a rightward swing within girl culture online

August 24, 2024 5:30 PM

On predatory marketing, girlblogging, and when anti-consumerist discourse becomes a vector for reactionary ideals. Within the broader context, however, phrases like a “personality ... built out of products” or “self esteem ... borrowed from surgeries” become incredibly loaded by framing transness – particularly trans femininity– as manufactured, inauthentic, a frivolous costume to put on. See also fascist girlbloggers.

From the main link:

There is a huge difference between being annoyed at the way online shopping culture has shaped our identities (it is annoying! People are obnoxious about it!) and being annoyed at the way online shopping culture has shaped our identities but especially the identities of trans people, who can’t buy their way into the gender they want because gender is essential and trans people are just confused etc. Don’t let your knee-jerk frustrations around consumption distract from this sleight of hand.

posted by spamandkimchi (4 comments total)

This reminds me of an episode from a few months ago of the excellent podcast You're Wrong About about the rise of the "tradwife" phenomenon. The episode's guest host Sarah Archer believes that the tradwife thing is in part a response to the "girlboss" feminism of the 2010s where feminist identity was explicitly linked to capitalism, consumerism, "hustling", etc. (e.g., Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In) and that some women who rejected that fusion were drawn to the superficial anti-capitalist imagery and ideas embodied in rightwing visions of a mythical idyllic traditional past.
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:44 PM on August 24 [7 favorites]

The link to that episode: You're Wrong About: The Tradwife Rises
posted by AlSweigart at 8:43 PM on August 24 [4 favorites]

It’s good to see that I’m not the only one who sees strong commentary and nearly agrees, only to see the shadow of the TERF or the RETVRN Dude at the corner of the eye. I first experienced this with William Howard Kunstler ages ago.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:48 AM on August 25 [1 favorite]

Today I encountered a tumblr user who was arguing that in the city of Chicago, crime has gotten so bad because the mayor made it illegal for cops to do their jobs, and in fact all the grocery stores had shut down because of how bad the crime is. She seemed very serious! I clicked on her blog and discovered that she identifies as a feminist in her bio and posts almost exclusively about hating men, and trans women, whom she considers men. Much of it included rhetoric about women being brainwashed by beauty corporations and social media. There was liberal Zionism but at that point I'm just playing bigot bingo.

Because I really do have a problem, I tried to think about what the inside of their head must look like. I mean it would be simple if they were being insincere, right? They know it's all bullshit and they're just looking for a cover. But you don't need a cover! If you're posting on tumblr you're gonna get yelled at for your stupid beliefs anyway, so why the ruse? And if getting yelled at is the point, like they have a psychological need to be the underdog, then doesn't base-model conservatism already offer that in spades? Is it just for recruitment purposes then? I mean does that really work? Maybe I'm just not in touch with the community of young impressionable women with no friends.
posted by jy4m at 4:11 PM on August 25 [3 favorites]