Girlhood, interrupted.
“I’m not sure how marketing got so messed up to the point where 10-year-old girls think they need to do an AHA peel every night, but I digress.”
Even though the internet as we know it was constructed and designed by women, it’s nearly impossible for girls to be girls online. Girls have an insatiable desire to grow up, and there’s an immense pressure to conform to what society views as ‘mature’ and ‘grown.’ There always has been, but because Gen Z and Gen Alpha have been digital natives since they’ve left the womb, it's never felt natural to act like a kid online.
Also, equipping nearly 71% of kids with a smartphone by the age of 12 has allowed adolescence and tweenhood, arguably some of the most uncomfortable times of our lives, to become forever digitised and public. Likewise, childhood is incredibly scrutinised across social media. With unprecedented access to each other's personal lives and the proliferation of sponsored and influencer content, what does it really mean to have a childhood anymore?
So, it’s interesting that lately I’ve seen countless videos across social media of young, and I mean YOUNG, girls darting across Sephora, Boots and other beauty counters, terrorising display counters and piling products into a basket neatly placed at their parents' feet. To avoid sounding like an old woman shouting from her window, it reminded me of the way girls back in my day used to terrorise Victoria’s Secret body spray counters or Claire's Accessories displays.
As Haleigh Fullilove puts so eloquently in her own essay (also girlhood interrupted, a brilliant title): “I’m not sure how marketing got so messed up to the point where 10-year-old girls think they need to do an AHA peel every night, but I digress.”
As reported in The Cut, employees at the Atlantic Terminal Mall Sephora, Aaliyah White, 21, and Jania Albright, 20, say it all started with Drunk Elephant’s bronzing drops, which went TikTok-viral last year. “Everyone was coming in for those drops, then it started escalating,” says White. “I feel like it wasn’t too intense until the holiday season.” Despite this, both say they haven’t experienced a rude tween customer. “They’re not rude, they’re just acting like 10-year-olds,” Albright adds.” Products from Drunk Elephant and Glow Recipe, expensive skincare brands with oh-so-cute packaging, are all the rage for young girls. It doesn’t lie in their effectiveness (again, 10-year-olds don’t need AHA peels or bronzing drops!), but there’s an allure to them. They’re bright, they’re kitschy, and most importantly they make you feel grown up.
“I’m not sure how marketing got so messed up to the point where 10-year-old girls think they need to do an AHA peel every night, but I digress.” - Haleigh Fullilove
My definition of being a grown up changed from wearing dark eyeliner at 15 to having a pension at 24, but along the way certain marks of adulthood and maturity either shifted or came to be. Beauty routines felt more prioritised, looking ‘put together’ felt essential, and the list of products I’d need to look young forever seemed to just grow and grow (now I get advertised preventative Botox!) The difference here is my exposure, which alongside a lot of people my age, came naturally over time. I didn’t have unlimited internet access, or influencers shouting down my face and feed, to try and convince me I needed any of these products, and now. We had YouTube influencers, and looking back at their old videos it all seemed so much more… tame? I remember the craze of EOS lip balms or Bath and Body Works hand sanitiser (American reference), but I also remember when I got into my later teens, very expensive makeup palettes and eyebrow gel (yes!! What an era), were suddenly being pushed on me.
But is this what happens when stores like Accessorize and Claire’s fall out of favour, and with the death of malls and growth of online shopping, is this really the only space for young girls to hang out? Society is increasingly unfriendly to children; it’s hard to be a kid, it always has been, but social media just makes it more of a head-fuck.
Simultaneously, 2023 was the year of the girl. ‘Girl Dinner’, ‘Girl Math’, and regardless of your opinions of it, it signalled a wider desire to return to youth. Not in the sense of anti-aging, but an existential worry of growing up and fleeting time, watching our lives fly by on social media and through commodified nostalgia. We seem to be at an impasse now: women are told (as they have been for centuries) that they need to look younger, while girls feel like they need to act older.
Young women are recommended preventative Botox and little girls are encouraged to use more mature skincare products. It’s interesting to see this shift segmented between women and girls. 2023 was heralded as the year of the girl, with ‘coquette’ fashion and Sandy Liang bows in the zeitgeist, but it seems this girlhood and desire to return to youth (not in the anti-ageing sense, but more metaphorically with innocence) doesn’t resonate with actual young girls. As seen so eloquently online: Girlhood is popular, just not for girls.
Most pressingly, the idea of crazed 10-year-olds destroying beauty counters for £65 retinol cream is somewhat of an urban legend. The influx of content online ridiculing these girls or even their parents for this behaviour has left a nasty taste in my mouth. I’m of the opinion that we should just let girls live.
There’s absolutely nothing outrageous about young girls liking makeup, or expressing an interest in skincare (most likely a result of wanting to mirror their mothers or any older women they admire.) It’s easy to dunk on young girls, their habits are often the sole point of online scrutiny. It’s all in the MARKETING! Sure, a retinoid cream will probably cause some sort of reaction to their delicate skin, and they’ll simply put down the bottle. What’s unsettling is the proliferation of online content purposefully encouraging mass consumption in tweens, who are especially vulnerable in a digital world. The existence of Gen Alpha influencers is horrible, no kid should be put online like that.
It’s the death of the ‘tween’-specific media, the disappearance of a space where children can navigate the grey area between childhood and adolescence. The world may be different now, but one thing hasn’t changed: girls are still being pressured to grow up faster than they should. Let’s not forget the essence of girlhood amidst the cacophony of beauty aisles and digital influencers, and allow girls to explore their journey at their own pace, free from unnecessary judgments. Girlhood, interrupted, yet still resilient.