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Speaker 0 00:00:00 I'm in my Ophelia era. I'm in my Francis ha era. I'm in my tote bag, skipping lunch coffee at night, Lucy da procrastinating era. But maybe you're not like me. Maybe you're in your flea bag era. Maybe you're in your year of rest and relaxation era. Maybe you're in your year. Bama, scrunchy, SMUD, eyeliner platform docs era. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry. We'll get to that. But if you do know what I'm talking about, chances are you're a young woman or someone socialized female chances are you also see these kinds of videos on TikTok and jokes. Online. Girls distancing themselves from their mental health struggles by characterizing themselves by the items they consume, or by simply stating they're in an era. I see this a lot on social media, but I never really realized until another video popped up on my, for you page in the video writer, rain Fisher qu read aloud from her essay, standing on the shoulders of complex female characters. It's
Speaker 1 00:00:55 Become very common for women online to express their identities through an artfully curated list of the things that consume or aspire to consume. And because young women are conditioned to believe that their identities are defined almost entirely by their neurosis. These round ups of cultural trends and authors du ju are often implicitly served to Shely signal one's mental illnesses to the public. One girl in your TikTok feed might be a self-described Joan Didian Eve baits, Marlborough red stray cut Levi's Fleabag girl. This means she has depression. Another will call herself a baby doll, Sylvia Plath red scare muu LA Del re girl eating disorder, or a green juice claw clip I a Chamberlain yoga mat podcast, girl, different eating disorder, aesthetics of consumption have in turn become a conduit to make the self more easily consumable your existence. As a type of girl has almost nothing to do with whether you actually read John Didian or wear Miu and everything to do with whether you wanna be seen as the type person who
Speaker 0 00:01:43 Would Fisher Quan's essay stuck with me. I felt like she had articulated something that was bouncing around in the back of my brain that I knew, but couldn't say I reached out to some of my close female friends to see if they understood what I meant about Fleabag eras and tote bag girlies. All of them did. Boy,
Speaker 2 00:01:59 You think those videos of girls being like I'm so quirky I'm in my blank are very natural. So I have seen a lot of videos that destigmatize mental illness, but in a way, make an aesthetic out of it as if like being in your blank era includes like both like materials that you own tote bag like latte blank, but also connection to feelings. Like if you're sad as a woman, you, you must have these things and have these behaviors.
Speaker 0 00:02:25 That's Georgia, Siemens, Mendel, sophomore. She's noticed videos like this on her for you page two. And she had a lot of thoughts about how they characterize young female suffering.
Speaker 2 00:02:35 I think it is harmful to be perpetuating this idea that like I'm in my flee back era, like I'm being self destructive because it makes the seem like an aesthetic when really it's actually commenting on female messiness.
Speaker 0 00:02:49 Siemens like me has consumed a lot of the sad girl media tropes that these talks usually discuss. She's seen Fleabag, she's red parts of my year of rest and relaxation. She listens to Phoebe Bridgers, but she thinks it's important to think critically about identifying with these characters and tropes
Speaker 2 00:03:05 Wallowing is an aesthetic version of recognizing it glamorizes. It, it kind of gives this idea of like a woman in a white dress. And she's like laying in this like field of flowers. And she's just like wallowing with all of her inner turmoil. And it makes it much more glamorous than like sitting with sadness actively and working on it. You know, the idea of like, I'm just gonna wallow in my sadness is very privileged because a lot of people experience difficulties in their life and don't have the privilege of relaxing. If that's the right word,
Speaker 0 00:03:37 It is important. As Siemens said, to recognize the privilege in this kind of suffering, many of the characters that these jokes center around are white, middle class educated, conventionally, pretty characters. And though anyone can experience mental illness, not everyone is able to experience it in the same ways, but this glamorized privileged version of female pain does center around this sort of wall. It seeks to identify with a higher figure, either a character or an idealized version of ourselves. This is what Fisher qu calls the quote blueprint for hot girl suffering end quote,
Speaker 3 00:04:10 It's this phenomenon where it's like having a mental illness somehow makes you more relatable to this character that people have created in their head. It's like, oh, this indie archetype, this girl, she's a tote bag girl. She wears her dos in the winter. She gets oat milk lattes that are like $7. You know what I mean? Like she's having a hard time in her classes, but like, look at her silly little life.
Speaker 0 00:04:30 That's Janine, SBY a sophomore ATI university. She too sees a lot of these videos about aestheticized suffering.
Speaker 3 00:04:37 Why wouldn't you cast yourself as like in that era of your life? Because it's an easier way to say I'm in my Fleabag era than to be like I'm in my manic depressive era. It's easy to say like, oh, I'm in my salur era and then not do anything about it because that makes it so far away from your personal experience.
Speaker 0 00:04:54 SBY like me and Siemens thought about how this type of idealization plays into dissociation from mental illness, Klein coined the term dissociate of feminism in a 2019 article to describe the internalization of female suffering, Siemens and Brads, be both ruminated on this, especially how it relates to patriarchy and the male gaze.
Speaker 2 00:05:14 From what I've learned about dissociative feminism, it's this desire to wallow and sorrow continue harmful relationship, change your appearance and put the desires of men before your own. It's almost just like I'm commodifying and objectifying myself before a man can do it. And that gives me power. And I don't think it does. I don't think in the end, you're still objectifying. When Margaret Atwood once said, even pretending you aren't catering to male, fantasies is a male fantasy.
Speaker 3 00:05:42 It's not that like, you want to have mental illness, but like if you're dealing with anxiety and all this stuff, you want that glamorized version articulating that you need help is not an attractive quality.
Speaker 0 00:05:50 It is definitely disturbing. At least to me to think of how internalizing one's sadness can appeal to the male gaze. But even so I'm aware that I participate in it. Women are conditioned to package themselves pretty for society and society is still very much driven by men and heterosexuality. But some of my interviewees commented on how this packaging relates to female queerness as well,
Speaker 4 00:06:12 Rings and doc Martins kind of thing. Like you're kind of creating an, I do utilize aesthetic. And because it's so linked to products that you can easily buy, that makes it really easy for other people to kind of adopt that identity. I think that that's something that a lot of people need.
Speaker 0 00:06:31 That's Annie Kaman, a Weinberg sophomore. We joked about the stereotype that queer women like to wear are lots of rings. But when thinking about the idea of women commodifying their personalities, she immediately thought of queer commodity stereotypes. SBY did too.
Speaker 3 00:06:46 You have to get certain haircuts, you need certain clothes. Like you need certain piercings like permanent body modifications. And it's this entire ideal that's centered around like buying these things so that you look a certain
Speaker 0 00:06:58 Way. There's a lot going on here. I know, but the bottom line is, it seems like we're trapped as young women. We either dissociate and commodify our experiences to appeal more to capitalist and patriarchal society and never confront our problems directly. But if we are direct and loud about our problems, we'll be viewed much less favorably.
Speaker 3 00:07:16 Do you wanna be oppressed by the or old, or do you wanna be oppressed by yourself? Do you wanna keep it all in and deal with it or do you wanna put it out there so that other people can like stop on you? People will call you crazy because they can. And that's very much a female conflict.
Speaker 4 00:07:30 Women are always told that they're like, not enough. That the way they, the way they are media never tells them to be like exactly happy the way they are. They're always seems to be something wrong with them. I don't think normalizing is like a word that should be used in regards to mental illness. I think destigmatizing mental illness
Speaker 3 00:07:47 Is important,
Speaker 4 00:07:48 But normalizing it is just so harmful.
Speaker 2 00:07:51 We shouldn't be blaming each other for, you know, playing into patriarchal systems to achieve success and achieve our own goals as non men. But I also think we have to work to create a world where we don't have to like, you know, play the game and we can just like exist.
Speaker 0 00:08:07 So here's to existing for w N R news. I'm Allison RA.
