This is the weekly Amplify newsletter, where you can be inspired and challenged by the voices, opinions and insights of women at The Globe and Mail.
Alisha Sawhney is the Podcast Lead for The Globe Content Studio, the content marketing division of The Globe and Mail.
Recently, my best friend texted me a photo of six steamed soup dumplings from Costco, accompanied by a bowl of cucumbers and a homemade espresso martini. “I’m having girl dinner,” she wrote.
An internet trend I’d been seeing all over TikTok had finally made its way into my real life. But if you’re not chronically online, like I am, allow me to explain.
When you’re home alone and it’s dinner time, but you don’t have many groceries, what do you do? Perhaps compile an amalgamation of random crap from your fridge and pantry to make a “meal” that doesn’t really count as a meal in the traditional sense, but also isn’t really a snack? Voila: girl dinner.
Now, you may be thinking: this is something modern women (and men) have always been doing. But as is customary for young people in these internet-centric times, Gen Z (women, in particular) have decided to anoint this mundane type of meal prep with a special name. You may have also encountered, for example, the phrase “hot girl summer” at some point in the past few years, encapsulating the idea of women going confidently about their business (when dating and otherwise) regardless of what anyone else might think. My personal favourite term from this realm is “bed rotting,” which means staying in bed for extended periods not to sleep, but to just, well – be. These phrases have exploded in the cultural lexicon not just to describe specific activities but general mindsets as well.
A photo of a 'girl dinner' Alisha Sawhney received from her friend.Supplied
Crucially, I believe this language is a direct response to many of our 21st-century anxieties, courtesy of social media. There’s an unrelenting pressure for women to be high performers, to achieve the kind of perfection seen in videos of influencers carrying out perfect morning routines, dressed to the nines on vacation and eating at expensive restaurants. In this online environment, sharing posts on Instagram or TikTok featuring unmade beds and strange smorgasbord dinners (accompanied, of course, by #bedrot or #girldinner) can feel like a small act of resistance.
“If a large portion of women are experiencing the world in the same way, giving it a label gains a lot of power,” Barend Beekhuizen, an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Toronto, tells me in an interview. “Using specific words transforms an amorphous or loose set of experiences into a categorized, shared idea.”
It’s easy to see “girl dinner” as just a silly turn of phrase, but I would argue that there’s been a cultural shift among young people toward reimagining how we use social media in ways that can’t be as easily commodified or used as clickbait. I see this response as an undercurrent of resistance to the content we consume and the ideas we are encouraged to hold, as traditional anchors like home ownership and marriage are in decline.
Take the more recent internet phrase “girl math,” for example. In hundreds of videos posted online, young women have elucidated a set of “rules” they use when justifying impulse spending. The basic premise: If an item is under five bucks, it’s practically free, right? As is anything bought with cash or a prepaid rewards card. Girl math is buying tickets for a concert that’s one year away so it will feel like it’s free by the time the show rolls around; same goes for a vacation you paid for months ago. The money already left your bank account, so forget about that, it’s in the past. Personal finance gurus may cringe at the thought, but amid the pain of high inflation, soaring rent costs and rampant uncertainty about the future, can you really blame young women for fantasizing about financial freedom in this way?
What it all comes down to, in my view, is an appeal among younger people to drop the facade that everyone is doing just fine all the time. Can we all just admit to each other instead that no one is perfect? We all have tough days (#bedrot), struggle with our spending habits in this consumer-driven world (#girlmath) and sometimes just don’t feel like cooking (#girldinner). This is my generation of women saying: Let’s not run away from reality but instead acknowledge it. Let’s free ourselves of unrealistic expectations.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to put my plain tortilla and pre-shredded cheese in the microwave. I’m having something akin to a quesadilla for girl dinner tonight.
What else we’re thinking about:
My initial reaction toward viral recipes tends to fall between immense skepticism and downright disdain (perhaps you may have seen the mermaid toast trend?). But when I noticed that cottage cheese is among the latest recipe crazes to hit TikTok, I was all in. I’ve been a lifelong devotee of this humble food staple and have been known to eat it straight out of the container. If that sounds unappealing, try drizzling some honey on it. I also recommend swirling cottage cheese into your scrambled eggs or mixing it into a smoothie for an extra creamy hit. If you’re cottage cheese curious and a fan of cooking, you should try out some of these recipes. Or if you’re looking to take the quick and easy #girldinner route, I highly recommend making a fast and simple cottage cheese pizza toast.
Marianne
Marianne Kushmaniuk for The Globe and Mail
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