Global Courant 2023-05-26 02:26:32
TikTok creators have found new ways to summarize their aesthetic – and help you identify yours.
At first, users came up with “that girl,” or a girl who seems to have her life in order. Then it was the “clean girl,” who often depicts ambitious 5 a.m. routines and spotless kitchen countertops.
More recently, the distinction between ‘types of girls’ has become increasingly specific and abstract. A growing one tendency on the platform categorizes girls as different fruits and vegetables: “blueberry girls,” “strawberry girls,” and even “onion girls.” These videos often include a slideshow of images that match the category.
The rise of these aesthetic videos stems from younger people’s need to attribute themselves to something in order to feel some form of value and belonging, according to several TikTok users who spoke to NBC News.
“Certain communities online are characterized simply by enjoying very niche subsets of different trends,” says Becky O’Connor, 22, a fashion assistant who has posted videos expressing her views on certain aesthetics on TikTok.
“Young people, especially girls, crave identity and longing for community. We are increasingly forced to buy things and to make buying things our identity.”
For those who missed the forging of communities and identities during “the most formative years of adolescence,” it’s “easier” to hear that buying a certain type of clothing will make you a certain type of person.
Certain online communities are characterized simply by enjoying very niche subsets of different trends.
-Becky O’Connor, TikTok user
For example, the summery images of “strawberry girl” were evoked by photos, downloaded from Pinterest, of canvas tote bags and red nails.
Because of its association with fruit, O’Connor described the “strawberry girl” trend as “a yearning for a more primitive time of working on a farm and being pastoral, as opposed to working in an office every day in a city.”
These trends “mainly center around fashion and beauty standards,” which are “seen as something feminine, girly that you shouldn’t be spending time with,” O’Connor said.
While feminine archetypes such as “ingenue” and “femme fatale” existed in art and literature long before social media, O’Connor credits TikTok with encouraging hyper-consumption to achieve an aesthetic identity that could be short-lived.
Almost all “girl” videos reflect a lifestyle and identity that seem out of reach for many viewers. Still, many on TikTok continue to be inspired to buy the perfect accessories to emulate their favorite ‘girl’.
As millions of people watch and post their own videos portraying the different aesthetics, the over-saturation of this type of content has not gone unnoticed.
A recent TikTok about “tomato girl” (which originated from the “berry girl” trend) made its way to Twitter, where it was met with skepticism.
“The multiplicity of tiktok aesthetics has gone too far…what is this,” said one Twitter user.
Such content has also led to more realistic, humorous interpretations of the trend.
Annika Rasmussen, 22, a fashion student, was inspired by the ‘tomato girl’ trend and decided to create her own girl type—”onion girl.”
The Onion Girl slideshow, which began with an image of a savory onion stew, was darker in its color palette and sultry than its berry counterpart.
Rasmussen began taking requests from her viewers and curated a specific aesthetic for each vegetable. For “broccoli girl,‘, describing it as ‘a very playful vegetable’, she added photos of girls with braces, green nails and ‘tooth gems’.
“In my videos, I went more with the taste and mood of the vegetable,” Rasmussen said. “I was looking for that more than color. As a fashion major, I’m interested in trend forecasting… I tried to do that in my TikToks.”
Rasmussen credits Tumblr users with building identities around an object, color, or food group, followed by BuzzFeed’s capitalization on the trend, which “turned it into a whole, blown-out thing.”
Being a “broccoli girl” may be fashionable until a new “girl” shows up, requiring another reinvention and identity to be emulated.
“We see all these videos,” Rasmussen said. “And now there are 20 microtrends you need to keep up with.”
