We all know that one girl. She’s got the big t-shirt, the scrunchies and a hydro flask with stickers on it that say “save the turtles.” Or maybe you know the other one. The one who wears dark skinny jeans, white Nikes and has her hair in half-up, half-down pigtails every day. Whether it be your resident VSCO girl or e-girl, we all know one. You may even be one, and you know what? That’s okay.
These tropes of the 2019 teenage girl seem like a fun, light-hearted joke now and things have certainly lightened up, but it didn’t start out that way. I remember when this whole thing began, it was a while ago when Tiktok started to really hit its peak. I recall the videos of girls in the traditional “e-girl uniform” (a t-shirt with a long sleeve shirt underneath, black jeans and Nikes) doing trendy dances to 15-second clips of songs, just having fun and feeling cute. However, the comments sections of these posts were not all that fun. It was mostly vulgarity and crude names, shaming these girls for just having fun.
That’s what I don’t understand. Why aren’t these girls allowed to have fun? Calling someone an e-girl or a VSCO girl (in a negative context) is just an excuse to shame those teenage girls who are just enjoying things. So what if someone likes to wear chains on the side of their pants and put on eyeliner? So what if someone likes to wear scrunchies and use their reusable straws? These girls are allowed to have fun, as long as it’s not at the expense of others and no one gets to say otherwise. If you think it’s cringy, you don’t have to watch their content and you absolutely have no right to tear them down in the comments. Let teenage girls be teenage girls.