If you’ve been on any form of social media over the last month, I’m sure you’ve seen the VSCO girl trend. VSCO girls are stereotyped as wearing oversized t-shirts, sporting a plethora of scrunchies, carrying a Hydroflask, and saying some meme-worthy phrases like “and I oop”. While this may be content gold for Twitter or TikTok, few people notice the harm that pushing these stereotypes in the mainstream can cause to someone’s self-esteem.
Those girls who may fit under the label of a “VSCO girl” may find themselves the bud of recent jokes. They may begin changing the way they dress or act simply to avoid becoming a “meme”.
This also has the opposite effect, where girls may feel “VSCO girls” are the most popular thing and choose to change aspects of their true selves to fit in.
These types of labels and trends push people away from who they truly are out of fear— fear that they will become a laughing stock and fear that they will become unlikable.
Instead of pushing this trend of fear and self-doubt into mainstream culture, we should be working towards a trend of self-love. Building up the idea of self-acceptance and confidence is the key to truly being yourself.
Social media is a massive weapon when it comes to the war on self-confidence, however, it can also be a tool.
If self-love and positivity posts went viral, could you only imagine the amount of “empowered women” we’d have rather than “VSCO girls”.
If you fit the VSCO girl trend, there is nothing wrong with unapologetically embracing it, but it is important that you showcase that in a positive light and no that it is not what defines you. Remind yourself that you are more than a label on a screen; you are a human being with great personality and traits.
This is what I mean by self-love, the act of finding what those traits are and embracing them whether they fall under a label/trend or not.
Try posting about self-love today. What is something about yourself that makes you proud to say you are you? What makes you happy? What’s something about yourself that makes you unique?
We spend the majority of our time focused on how to improve what social media or ourselves see as weaknesses or reasons to laugh when we should be focusing on how we can improve upon those strengths and traits we already have.