It’s 5am when your alarm sounds. After reaching over to silence the drilling, careful not to expose yourself to screen time for at least 30 minutes, you slowly emerge from the duvet, swing your legs off of the bed, and slide your feet into your fluffy slippers. Open the curtains and allow the morning sunrise to pierce your eyes. Make your bed, obviously. You swap TikTok for Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’. Feeling #Empowered, the day commences with a coffee, the latte art perfected, or a green juice (whichever suits the aesthetics of the day) and journaling, tell the pages what you’re grateful for, your manifestations, your goals. It’s time to move your body, 45 minutes of stretches, squats, bench presses, and push ups. Time to shower; cleanse, exfoliate, shave, shampoo, condition followed by your extensive skincare routine, not forgetting your rose quartz face roller and gua sha to remove the under-eye evidence of the 5am wake up call. Refuel with a hearty, healthy breakfast. Wholefoods, fruits and vegetables to aid digestion and restoration; wholegrain, homemade sourdough toast with avocado, poached eggs accompanied by a large glass of ice-cold water. It’s 8am, so permission to enter your phone and catch-up with Instagram, scroll through TikTok is granted. Wait, did you take a picture of the yolk burst of your poached egg to share amongst your weekly photo dumps? Okay, continue... candles are lit, the body is fuelled, the mind is clear, as is your skin, now you can start the day.
Yes, now you can start the day. As in this is all before a day's labour, presuming you are required to work, no judgement either way. It just isn’t an attainable, sustainable or desirable lifestyle for everyone. So, where did the ‘that’ girl phenomenon stem from exactly? It is undeniable that social media, Instagram and more recently TikTok, shapes our perceptions of ourselves, of the world we live in. Even when we make a conscious decision to consume less social media, not being engaged within that world leaves you feeling pretty in the dark considering most daily activities require some sort of interaction with your mobile phones, especially given the current remote circumstances.
Yet, if we’re all striving to encapsulate ‘that’ girl, individualism goes straight out the window. It takes the whole ‘new year, new me’ trope to the next level. If you’re not striving to rise before the sun, if you’re not tuning in with Chloe Ting’s home workouts 5 times a week, maintaining a tidy, neat environment then what are you doing? Is everything okay? I have no doubt that such a routine is genuine for many women, I really do understand the appeal; as an outsider looking in, the aesthetics of it do please me. But ultimately that’s what it is: aesthetics. The actual act of it I quite frankly find exhausting, and often leaves me feeling as though my days are wasted. To the girlies who face racial disparities, classism, ableism, whose brain simply won’t allow them to climb out of bed in the morning, never mind spend time and effort tackling the sheets to make it, I see you. Doing your best with what you have, and you are doing it so well.
Becoming ‘that’ girl is an illusion. It’s a privilege, and it is a faulty concept. Becoming ‘that’ girl is unique to the individual. Becoming ‘that’ girl isn’t trying to be like 20-year-old Tiffany who lives in a 2-story apartment on Bondi Beach, it’s about becoming ‘that’ girl who makes you happy.
Becoming ‘that’ girl might be fun for a day or two, and it might feel good, but ultimately followed a 7 second guide on TikTok won’t cure your mental ills, it won’t dismantle the patriarchy, or in the institutionalised racism, or the fatphobia, or the transphobia that is unconsciously perpetuated throughout society. But you can do your best with what you’ve got. And you are powerful just as you are.
So, at what cost are we becoming ‘that’ girl? At the cost of our mental health? At the cost of our wellbeing? At the cost of forcing yourself to poach an egg until it runs perfectly onto your avo? Personally, especially in the winter months, jumping out of bed at 6am isn’t a vibe, nor is pumping out 50-minute workout 4 days a week because right now, that isn’t accessible. That’s not to say in the future I won’t be up for a morning workout, but now? I’ll take the extra sleep. And I refuse to allow social media to make me feel like a bad, unsuccessful, unproductive human being about it. I love reading in the morning, and I am partial to a Yoga With Adrienne practice but striving to encompass a certain way of life just because it may look appealing is asking for burnout.