You Will Never Be #ThatGirl Because She Does not Exist

The Obsession with an “Aesthetic” Lifestyle is Quietly Stealing Your Personality (and Money).

The internet gives us ideas of what our lives should look like rather than reflecting our lives to us as they are.

At the advent of social media, the ability to talk instantly to friends and loved ones forged new terrain for communication. New communities were formed on various platforms like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Instead of being limited to those in your geographic radius, you could find like-minded folks all across the world. What was beautiful about this era was how messy and nascent it was. Everything was exciting… and perhaps a little overbearing (#morningcoffee posts), but social media reflected us. It was not uncommon to scroll through Instagram and see a blurry picture of a rainbow through a screened door in Florida, or a silly picture taken in a Taco Bell parking lot.

Now, everybody is a content creator. Everything must be aesthetic. There are millions of posts on how to become #thatgirl. Every single one of them is identical: walk at least 10,000 steps, drink chia seed water, unplug, wake up at 5 am, never skip a workout, gua sha, botox, facials, massages, soft life, pilates, etc…

Who are we trying to become exactly?

Becoming “that girl” is a genius trend because it is malleable.

It forces the viewer to see themselves constantly as a project to be solved. One insecurity away from being perfect. If only you had just fixed that one thing preventing you from being your most gorgeous, healthy self. The insecurity of feeling just not good enough allows a company, through your favorite influencer or “content creator,” to swoop in and sell you the solution. And of course, the solution is always changing. But it is never free.

A workout set that will change your life and finally get you to the gym. A meticulously curated Pinterest board filled with clickable affiliate links for your next vacation, so you can really stand out from the crowd this time. A planner that will make you the most productive and successful version of yourself.

The one consistency in the “that girl” aesthetic is that she is productive, hot, and probably, rich.

Tracee Ellis Ross was on Michelle Obama’s podcast, and she described herself as being “fully embodied.” The simplicity in this quote struck me. Life is peculiar because we work, we learn, we experience, and we die. Anticlimactic.

Sure, there are a few of us mere mortals who become legends. But the vast majority of us will live and be forgotten. It often makes me wonder what all of this is for? The effort and the time to become #thatgirl. To become rich. To become notable. But if all of us are striving for the same thing, doing the same things, consuming the same things, don’t we just achieve sameness? Nothing of note, nothing of wonder, just more of what is expected.

The internet can be a great place to awaken old desires and reconnect with parts of yourself you forgot by reminding you of your interests. But not all of us need to wake up and work out at 5 am. If we all did, then who would be dancing on tables at the club at 2 am?

There are so many curated ways to create an “aesthetic” life. However, life is not meant to be lived in boxes. Life requires you to color outside the lines.

Most of the people we admire are fully embodied individuals. And they would not be who they are if they chased sameness. Perhaps the internet would better serve us if we used it like a buffet of ideas, taking what we would like and leaving the rest, rather than letting it diagnose us like WebMD with one hundred reasons why we are not #thatgirl.

No one’s life is aesthetic all the time. Nor should it be. We follow these content creators and hope that if we wear the right clothes, say the right things, host the right events, we will be alchemized into something cooler. But the coolest thing is simply knowing yourself. And you won’t achieve that if you keep letting the noise of the internet be louder than your inner thoughts and desires.