The Year Of Critical Thinking
2023 was the year of the girl. 2024 is the year of the woman.
In 2023, the word “girl” was everywhere on social media, from girl-math to girl-dinner to girl-rotting. The girlfication of everything brought us laughter, happiness, and even a sense of comfort, but it came with a cost: nonchalance.
The “I’m just a girl” phrase was used as an excuse for everything, like eating random food items for dinner, spending ridiculous amounts of money on skincare, and even being unable to drive. These activities were categorized as “girly things'' on social media, mainly TikTok and Instagram.
Madisyn Brown, a YouTuber who covers pop culture matters and social media trends, talks about this phenomenon more deeply in her video, the '"girl-ification" of TikTok trends: girl dinner, girl math, and more. She states, “The whole girl-fication of these trends has the same energy as ‘romanticizing’ your life and having this delusional mindset when it comes to how you approach life... I think the use of the word girl in this context holds this idea of frivolity and embraces it with a sense of sarcasm and self-awareness because it allows us to embrace girlhood and youth because that’s what we desperately need right now. After all, being alive is hard in the year 2023.”
Women everywhere around the world found joy in the embrace of femininity and sisterhood, from putting ribbons and bows on every item we own to making friendship bracelets to attending the Barbie premiere dressed all in pink. Women of all ages and backgrounds had a common desire: to go back to a simpler time, a simpler life—a time when being a girl was easier than becoming a woman. We became “girls girls” as a way to cling to girlhood and forget the struggles of adulting.
In the article The ‘Girlification’ Of Online Life Has A Dark Side, Merryana Salem explains, “In all these instances of use on social media, "girls" and "girlies" are signifiers of collectiveness. They mark one’s feelings as being in solidarity with others and identifying with people who feel the same way you do. Ultimately made shareable under the identity of “girl.”
The dilemma here is that we not only embraced femininity and girlhood as a lifestyle, but we also embraced a carefree attitude. We got so caught up in the nostalgia of girlhood that ultimately we forgot we are not children anymore. Our obsession with social media fuels this behavior. We rely on it to tell us what to wear, what to eat, what to read, and what to think. We have stopped thinking for ourselves; instead, we let social media trends and celebrities rule our everyday lives.
And which celebrity is better than Taylor Swift to explain this? On February 4th, Taylor Swift announced her upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, at the 66th Grammy Awards, shocking us all and reminding us that she is always a step ahead of everyone. We don't know for sure the new album’s theme, yet it is safe to say that, just like every one of her albums, it promises to be filled with complex themes, insightful lyrics, and self-expression.
Since the beginning of her career, Taylor has been an artist who is in touch with her emotions; she feels deeply and is not sorry about it. She digs into her wounds instead of ignoring them. This process of introspection ends up being a healing journey for her. In her music, she acknowledges that she is not a perfect person and that life is hard, but that she would choose to love and create art over and over again, even when it’s painful.
In contrast, we see women all over social media embracing this agonizing, humorous, and, most importantly, detached attitude. Emmeline Clein in The Smartest Women I Know Are All Dissociating points out that women are using intellectual detachment to dull pain and avoid emotion. She writes, “The rise of the internet as a means of mass communication, along with all the opportunities it’s offered women to work through feminist concepts in real-time and to assert the importance of their own experiences, does also seem to have opened up a lot of new ways to practice dissociation.”
It’s easier to live in a fantasy world—like Barbieland—but even Barbie decided to leave her imaginary world for the real world because she knew that a life of no struggle was not as rich as the human experience. Life is painful and difficult. But ignoring our emotions doesn’t make them go away; it just delays the inevitable.
So? What are women supposed to do? Can we have fun without having hundreds of people question our joy?
Think about Taylor Swift. She is a great example of a hyper-feminine woman who doesn’t run away from self-examination. She indulges in childlike behavior, wears shiny dresses, writes silly lines in her songs (yes, I am talking about ‘‘Karma is a Cat”), and still uses her art to dig deeper into self-reflection. She has always known women can do both. We can look back on our girlhood with love and forgive our inner child for the mean things we said to her. We can learn how to love her and, consequently, how to cherish and respect the adult version of ourselves.
In a world full of suffering, war, and crisis, it is easier to look away, but I invite you to look within. To not only get in touch with the girl inside you, but with the woman inside you. We are allowed to enjoy aspects of the “girl era,” and at the same time, we can be conscious of the repercussions it has on our sense of self.
I was gladly surprised to find that I was not the first person to link Taylor to the era of the Girl. Elaine Godfrey in Taylor Swift and the Era of the Girl wrote, “Even as I welcome the acceptance of girl culture with open, eager arms, a clarification is in order: Appreciating Girl Culture doesn’t mean being uncritical of it... Similarly, just because Taylor Swift communicates an arresting narrative doesn’t mean that journalists—or even fans—have to accept it as truth.”
The girlhood trend should not reduce women to consumerism, having celebrities as role models, and emotional detachment. The beauty industry and social media perpetuate women’s insecurities and profit from them. We, as a collective, need to be less afraid of questioning our behaviors and choices, and most importantly, our consumption. We cannot let mass entertainment dictate our whole lives. We need to look for legitimate information, think critically, and be in constant dialogue with ourselves and others. Discussions are healthy; they enrich our lives and give us different perspectives on how to look at things.
At the end of the day, reconnecting with our inner girl can be a great opportunity to heal open wounds from our childhood. Have fun, but don’t let fun get in the way of thinking.
It is very interesting to question ourselves about things like this. Sometimes we are not aware enough of the impact that trends and new concepts have on our behaviors and ways of thinking. Everything in the media is moving so fast and I think this can also be linked to the need to not be let behind, especially as a Woman. So excited to keep reading you!
Beautifully written article!