with a coffee cup in hand in front of shelves filled with books and build an online persona around their love for literature. I don’t doubt that most of these creators love books. I do find it strange how some of them, with their meticulously curated profiles and niche references, call themselves literary It girls. 

Helena Aeberli wrote about this phenomenon and its impact on female artists in her essay “search of cool” arguing:

“The literary it girl is a hot girl — but not too hot. She makes it look effortless, edgy. She boasts a handful of publications and a forthcoming collection with a cover like a stylish coffee-table book…She’s an intellectual out on the town, frequenting gallery openings and book launch parties and runway shows, but she’s also terminally online, plugged into the glowing blue current of the internet.”

I find her essay so interesting because, in the past, I’ve felt the need to be the type of girl she describes—smart, cool, and so irresistible that everyone is drawn to her. I grew up being told that I was brilliant since I was a child, but I didn't believe anyone who said it since I wasn't academically driven. At the time, I thought being smart meant doing well in school. Now I know it goes beyond that, and I pride myself on saying and believing that I am smart. The issue is that I believe my intellect is my only redeemable attribute. I don’t feel confident about anything else about myself.

At first glance, the “thought daughter” and the "literary It girls" may seem like women who celebrate introspection and knowledge. However, this label, like every other that has taken over online discourse since quarantine, reduces women to a one-dimensional archetype and denies them the opportunity to be seen in their full complexity. 

I can’t say I blame women who use these terms because I’m guilty as well. I call myself a bookworm, but I haven’t read more than twenty books in a year since I was a teenager. As an adult, I spend most of my time scrolling through social media, watching videos of people recommending books and articles instead of reading them. I am a phony. I am even writing this blog in my second language instead of my mother tongue because I want the so-called literary it girls to be able to read my work.

In a society that places immense pressure on women to look and act a certain way, I understand how intelligence can be a powerful defense mechanism. But we don’t only want to be smart; we want to look smart (whatever that means), and we want people to know how smart we are. The allure of literary it girls and thought daughters is that she is a mirror reflecting the beauty and complexity of the world around her. But she isn’t real. She is a curated and fabricated concept of a woman.

Going back to what Helena Aeberli says in her essay, even if this “new turn towards intellectual aesthetics might be an attempt to give girl discourse a more substantive base, it feels equally as reductive. We can’t just be writers; we have to be girl writers, in which girl is conjoined to an invisible adjective: hot. Or at least, we have to package ourselves as such. Because otherwise, why would anyone want to read our work?”

It is not enough to create art or have interesting thoughts; if you want to succeed as a female artist and be acknowledged for your work, you have to create an online community, grow your online presence, and build a relationship with your followers. You need to sell your soul to the best buyer.  Literary it girls and thought daughters use literature, philosophy, and cultural critique as their primary ways of connecting with the world on digital platforms. They make it their entire personality. This commodification of our traits is never-ending as creative people. We need it to survive as artists.

I want nothing more than for the girl discourse to be over, but even then, see me here, writing another piece about it. I am also part of the problem; nevertheless, I’ve made peace with it. As a human, I will make choices that contradict my values. I will lose myself in the process of living, and I will find myself again while creating.

Before this blog, therapy was the only space in which I was able to confront myself and my contradictions. Now, writing has become another outlet in which I can analyze my thoughts and behavior judgment-free. I don’t ever want to get lost in trends. Most importantly, I don’t want my art to suffer because I am so busy trying to prove that I am interesting and worthy of attention. 

I can’t help but wonder if we will ever be free as women, as female artists. I wish we could just exist as humans. But I have hope. In the end, the rise of concepts like the literary it girl and the thought daughter reflects a larger cultural trend: the desire to be seen and admired.

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