This is the Summer of the 20-Something Teenage Girl ☀️🌊✨
my thoughts on growing up, girlhood, & misogyny - welcome back to The Slush Pile!
I hope everyone has been able to keep cool this summer, especially my fellow Californians coping during this wild heat wave! I just came back from a trip to Portugal (I’m already missing their normal weather) and neglected to prep a newsletter issue in time for the normal release date on the 15th, which means Issue 22 is coming a few days later than usual. Sorry about that! I’m still getting adjusted to everyday life so I wanted to write about something fun that doesn’t have an obvious connection to writing but is nonetheless a reflection on the current trends of storytelling, entertainment, and media geared towards women or, as Twitter has affectionately called it, “the twenty-something teenage girl.”
If you’re not chronically online, you may not have heard about it or know that it’s spread like wildfire all over the Internet. At first glance, I’m sure it seems pretty funny, this idea that women in their twenties are reliving in some way to their teenage girlhood, channeling their youth, and allowing themselves to feel the deep, far-reaching feelings that characterize tumultuous adolescence in the most dramatic way. The twenty-something teenage girl loves stereotypically teenage girl things like romance novels and crafts and pop music, cries about things that happened a decade ago that she never got over, drinks iced coffee and calls that a meal. The twenty-something teenage girl is the eldest or only daughter, lives with several roommates or at home, has trouble driving, works a job she tries to like doing, spirals from an existential crisis once a week. There isn’t much difference between what a twenty-something teenage girl is and what she enjoys, because who she is, is defined by what she loves. And to be honest, the label isn’t even reserved for girls; more than a marker of identity, it has transcended and become a vibe, an energy, a lifestyle, a way of being for all genders.
As a twenty-something teenage girl myself, I have felt more than ever this summer that media, music, and entertainment has been catering to us, from the Barbie movie to Amazon Prime’s The Summer I Turned Pretty, Taylor Swift’s new re-recorded album of Speak Now to Olivia Rodrigo’s upcoming album GUTS. All of which I love, of course. And if I look at these pieces of media separately and together, it becomes clear to me that the common pattern among all of them, and what makes them so twenty-something teenage girl-friendly, is this visceral sense of nostalgia for the past, of youthful hopefulness, of messiness, of intense emotions like heartbreak and sorrow and falling in love. Of fear of the future and dying without ever living up to our potential. Dark, maybe, but relatable for so many.
We know how many industries encourage women to de-age themselves or even be ashamed of their age. To constantly be returning to a sense of youth that is expensive, unrealistic, harmful, and out of reach. This isn’t that. For me, being a twenty-something teenage girl is not a wish to be younger but to celebrate my younger self by bringing that way of living and existing back to my present self. Again, it seems funny on the surface, this kind of attitude of wistfulness and feeling our feelings to the deepest degree. How we can all bond over crying about things that happened when we were fifteen. But once I thought about it, I realized that it’s not that simple. It’s not just a moment for humor. It’s a coping mechanism. It’s a mask for something much more painful. Because more than anything, being a twenty-something teenage girl is also about carrying, in our bodies and minds, an almost debilitating sense of grief and loss.
How many of us spent our childhoods wanting to be free of stereotypically girlish things like dresses, hair accessories, the color pink? How many of us became tomboys and made fun of girly girls, not realizing that by pitting one kind of femininity against another, we were finding yet another way to tear each other down? We swallow misogyny from a young age, which we not only use and perpetuate against other girls, but also use against ourselves to deny our deepest desires, wishes, interests, personality traits, and dreams. How many times I’ve denied my feelings for someone or ditched dolls I secretly loved or refused a dress in pink that I actually liked because I didn’t want to be seen as a “girly girl” or “like the other girls.” How we learned to make ourselves small in every facet of our lives.
On top of that, I’d argue that the recent and ongoing pandemic, in addition to being responsible for millions of actual deaths, has undeniably played a role in taking away some of the most critical years of our lives. Over the past three years, we have lost so much. Some of us didn’t graduate on campus. We lived at home, didn’t see our friends, lived out critical development years in our bedrooms. We lost family. We didn’t go to concerts or shop or do anything fun. We started our first adult jobs remotely. So it’s no wonder that so few of us actually feel our age when we weren’t given all that time to grow into adulthood.
The last time I felt normal was around the age of 19, and now I’m 23 going on 24. Soon, I will be expected to be a full adult on my own with my own health insurance, bank account, phone plan, car, and yet I still struggle to make friends my age, content instead to stay in my room to crochet and write and read and watch things that make my younger self feel safe, much like how I did when I was a teenager. When the world has been put on pause for three years, I don’t know how to make my way into or through it. I’ve changed so much but not in the way that arguably matters most.
Therefore, by embodying the twenty-something teenage girl, I’d argue that what I’m doing is not just making a joke for the meme, but reclaiming everything I couldn’t when I was younger. Yes, I love pink. Yes, I love dolls and plushies and stuffed animals. Yes, I love dressing up and feeling pretty and being stereotypically girly. Just writing it, admitting it here is hard to do when I’ve been hardwired against it my whole life. In that way, loving these things is an act of reclamation, of strength, of forgiveness towards my younger self for trying the best she could without fully understanding what it all meant. I might not be 19 anymore. I might not feel 23. But here’s hoping the twenty-something teenage girl will help me find my way to feeling, if nothing else, something like myself.
notes from the writer’s desk ✍️
my favorite recently pub’d pieces:
updates:
The audiobooks for my self-published poetry chapbooks STREAMING SERVICE: golden shovels made for tv and STREAMING SERVICE: season two are OUT NOW! Experience my work on a different channel on Google Play now, with more retailers and platforms to come soon. If you still need your digital and/or signed physical copies, order from my shop site today! Thank you as always for your support :’)
Submissions for my magazine Mag 20/20 are now OPEN for Issue 06! We are looking for writing (all forms), art, music, photography, and hybrid work from creatives 20-29. Until the deadline on August 15th, your work will be considered by an incredible masthead of readers and editors, so be sure to get your submissions in soon. Submit here!
Since January, I’ve been hosting creativity café, an ig live series where i feature, create space, and hold conversation with writers I love and that you should too! The sixteenth episode will premiere on Sunday, July 30th and feature special guest writer Michelle Rochniak, so head to my Instagram to watch it then. See you there!
resources:
Looking for book recommendations? Check out my Bookstagram and TikTok to keep up with what I’m reading and loving right now! On TikTok, you’ll also get more snippets of my everyday writing life and lifestyle/fashion content. See you there!
I am now a media mentor for Tectonic Media! If you are a young/aspiring journalist, I am available for consultation and mentorship on a variety of topics. Learn more about my areas of specialty and how we can connect here.
other stories i’m loving 📖
currently reading:
Stealing by Margaret Verble
currently watching:
The Summer I Turned Pretty, S2
currently listening to:
“u should feel special” by thuy
all my love,
sofía xx