Why TikTok's 'That Girl' Trend Is An Alarming And Unattainable New Standard For Women
"Men always say that as the defining complement, don't they? She's a cool girl." - Gone Girl.
From Evelyn Nesbit to Gigi Hadid, every generation has had its 'it girl'; its smoking, French, big-breasted, death by drinking habit, girl; its hash and paparazzi-flash, slender, over under-dressed girl. That girl. A cool girl. The girl that every woman wants to be. 'That girl' is sexy and rich and healthy, and happy. She is impossible.
Tiktok is a social media platform like never before; a greater volume of content at even greater frequencies; filters so eerily stitched to your face that you could swear that the pixels has existed there forever; and it is consistently the briefest video content to capture our attention since Instagram stories. Currently there is a time limit of three minutes. Most are less than thirty seconds.
Often it is said that social media is a highlights real. Never before has this been so true than of Tiktok. An endless rolling scroll of 30 seconds of ab lines, sunsets for breakfast, and a 24 hour golden hour. The videos fall into the next, endlessly for hours, one after the other. Eventually your battery runs out, the screen shrinks to black and suddenly the screen reflects a familiar image: horribly imperfect, unnatural, an amateur.
To my chagrin, our parents have a point: young people's attention spans are increasingly limited. Is it any surprise then, that Tiktok has proved so appealing? And with a younger and younger audiences gaining access to the internet who want desperately to get older, gain popularity, and glow up, 'that girl' seams like a potential bully.
A new social media platform oversaturated with young, impressionable young children which incessantly pushes an idealistic and impossible to attain standard for women - sounds familiar, right? The 2010s Tumblr era was a time which I remember imperfectly: a grey-black low-saturated blur of fandoms, shipping, and My Chemical Romance stans. However, it was also home to something much more sinister, the 'pro ana' community: #thinspo # bonespo #abcdiet... There was a thriving community of the mentally unwell encouraging pre-teens to starve themselves, spamming their feed with aesthetically pleasing snaps of emaciated faces - their torsos like great white tombstones, with slight fingers stretched across their ribs like disused piano keys.
It was inevitable, that we would repeat history. Y2K has overwhelmed our Pinterest boards and Tiktok hauls as of late, and this era's outfit inspos require one crucial accessory, a thin body. You would think we would have known better. But this phenomenon has occurred throughout history, popular culture and societal expectations have repeatedly pushed potentially deadly beauty standards e.g in the 90s, Heroin Chic, a skeletal and morbid silhouette was considered fashionable, as in Victorian Britain were 'Consumption Chic' encouraged woman to dwindle to the deathly appearance of a Tuberculosis patient. Tumblr, realizing the role they played in the epidemic of anorexics, have since banned certain hashtags as well as most pornography. So no wonder they're no longer relevant!
Similarly, Tiktok has employed a similar approach to prevent promotion and romanticization of diet-culture and mental illness on its platform, putting into place similar banned hashtags, content warnings, and links to hotlines. You would think that it was relatively safe, a platform designed for children. But social media has only adapted to our increasingly body-positive world by making its diet propaganda and beauty standards less identifiable, less outright, but not any less harmful.
It's subtle. Almost inspiring. A clean, bright, and whitewashed image of the most healthy, successful, and happy woman's life. You could argue that it is the epitome of feminist, a standard for women which promotes the idea that women can have everything; beauty, wealth, success - even a family. 'That girl' starts her day at 6am with ethically-sourced organic vegan avocado bruschetta (habitually tracked on MyFitnessPal), before thirty minutes of cardio and mindfulness yoga in a skimpy coordinated gym set, whilst her face-mask tenses and her newborn sleeps, restful. Everything is perfect and balanced.
But why is this a bad thing? Surely, seemingly promoting health and wellness couldn't possibly be a bad thing - and isn't nearly as damaging as previous trends? However, what makes the 'that girl' trend so alarming and unattainable is not the content itself, but what it lacks. It lacks perspective. It is dishonest and disillusioned. It is impossible. Everything is stress-less, budget-less, time-less.
Search #thatgirl on Tiktok, Pinterest, or Instagram. What do the search results all have in common? They are exclusively skinny, rich, and white. So when this has become the standard for all women, where is there room for average women: fat women, disabled women, POC women... What makes this new standard so sinister is that its characteristics seem so 'do-able'. "Sure, I guess I could wake up a couple hours earlier, eat healthier - maybe even try journaling!" But after a day or so, when the grocery bill grows pricier, the fruits bought last week with good intentions shrivel into a mature blue fur, and your joints ache with anticipation as the alarm clock shakes awake before the sky has recovered from its sunset bruise. You cannot be 'that girl' everyday. You cannot wake up early and exercise everyday, you cannot feel upbeat and look effortlessly incredible everyday. Real women have work, and imperfections, and more feelings than just contentment. It is impossible to be 'aesthetic' all the time.
The implication of the 'that girl' trend, that you can simply change your life by exclusively buying vegetables, wearing neutrals, and just trying harder to be the woman who can have everything, is thinly veiled in empowerment and self-love. Exploiting the attention of the public by leading them to believe that by buying their branded yoga mat and living off smoothie bowls there life will be 'fixed': they'll be 'that girl', not themselves. In reality, 'that girl' is consumed by toxic positivity.
It is a strange parallel to the Tumblr effect in which influencers profited off mental illness and self-hatred much more transparently: #meanspo was literally employed by users to 'inspire' people by degrading people and their appearances. 'That girl' is an inconspicuous bully. Tiktokers and Youtubers perform apathetic disclaimers on 'How to be That Girl' and 'Day in the Life of That Girl' videos, claiming that being 'that girl' is measured not by a clothing size but by personal fulfillment. Before cutting to a clip at the elitist celebrity gym packed with stick-thin LA it girls, holding a $15 diet protein shake. And when the search results for 'that girl: day in the lives' elicit only thumbnails full of thin women, its hard to believe those girls believe with any integrity that their lifestyles are inclusive.
Regardless of whether a beauty standard is realistic or attainable, as adults and grown women we are able to rationalize why we 'don't measure up', why we feel insufficient and unattractive in comparison. Children are much more impressionable, and children are Tiktok's primary audience. The Mental Health Foundation found that 52% of 11 to 16 year olds often worry about how they look, with 46% of girls reporting that their body image causes them to worry 'often' or 'always'.
When those same children, who have historically been discouraged from being manipulated and shamed by patriarchal, unrealistic body standards because they are idealizing professional models whose body and skin has been altered digitally, even after thousands of pounds of surgery and starving themselves. It is then jarring, to be confronted with a new standard which passes itself off as feminist, empowering, and most of all attainable to them. They're supposedly 'real women', who work hard, eat well, and work out.
But what hides behind their positive facade, is endless videos of glorified thinspo: #vegan #abs #skinny. Videos posting instructions of how to burn certain calories, how took cook dinners in a calorie deficit, how to work out to get a thigh gap... Instagram feeds full of protein shakes in the lap of two tiny tan thighs - almost slipping between, onto their impeccably polished tile floors. Any 'wellness' trend which prioritizes weight-loss over everything, and is marketed towards young people on a children's app, will without doubt cause damage to teen's mental health. 'That girl' will ironically, disproportionally hurt girls.
So how can we have (or even be) positive role models to girls, and aspire to self-improvement without pushing an unattainable standard for women? Or put differently, how can we be 'a better girl'? Productivity and positivity without honesty and inclusivity is not a sustainable method of inspiring others. The most effective approach to improving the 'that girl's' online messaging is to be more diverse and authentic rather than meticulously marketed. Simply be more vulnerable. Rather than being an almost inhumanly perfect highlights reel, show the 'bloopers', the typically off-camera sweat-stains, back-rolls, and lie-ins. There has been an increasing push by smaller, more considerate influencers to re-brand the 'that girl' lifestyle: posting videos with a lesser focus on weight-loss and dieting, and instead promoting self-care through mindfulness, journaling, and balancing both physical and mental health.
In doing so, they are removing the strict and unaccommodating classification of what makes 'that girl', a beautiful, successful, and healthy, feminist woman. In reality, the most empowering thing that women can do for themselves, is to not pander to patriarchal standards. Society's sexualization of young women's bodies, has made women reluctant to look like women. 'Women' and 'Girls' have become synonymous, despite conveying widely different ages, because women face an impossible pressure to remain young and attractive. Why would you want to be 'that girl', when you could be 'that woman'? Choose to be 'that woman', your own woman; a woman who prioritizes her mental health over diet and fitness trends, and loves her healthies and happies self. We can all be 'that woman'.