If this summer has been anything, it’s been girly. Sure, we’ve had girl-themed summers before, previously thanks to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Hot Girl Summer” revolution back in 2019, but this one embodied a side of girlhood that was a little different.
A big contributor to our “girl summer” this year was Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie”. There was a unique excitement surrounding the film’s release in July, probably because a lot of girls were so excited to have a movie to see in theaters that was made for them. It’s not enough to say that was the only factor, but it’s definitely at the heart of the film’s draw. On top of obviously being made about a topic that is rooted in girlhood, all the previews and sneak peaks of the film’s costumes and sets were clearly bringing the pink dream-world of Barbie to life in a real space.
Already, there was a buzz about celebrating femininity leading up to the Barbie release. Girls everywhere were pre-purchasing tickets and planning their outfits for their showings, but this was not the only event of the summer that let the girls dress up.
In addition to being a “girl summer,” it’s also been a summer of music tours. Not just any, but specifically Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Beyonce’s Renaissance Tour. Both shows are perfect excuses to dress up in expressive outfits all done up with lace, tulle, gems, ribbons, glitter, sequins, etc. They’re safe spaces for femininity, led by strong and wildly successful women.
Even if you couldn’t physically attend a show for either tour this summer, there was hardly a shortage of livestreams and other concert-recorded footage posted online to involve everyone in the experience at some level or another. Needless to say, the environment for girl-focused pop culture was saturated with real-world global events over these past few months.
It’s been fun and exciting to have so much content to engage with and so many events to attend that let you connect with other people in those spaces where femininity is encouraged and appreciated safely. So, naturally, a lot of this appreciation and celebration of girlhood and femininity began to spill over online and take over aesthetic and other trend spaces. As a way to capitalize on this current wave of honoring the idea of “being a girl,” a lot of online users took it upon themselves to spawn categories, classifications and traits of “being a girl” to call on the differences between girls and the varying interests we have.
We have had the “clean girl” and all, but as this summer moved on, the “girl-type” trend manifested into a fun avatar selection where we got “tomato girls” and “onion girls” and “daisy girls,” you name it. Once, Hailey Bieber did her makeup with rosy blush and fake freckles, and from there we got “strawberry girl makeup.” Any type of aesthetic that could be simply described as something cute or natural embodied a new type of girl. It was a beautiful blossoming of girls building online avatars to exist as the essence of a girl: her interests, hobbies, favorite color, style, etc. These “girls” all formed as extensions of the user who designed her and have the chance to reach another girl who feels she’s being seen by that extended representation.
The cumulative effect of the “girl summer” (in my personal opinion) was the “girl dinner” phenomenon. The internet was quickly taken by storm when “girl dinner” hit the online space. This trend spawned a lot of content of women sharing their makeshift dinners: frozen tater tots made in an oven with a side of ranch, a bag of goldfish, a muffin and two Caprisuns. It was a way for women to embody eating and doing it just for the purpose of needing to fuel themselves instead of being mandated to prepare a meal for four hours to serve a husband and three kids at 7 p.m. The trend obviously split into a few different avenues, but at its core, the idea behind “girl dinner” was very empowering for the feminine community. It gave us an outlet for being imperfect and relaxed enough to poke fun at ourselves and admire our behaviors at the same time.
The “girl summer” connected girls, reinforcing the idea of being a “girl’s girl” and encouraging having fun and being safe. We’ve all found a sense of peace in knowing that even with all our differences, we’re all just like other girls in the most endearing ways.