Actually, I don’t want to be the main character.
Or any character at all.
Dark feminine. Light feminine. Clean girl. Vanilla girl. Coastal grandma. Etc…etc…etc…
For those that haven’t drowned in the cesspool that is TikTok, these are just some of the aesthetics that creators have pushed on the app. Each involves their own mood board and, for the devoted fans of each style, an agenda of sorts. The dark feminine girl wears siren eye makeup, only dresses in black, and plots how she can make men obsessed with her. The clean girl has barely-there makeup and a closet full of neutrals. Her thing is self-improvement. You get the picture.
These aesthetics are all, in some ways, offshoots of the “that girl” trend, which is what started it all. “That girl” capitalized on the fantasized version that we all have of some person in our life who seemed to have it all together. Maybe you went to high school or college with her, maybe she’s just a flash of a person you see in the grocery store. She’s meticulously put together in a way that looks effortless. She’s that girl. Everyone wants to be that girl.
One thing I don’t love about myself is how I am easily influenced. I’m working on it now, but when the “that girl” trend first emerged, I was swooning. A pretty girl popping out of bed at 5am? An aesthetic iced latte? A sweat-free-but-somehow-effective pilates routine complete with matching workout set? An obscenely expensive apartment flooded with natural light? Alright, I’m romanced! Take me, I’m yours!
Nothing on the internet can last very long without attracting criticism, and the that girl trend was no exception. Critics pointed out that the vlogged routines of thin, wealthy, and white girls were the ones that went viral. Others rightfully pointed out that the aesthetic was appropriated from aesthetics that women of color have been practicing for generations (more on that from someone better equipped to discuss it here). With that, the use of the phrase “that girl” and “clean girl” slowly died. Tens of other aesthetics – or characters, as they should be called – swooped in to take their place. And while some of them have attracted criticism here and there, we have not had a collective discussion about why we are doing this and whether we should allow these aesthetics to maintain the chokehold on us that they do.
I call these aesthetics characters because that is what they are.
There’s a lot of conversation in the civic space today (and in most online communities, I would hope) about how the internet has left little room for nuance – in our politics, in our identities, in our history, in our opinions, and, yes, in our aesthetics. It goes like this: Pick a character. Contort yourself to fit that character. Change your character when another one is trending.
I am the last one to criticize loving aesthetic things – I love them too! I love when my coffee mug is set just right, when I am snuggled under a blanket in matching pajamas reading a book, when I am vibing in my headphones in a coffee shop. But what TikTok is doing to us is going beyond enjoying something beautiful – it is reducing us to one-dimensional things, without much room to embrace what is chaotic, messy, and, importantly, not aesthetic.
My theory is that people find comfort in matching their identities to one of these characters. It is easier to follow a template online than to try and carve a space for yourself that feels unique and authentic. Perhaps we are running away from the fact that we are average, that sometimes nothing makes sense, that we cannot stand to make our own decisions for fear of messing up. I’m reminded of a line from Fleabag:
“I want someone to tell me what to wear every morning. I want someone to tell me what to eat. What to like, what to hate, what to rage about. What to listen to, what band to like. What to buy tickets for. What to joke about, what to not joke about. I want someone to tell me what to believe in. Who to vote for and who to love and how to tell them. I think I just want someone to tell me how to live my life, Father, because so far I think I've been getting it wrong.”
I have dabbled on TikTok (clearly), and certainly the app is entertaining. I think it is a great platform to spread awareness about social issues, to democratize entertainment, and to create excellent memes. But I also find that, when I use it for too long, it makes it harder and harder for me to have an original thought. I have to try harder to interrogate what I’m seeing. I struggle more to see if the TikTok-inspired changes I’m implementing in my life (waking up earlier, journaling, reading certain books, going round and round with different takes on feminism, and on and on) are really changes that are good for me. Not for a dark feminine version of me. Not for a that girl version of me. For me right now.
I’m also doubtful that pigeon-holing ourselves into characters – whether it’s because we have main character energy or are trying to embody a certain aesthetic – is sustainable. I remember once in therapy many years ago, I was talking about how I felt that I couldn’t be myself around men I was crushing on because I had grown up seeing my male peers resent (if not outright hate) women who cared about feminism, who talked too much, who had too many opinions…an order of the usual misogyny, thank you! My therapist asked me to imagine if I married someone who had never seen that side of me, if I had to live the rest of my life stroking his ego and pretending I was something I wasn’t. “Doesn’t that sound exhausting?” she had asked.
And when I was trying to mold myself to be that girl, it was exhausting. Our lives aren’t twenty-second clips. The routine doesn’t automatically replay. There’s no trending audio in the background.
I’m not saying you can never pull inspiration from any of these looks (in fact, doing that just because little ‘ole me says so would negate the entire point of this letter!!), but I think we could all stand to be inspired with a little more care, a little more attention, and a little more skepticism. Is this creator really trying to help you, or did they spend an ungodly number of hours filming this video just so you’ll buy the same workout set as them from their Amazon storefront?
TL;DR: You’re not a character, you’re a whole ass person. Give yourself some grace.
things i’m loving rn:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow – I feel like I can’t breathe while reading this book. I can only read twenty pages at a time because I get too eMOTIONAL.
Collaging! It’s so spring! (Google tried to correct “collaging” to “collapsing” and that feels…correct?)
Ideally, the slow but karmic demise of Donald Trump.
things i’m hating rn:
How I keep getting emails from the AARP.
The doge dog on Twitter.
Any slander about the Barbie movie.
The slowness of the karmic demise of Donald Trump. Get on with it already!
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this second edition of thought monster (wow! I wrote something else!). And if you haven’t already…
Share it with your friends! Do the marketing for me! Please! The idea of self-promotion is YUCK!
<3 Cameron