Since the start of the pandemic, trends about romanticizing everyday life have taken the internet by storm. Daily walks, banana bread recipes, and at-home workout routines were all over TikTok circa 2020. Many people turned to TikTok, and other social media platforms to escape the harsh reality of the pandemic and the ever-negative news coverage. People found connections, formed social activist groups, and overall created content to help manifest a better reality. During a time where everything felt out of control, people found comfort in creating online personas and content that they could control.
More recently, a trend famously referred to as “that girl” has surfaced. The #thatgirl hashtag on TikTok has 3.1 billion views.
While becoming that girl is in theory something to aspire to, if being that girl was solely about improving your mental and emotional health, then there would be nothing more to analyze. However, under the broad facade of “bettering yourself” there are countless products and brand-name items that people who are that girl simply use.
Overpriced items such as the lululemon “BBL jacket,” prada coffee table books, the le cagole balenciaga bag, a wide variety of Vivienne Westwood jewelery, and an endless list of more items that most of us low- to middle-class college students simply could never afford comprise the that girl look. Purchase of these items is not realistic and is purely unattainable for the global majority.
In addition to the monetization of being that girl, this trend also perpetuates toxic rise and grind culture.
Nearly all of the content creators who film “a day in their life” and “how to be that girl’ videos on YouTube and TikTok record themselves waking up at 6am (or earlier! The earlier the better!), making a smoothie with chia seeds, and hitting the gym. After their eucalyptus leaf shower, they get straight to work. While this may be doable or realistic for some people, for many of us it simply is not. Somehow this trend took a positive idea (bettering oneself) and turned it into something toxic (if you’re not motivated at all times you’re not that girl and not a productive member of society).
The idea that no one is allowed to take time for themselves under capitalism without feeling guilty is incredibly harmful to our quality of life. The constant “work, work, work” and “go, go, go” is incredibly toxic both for people living that lifestyle and for others who have to witness it. We shouldn’t feel like we have to work our lives away and then romanticize that work.
All in all, I would be more supportive of the that girl trend if it didn’t include so many materialistic aspects.