What happened to that girl?

Vuyiswa Fumba

Are you an upper middle class twentysomething year old with sober habits (unless it is an espresso martini), lots of luxury athleisure in your closet, an hour of free time per day to journal and five million rand to spend on bottomless Starbucks iced coffee? You might qualify to join in on TikTok’s “that girl” trend. A quick search of the words “that girl” on TikTok will produce millions of videos of women who ascribe to this set of practices to elevate their daily lives. The trend is about levelling up your life by finding ways to incorporate wellness practices into everyday life and it inspires many viewers to do the same. However, at some point, the lululemon causes a dent in your wallet bigger than you can fill and the that girl trend needs to be watched from a distance.

The motives are pure insofar as this trend intends to inspire people to change their lives in actionable ways. However, a contrasting trend has arisen whereby people are speaking out on how negatively that girl has harmed them, instead of helping them to be better. The average UP student might share this experience. It is not practical for everyone to wake up at 4:30 every morning for an hour-long hot girl walk, or to film a morning routine in a luxury, high-rise apartment in the middle of New York City, especially now that some students are yet to find accommodation following the NSFAS crisis. Furthermore, this trend shows a real lack of representation. So, if you are black, queer, fat or poor there is a great deal of disillusionment and frustration when you cannot meet the unreasonable benchmarks. Fortunately, there are still ways to incorporate wellness habits into your life without partaking in this trend.

Do not feel pressured to buy anything

Marketers have managed to turn every TikTok trend into a way to make profit. With this fad specifically, it is even harder to partake without all of the trendy add-ons. Feel free to play it down by starting with what you already have: romanticise your homemade coffee, take a hot girl walk around campus, at whichever time works best with your schedule and exercise in the most breathable leggings.

Let it reflect in your offline life, too

It is easy to hop on the bandwagon of a trend just to feel part of something. However, stepping away from the virtual nature of this trend can allow you to form wellness habits in more authentic ways. For instance, if one of your goals is to eat more healthily, you can make more mindful food choices without posting about it online. Or if you have a goal to develop a new sleep routine, you are the only one who knows which hours will work best with your lifestyle so gleaning inspiration online will most likely not lead to the best decision.

Find representation around you

It is nearly impossible to control an online environment, even with viewing algorithms that produce videos that you are likely to respond positively to, based on previously liked videos. To correct the lack of representation portrayed in the that girl trend, try to find representation around you. There are incredibly diverse groups of people on campus who, depending on what your wellness goals are, could be a great source of inspiration and community.

Look on the bright side, some people are able to garner what they can from the trend and successfully ignore its inefficiencies. Social media users have quipped and popularised the phrase “that girl is a state of mind”, emphasising that people do not need to meet all of the criteria to be that girl but instead, adopt a mindset of constant betterment and hold themselves to a higher standard in order to change their lives.