When Girl Culture Goes too Far

If you ever want to be smacked in the face with how old you don’t know you are, take the New Haven line home from Grand Central around midnight on the night that Sabrina Carpenter plays the Governors Ball.

That fated night, I was thrust headlong into facing my own, quickly declining social mortality. Once I got over my impending doom into youthful irrelevance, one thing—the thing we all know—was made abundantly clear: girl culture is the culture.

On my standing-room-only train home, jammed under the sweaty armpit of a sloshed Zoomer dressed like a character straight from Zenon Girl of the 21st Century, the chattering was overwhelming centered around Sabrina—what she sang, what she wore, her newest song dropped the night before. One thing was clear—the real stars of the weekend were Carpenter and Chappell Roan.

Out of curiosity, I googled the lineup, assuming Sabrina headlined. Nope. She was on line two, large enough to be seen, small enough to fade into word salad obscurity. The same with Chappell. Between the time that the Gov Ball’s team decided on the lineup and the actual event, the two have skyrocketed into the center of our culture’s youthful attention. Sabrina and Chappell are exemplifying our current moment in girl culture of being Brats, an apt descriptor thrust into the moment by Charli XCX.

We had the maximalist, cottage girl summer of 2020, the hot girl walk in 2021, Barbie summer in 2023, and now Brat summer. 

The hot girls of this summer are fed up and our Brats are personifying our frustrations.

Our Brats, our cultural icons of this moment, saw a meteoritic rise via algorithmic encouragement. I mean, it worked on me. I added both artists to my playlists back in April shortly after they were released and Charli made it on in June.

The algorithm is getting a bad rap right now and could use a lot of work, but the algo is functioning as the algo was designed—to reflect to us what we value. Social media’s algorithms are designed to keep us coming back to the platform. How? By showing us what we like. It’s working the way the algo gods have intended, even if this leads to a drastic echo chamber of absurd proportions.

Girl culture in its many forms is a result of being fed a years-long retail trend of blurring the lines between the sexes pushed through our social algorithms. The homogenization of the sexes in retail reset the expectation of gender shopping norms, and in many ways, positively erased unnecessary gender stereotypes (why does caring about good skin or wanting to carry a nice bag have to be reserved for women??). 

Coming out of the consumerist reset of pushing unisex apparel, beauty, and wellness trends, the girls of today don’t need to conform to traditional female stereotypes. The algo has understood this and had, for a while, pushed this back to us.

Here’s the issue though: while we girls have a clean(ish) slate to redefine femininity, some women want to celebrate their girliness and reconnect with their younger, girly selves—and are willing to take with it the silliness of girl-math, girl-dinner, and all. They don’t want to erase femininity, nor do they want it defined in relation to the opposite sex. 

Enter Girl Culture.

I had the privilege of joining some of our wonderful futurists for dinner last night, and the topic of purchase intent arose. Women used to purchase to attract others and for others’ sake. This obviously will still continue. Overwhelmingly though, women are making the shift to purchasing for their own sakes. What makes them feel confident in their own skin? What helps them feel calm, or homey? What brings them a moment of joy?

Our GenZ Brats are defining femininity on their own terms and in what makes them feel their best, without regard to the opposite sex.

Where the girl culture of last summer celebrated the beauty, fun, complexity, and grief of being a woman (encapsulated in Greta and Margot’s Barbie), the girl culture of this summer is a bit more ironic, layered, and without regard. Last year’s girl culture was Millenial Pink, this year’s girl culture is Zoomer Chartreuse. Last year’s girl culture was sincere, this year’s girl culture is aloof.

Many retailers have latched onto the reemerging girl trend to make unnecessarily gendered and infantilizing products. I don’t want girl beer. I want beer. I don’t want your girl dinner, I want dinner.

Retailers. Don’t make stupid decisions. Listen to the Barbies and celebrate girliness with us. Listen to the Brats and don’t patronize us. If you’re going to participate in girl culture, make sure it actually serves your customers.

Oh, and long live the girls. 

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—Erin

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P.S. Is AI-generated content headed for a cliff? Listen to former BuzzFeed and CEO of GAAN Creative, Nilla Ali talks the power of algorithms and the future of media on today’s pod.

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