If you’ve spent some time on the internet, you have likely seen or heard of the “I’m just a girl” discourse. To talk about these girly trends, Bored Panda talked with avid internet user Gerda. 

By saying “girly trends,” we mean things like “girl math,” “girl dinner,” etcetera. The former is simply a fun way to justify your spending habits, while the latter is a fun description of women’s snacking habits. 

Gerda said that she’s seen all these trends on social media. While she didn’t participate in them publicly by posting videos, she still enjoyed watching them. “I liked the entertaining videos, the simple concept of having fun in a ‘girly’ way.” 

Soon after the trends appeared, the discussions about their harmfulness started. People started complaining that they portrayed women as infantile and stupid and that this inferior representation then influenced young girls to feel like that and think that being a girl is something silly. 

Others said that they encourage women to make poor decisions and then hide under the “I’m just a girl” rationalization. Well, the trends had a lot of similar critique points made against them. But not everyone saw them as something inherently bad. 

Some saw them as innocent jokes between women on the internet. But there were also some who saw it as a reclaiming of girlhood. Many grew up in a society where girly stuff was considered childish, superficial, and not worthy of attention. Basically, the joys of being a girl were taken away from women. And now they want to reclaim it. 

Pop culture moments like the “Barbie” movie and Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” both popularize and utilize the idea of girlhood. Here, people who attended Swift’s concert said that they felt the freedom to “unabashedly be girls.” 

Our interviewee Gerda reminisced about last summer, at the peak of the Barbie movie’s popularity. “I remember we went to the premiere. Many people were dressed in pink and were very excited to see the movie. It felt very good and fun. I felt safe there.” 

She added that she doesn’t think that all these girly trends are particularly harmful, as long as they aren’t overdone. “If they’re simple, as they were in the beginning, I think they’re fun. The fun dies only when people start to make a bigger deal of it than it is, look way too deep into it.” 

In a way, the X page “ovary ✨” or @ovaryactorr is an example of the girly trends. Most of the jokes posted on this account are relatable bits. For example, cleaning your room, having fun with friends, and dealing with your mental health. 

As a teenager, Gerda said that she mostly enjoys jokes that relate to her life, such as memes about having fun with friends, struggles in school, the online world, and the challenges of figuring oneself out in modern society. She also mentioned that she’ll never turn away from funny animal-related content either.

Well, the “ovary ✨” page matches Gerda’s taste at least partially. Besides these relatable themes, these posts also have a twist that makes them a bit more relatable to women and girls. Plus, from the way the page itself is designed, as well as its name, which refers to one of a woman's reproductive organs, it’s good to guess its target audience is women. 

That doesn’t mean that anyone else cannot enjoy these jokes. They can. What they also can do is upvote the jokes they like the most!