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by Sophie Andrews
On the highly reliable source of Urban Dictionary, ‘That Girl’ is defined as follows:
Known mostly on tiktok, "That Girl" is a girl (or any gender) that gets up at 5am, meditates, drinks smoothies, has showers every day, journaling, eating only healthy food, goes to gym every day,and is successful in many ways. This stereotype is typically on tiktok and films morning or night routines. Most likely rich too...
I want to be "that girl".
Oh so you think you're "that girl"?
by Mrspyramidhead1 June 19, 2021
In this article, I will set out to explore the toxic idolisation of ‘that girl’ and why we all seem to aspire to be her, as well as its negative effects, particularly on young females.
I believe ‘that girl’ was born and raised on TikTok, an app I am sure we are all familiar with. However, before this became an established trend, ‘that girl’ slowly crept up on us through the ever-growing popularity of ‘my morning/evening routine’ videos. Unfortunately, as trends emerge, comparison follows, older morning routine videos showcase somewhat more ‘relatable’ takes on waking up everyday, yet more recent ones tend to show a seemingly unattainable and ‘perfect’ productive start to the day; Such tasks typically include waking up at 5am, completing all work in the morning and taking part in popular wellness routines, such as yoga and journaling. These more polished videos set the expectations of this genre exceedingly high and fundamentally created this distorted idea of ‘that girl’.
So why do we actually want this? Why do we suddenly aspire to wake up so incomprehensibly early? It’s simply due to the seemingly effortless nature of it, ‘that girl’ wakes up as if she is sleeping beauty, her hair in perfect condition, she opens her curtains, allowing the bright summer sun to flow into her room and peacefully sets the intentions for her day. Yet for the vast majority of us, this is certainly not the case.
I’m certainly not denying that living a healthy lifestyle is not optimal, because it is, but for some, the requirements needed to become ‘that girl’ take a turn for the worse and can actually become unhealthy. For example, encouraging that eating nothing but greenery, and labelling this imagery with titles such as ‘This is the life’, destroys people who don’t eat in the same way, due to our natural tendency to believe most things we come across online. If you’re starting to feel at all insecure, remember you don’t actually know this person, they could be sustaining this lifestyle, but they could also be making an aesthetically pleasing video, simply to ‘show off’ and most likely for the purposes of social validation.
I believe ‘That girl’ is our society’s toxic beauty standards personified in its most extreme form, ambition is essential to bring you out of your comfort zone and initiate change, but your goals need to be attainable for YOU, going from nothing to everything can lead to a multitude of health problems, both mental and physical, such as eating disorders or depression. If your aim is to become healthier therefore… experiment! You don’t need to follow exact conditions to achieve, especially those of ‘that girl’, find what makes you feel accomplished and great about yourself, and most importantly, screw standards.
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