First TikTok gave us ‘girl math’: a joke about women justifying extravagant spending with reference to ‘cost per wear’. Then it gave us ‘girl dinner’: the idea that when catering for themselves, women pick on plates of snacks rather making a proper meal. Now we have ‘girl hobbies’ – and with it, some ‘girls’ are hitting their limit on patronising ‘girl trends’.
What’s it all about? A viral video argues that if you feel self-conscious about your lack of hobbies, you’re probably not counting the things that apparently, we all love. These are: ‘grabbing a lil treat like coffee or a pastry’; spending time on skincare, makeup or hair; reorganising your home; going for a ‘hot girl walk’; ‘social media investigative work’; and shopping.
Now, I’m not denying that some of these activities are enjoyable to me, a woman (not a girl, because I’m over 18). Social media investigative work, in fact, is one of my special areas of expertise – but I don’t class anything I do on my phone while wearing pyjamas as a hobby. I also know many men who like coffee, pastries and walking, and several who are much more enthusiastic about tidiness and reorganising the home than I am.
Doesn’t it feel regressive, in a time when abortion rights are being eroded and women are forced down the career ladder by a lack of childcare provision, to be infantilising each other in this way? Each of the TikTok trends seems to play into the most old-fashioned stereotypes of femininity – that we can’t count; that it isn’t ladylike to have an appetite; that our main interests are self-care and domestic chores – and to top it all off, they refer to us childishly as girls. This isn’t aspirational modern content: it’s a step back in time.
It’s no wonder there’s been a backlash, with one TikTok response describing it as a ‘brain-rot trend’ and ‘consumerist bullshit.’ Meanwhile, as journalist Lorraine Candy pointed out in a recent Grazia piece, sometimes even self-care suggestions can feel performative, and as though they’re done for someone else’s benefit.
A hobby is an activity done in one’s leisure time for pleasure, and of course that can include anything you like. Mine include reading, cooking, and boxing classes. One of my best friends, who I’ll call Carrie, loves nothing more than getting a coffee and having her eyelashes done. While she waits, she listens to political podcasts, checks in on news affecting women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, and frequently gets on social media to share information and ways to support good causes. She also wrote a novel in her spare time, and once ran a marathon; these are simply a few of her #girlhobbies. It doesn’t benefit any of us to reduce ourselves to stereotypes – or to laugh along with videos that do it for us.