TikTok's "That Girl" Trend- Productivity or Toxic Social Performance?
Self published on FLUOXEQUEEN blog
We’ve all seen her, we all know her, and we all want to be her: That Girl. The girl who uses Notion to minutely plan every iota of her day. The girl who wakes up at 5 AM to do Pilates before snapping shots of her VSCO-filtered matcha latte. The girl who journals in illegibly beautiful loopy writing and exclusively eats acai smoothie bowls.
Essentially a more evolved and productive version of Hot Girl Summer, That Girl’s time to shine is in the early months of the year, when we’re making resolutions and holding ourselves accountable for, y’know, normal human behaviours such as eating and sleeping in. She originally spawned in mid 2021 in the niche corners of TikTok, the app we all lie to ourselves about not being addicted to, and now she’s made her way over to the mainstream. “That Girl Morning Routine” and “That Girl Beauty Hacks” are just some of the titles of the never-ending bombardment of her presence across YouTube wellness spaces. And now that the New Year is upon us, That Girl, like a werewolf under a full moon, is at her most powerful.
She’s flawless. She’s enigmatic. You? You’re messy and dishevelled. You’re sloppy and lazy and always late. If you tried to make a mango-banana-avocado-insert-other-fruit-here protein smoothie, it would suck. You should watch all those YouTube videos and try and be more like her, you lazy little gremlin.
But That Girl? She’s effortless. She’s infuriating and inspiring in equal measure. Try as you might, you can’t escape her. You can refresh your Tik Tok For You Page as much as you like, but That Girl? She’s like a roach, or a clingy ex- she keeps coming back.
But here’s the truth about That Girl:
She’s a lie.
You know that feeling when you take an aesthetically pleasing photo of your bedroom, but the photo only looks good because, like a deranged squirrel, you’ve buried all of your overflowing clothes under your bed? Yeah, that feeling- a weird blend of pride and duplicity. Sure, your perfectly curated picture looks nice on the surface, but if you were to turn 180 degrees and snap another photo, you’d be exposing yourself as a fraudulent collector of crap.
This, I feel, is a pretty decent metaphor for the TikTok That Girl. She curates herself to perfection. She polishes her personality. She sells an unrealistic lifestyle to you. And then she posts all her productivity online for your gullible and lazy self to lust over- no offence- we’re in the same boat here, you and I.
See, it’s so easy to get swept under her spell. Society demands perfection and productivity from its young people, and That Girl is just another way of guilt tripping us to reach for a higher standard. Now, to some degree, this might be beneficial. Making a journal to track your schedule? Sounds reasonable. Eating copious amounts of fruit and veg? Ehh… why not, in moderation? But see, that’s exactly the problem. That Girl does nothing in moderation. She wakes up at 5 AM on. The. Dot. Everything is calculated; there is no room for failure here. Missteps don’t exist in the world of That Girl. This is why, when we inevitably slip up- forget to add kale to our shopping list, for example- we feel deeply, deeply ashamed. We beat ourselves up. We could never be her. Who did we think we were fooling? Now we can see through our own façade, we don’t like ourselves. We become angry. Frustrated. Why can’t we just try a little harder, focus more, be better, chip away at a little bit more of ourselves to mould us into the perfect marble statue society craves?
Reminiscent of toxic weight loss culture trends, That Girl is a cult of exclusivity and extremism. You’re either drinking those three litres of water, waking up at five on the dot and walking for exactly thirty minutes a day, or you’re just not doing at right. If you’re not hitting all those goals exactly, you’re not That Girl. It’s an all-or-nothing mindset that’s inescapable once you subscribe to her cult of perfection.
Besides from her blatant capitalism-pandering, That Girl is also problematic for a whole host of other reasons. Is her gruelling workout routine accessible for disabled folks? Would a person with ADHD or depression be able to keep up with the rigorous schedule she keeps? Reminiscent of Molly Mae’s recent reassurance that “we all have the same 24 hours in a day”, That Girl alienates the marginalised and disadvantaged. She’s basically Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss as a person. She’s here to rub it in our faces that she is better than us. Her USP is her exclusivity.
It’s not the fault of these girls as individuals– young women place so much pressure on themselves to be perfect, and That Girl is just another tragic reach to please the capitalistic and patriarchal society we inhabit. But the trend itself has gone too far. It’s got us reaching for unsustainable levels of perfection. Nobody is perfect 24/7. Yes, that includes those annoying people you went to school with who constantly humblebrag on LinkedIn. We’re humans. We’re flawed and we’re messy, and we forget our keys and accidentally drop dishes and buy self-help books only for them to sit stale on our bedside tables for months. And that’s okay. Why? Because we can’t do everything all at once and be the gold standard girl. If we could, we wouldn’t be human. Actually, we would be insufferable.
Sure, go ahead and start setting your alarm a little earlier if you like. But make sure that you’re doing it for you,not her. Listen to what your body tells you, act intuitively, and don’t be fooled by those impossible standards. At the end of the day, I bet That Girl also has a collection of dirty underwear piling up on her floor.