Pressure from teenage boys and the ridiculous standards girls are held up to are constantly talked about, yet there is a blind eye turned to the competitive toxicity between teenage girls forcing labels on each other. TikTok has been an undoubtedly toxic community since the day the app switched from ‘musically’, yet the worst of it comes from a community that claims to be united – teenage girls. I believe that TikTok is the largest insecurity builder in young girls and age restrictions could heavily benefit young girls.
Beginning in 2019 (the label competition- teenage girls have been against each other forever now), the question was “Are you a ‘bruh girl’ or a ‘girly girl’?” This trend began as a friendly way of highlighting differences between girls. From a friendly trend of showing off girly rooms or a laid-back lifestyle, it spiraled into a competition. If you were a ‘bruh girl’, you were considered unhygienic and lazy. If you were a ‘girly girl’, you were considered an attention seeker and rude. The trend turned into completely hating girly girls, creating a perception that girls who portrayed themselves femininely were weak and mean. This variant of girl VS girl died and evolved.
If I were to describe every single type of hostile girl label created on TikTok, I would write forever. To list a few in a somewhat chronological order: e-girl VS soft girl, gamer girl VS VSCO girl, basic girl VS emo girl, soft girl VS grunge girl, clean girl VS messy girl, girls girl VS guys girl. The common denominator in the competitive stereotyping would be to hate the more ‘traditionally feminine’ girl type.
The harmful assigning of specific behaviors or traits to a particular title leads to stereotyping and assumptions about an individual based on the type of girl they are labeled. Once the stereotype is formed and concrete, what follows is the judgment. The judgment creates a sense of superiority or inferiority among individuals, creating a hostile atmosphere between girls.
Girls attacking girls is not a new phenomenon; mean girls have existed forever. However, TikTok bullying is a different genre of the mean. I believe some girls are putting down other girls unintentionally, due to naivety and the casual atmosphere of harmful words. Teenage girls (generalization) have become one of the most chronically online groups and this constant desire to one-up each other should not be regarded as normal behavior. Because of this, social media should be regulated more heavily for girls under the age of 16 in order to prevent toxic behaviors from forming during the primary years of girlhood, to protect both themselves and others.