Let Girls Have Fun
Image courtesy of CNN
By KENDELLE GRUBBS ‘20
An often untalked about aspect of sexism is the systematic alienation and degradation of women and their interests. The most current example would be that of VSCO girls and E-boys. This past summer and fall, VSCO girls have been on the receiving end of countless jokes charactarizing them as cringey and idiotic. Teenage girls who like to use Hydroflasks and wear overly large t-shirts over Nike shorts are demonized by the media and their fellow peers. I have made my fair share of VSCO girl jokes but, upon reflection, I realize how stupid it was to riff on them. VSCO girls are not hurting anyone. I didn’t even realize they existed until people started making fun of them. But you know who we should be making fun of? E-boys.
E-boys are those vaguely attractive Tik-Tok boys who wear black clothes and chains while grabbing their throats and popping their veins. Their talent is literally biting their lips at the camera while Joji plays in the background. How are they able to get away with this transgression while girls who wear scrunchies and say “save the whales” are absolutely cancelled? This double standard even mirrors our own Milton community. We love trashing DSGs for drinking Dunkin’ and getting their Air Force Ones dirty, but God forbid we roast the DSBs for spending their time ogling down the v-necks of freshmen girls.
We demonize women for everything. Liking One Direction or Justin Bieber means you’re a crazed, horny fangirl but if you like Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance you’re just an emo chick with too many problems. If you like things that are typically considered male-centric like sports or video games, you’re in a constant battle of having to prove yourself and show that you actually know what you’re talking about. Remember the whole Twilight fiasco? How in the late 2000’s the media ridiculed teenage girls for liking hot vampires and werewolves? Twilight had its cheesy and terribly acted parts, but a majority of its hate came from the fact that girls liked it.
Think of all the things we make fun of: K-pop, fanfiction, boy bands, etc. Those forms of entertainment have majority-female fan bases and have been painted with the same broad stroke of being weird and idotic. Sure, every form of entertainment has its weird fans, but it's not fair when those weird fans are generalized to represent the whole fan community. I have seen videos of male sports fans eating horse poop off the ground following a Super Bowl win and of men destroying their televisions because of a lost game, but those off-putting moments haven’t become the image for the whole sports community.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t make jokes about fan culture, but think about why you’re making fun of it and the impact of your negativity. I fully understand that it is a little weird that I’ll wake up at five in the morning just to watch the release of a new BTS music video, but I find it no different than people who stay up until midnight watching a game, or spend (what I would find) way too much money on a pair of sneakers. Women are judged too often for what we enjoy purely because of our gender. As Cyndi Lauper would say, “Girls just wanna have fun,” and your sexism is kinda bringing down the mood.