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cool girls

“You’re not like other girls,”

Sociopolitical and cultural system that values masculinity over femininity – valued less, and confining gender norms and placing people into predictable, placed into false dichotomies. From a young age – we are influenced from the stereotypess that surround us, and we compare ourselves. 

Being Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker and dirty jokes, who plays video-games and chugs beer– loves threesomes and anal sex and jams chili-dogs into my mouth like I’m hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang-bang–-while remaining a size 2, because cool girls are above all, hot. Hot and understanding. Cool girls never get angry at their men, they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner, and then present their mouth for fucking.

- Gillian Flynn, from her novel Gone Girl (2012)

Differentiating yourself by putting other women down – not like other girls  

In fact, there’s a whole subreddit dedicated to the all too common phenomenon of r/notlikeothergirls. Its description reads:  

Is your music taste a cut above the rest? Would you rather stay at home and play video games than go shopping? Do you hang out with only guys to “avoid the drama”? This is the place for you. A place for poking fun at girls who think that being “different” makes them somehow better. NOT for demeaning women as a whole.

There’s a whole thought culture behind this - given there is a system that rewards those that say ‘I’m different, I’m inherently better’ with that of a higher social standing - to attempt to achieve a closer relationship with man.

Youtuber Tana Mongeau recently released a 40-minute long video to a platform of more than 5 million subscribers. The Youtuber is one of the most controversial figures on the platform and she utilizes this – she builds her online persona as a relatable, hot mess, and her brand is based on ‘realness.’ The very video we are talking about is premised on her deteriorating mental health during what was arguably the best year of her career – propelled in the spotlight with her relationship with actress Bella Thorne, she’s since collaborated with Youtube giants James Charles and Shane Dawson, and had a highly publicized 2 month whirlwind marriage to YouTuber Jake Paul (with 20 million subscribers). Her rise in popularity won her Creator of the Year at the Streamy Awards 2019, and signed her a reality show with MTV.

But continuing this persona is a road down self-destruction - a humiliation of the very real trauma of the 21-year-old, and a race to poke fun at herself before her actions can be used against her. in a way that seems remarkably like exposing the chaos of her life before it can be used against herwhich seems to have finally been broken down in her latest video.

But what Tana mentions in the video was not . She lies on her bed, clutching a pillow, words tripping over her tongue as her eyes stay glazed at the ceiling. She talks about her depression, behind the scenes of parties and collabs she shows us, and talks about the toxicity of her most recent relationships, and how she is still handling the loss of family members and friends. She’s smart, dating patterns with boys who didn’t have their shit together yet, and the hurt both she and him had caused each other. I have a few thoughts on our treatment of boys and girls, and the toxicity that leaks into their adulthood, where they can make real, lasting changes that affect you and I.

was a significant part of her relationship with Youtuber Jake Paul is her ability to be the ‘chill’ girlfriend, the girl who wasn’t like other girls, the one who was as low maintenance, the one who wasn’t like the line of crazy ex-girlfriends who had traumatized him.  on her previous dating patterns with boys who didn’t have their shit together yet, and the hurt both she and him had caused each other. I have a few thoughts on our treatment of boys and girls, and the toxicity that leaks into their adulthood, where they can make real, lasting changes that affect you and I.

I was told I was not like other girls, like I was one of the boys. Like the manic pixie dream girl – she is impossibly unrealistic.  

We are taught from young that male approval is what we need to be able to be successful. #TweetLikeAPickMe

Or you Should be like other girls – you don’t act like one.  

Internalized misogyny – we are taught indirectly and directly to dislike women and what they enjoy

Shallow comment – or is it said with good intentions? Girls and Boys cannot be friends.  

Performing gender

Open relationships are like any other relationship in that every partner should have boundaries, and a clear understanding of their own needs.  

we live in a society that fetishizes power differentials between men and women

we consider men with money and status and sexual experience – are sexually appealing. We consider women with those same qualities threatening.

Muses