The West Village Girls hit a nerve

The offence of sameness in the land of the free

If you’ve been anywhere near the internet in the past few days you will have come across the commotion over The Cut’s West Village Girls piece.

You know who I’m talking about even if you’ve never been to the West Village: Reformation slip dress, oat matcha with the girls, en route to Pilates, relentlessly documenting it all.

A lot of the outcry around this piece has been about the gentrification - the selfishness and lack of awareness of/respect for the area's historic character. The theme-park-ification. The uni campus-ification. The cosplaying of a modern-day Carrie Bradshaw fantasy. But only for a couple of years…before moving somewhere…more…well…serious/pretty/’safe’/etc…to you know, actually raise a family and stuff.

All of which is true and sucks. But I think there’s something else going on too: a powerful cultural disdain for conformity that’s particularly deeply-rooted in the US psyche.

The offence of sameness

Same denim wash, same fits, same brunch orders, same vocabulary, same content, same jobs, same dreams. In America, where since day one individual freedom has been prized more than perhaps anywhere else on Earth, that sort of bland sameness doesn’t just feel boring, but uncomfortable. Maybe even morally wrong.

To give up your selfhood, in the land of the free, is surely heretical.

And in the West Village, of all places.

Like for example Shoreditch in East London, where this is also happening to the point of cultural evisceration, the West Village was supposed to be immune to this shit. When algorithmically-approved homegenous meh-ification this extreme bleeds into a place like this, it feels significant. Like a betrayal.

For all of living memory the West Village been a haven for people who identify (fondly, proudly) as misfits, weirdos, outsiders. A place you were drawn to because you did not seek to fit in with the crowd. A place you moved to if you couldn’t be your true self in your own hometown (ironically, like Carrie herself).

But the people in that article are doing the opposite.
They’re turning the city into their suburbs.

So this is more than an outcry about gentrification. People aren’t just feeling priced out. It’s about homogeneity. They’re feeling edged out by people who don’t seem to value what makes the area special.

When staring at our feeds, we’d be forgiven for believing that homogeneity is a good thing. That it’s normal, aspirational even, to dress/think/eat/drink/live/style yourself similarly to everyone else. After all, it’s human nature to want what others want, and what others want is reinforced to us hundreds of times a day. And actually, haven’t young people always grouped themselves aesthetically? But out on the streets, this level of homogeneity is clearly reading as laughable and low-status, even problematic.

Why?

Individualism is a concept that’s always been thought of differently in the US than in other places. I’m not into generalisms but in various other cultures, from Japan to Scandinavia to much of Latin America and the African continent, ‘blending in to the group’ traditionally isn’t a sign of lack of imagination, character weakness or uncoolness. The opposite. It’s often been seen as a strength. Conforming a little to the collective ID isn’t a dimming of your personal light or potential. It’s how you burn brighter, because it’s how you build trust, solidarity, support and goodwill among the people you live among, enjoy and respect.

French sociologist Émile Durkheim famously said that in tightly-knit communities, conformity to shared norms helps create collective conscience. The loss of a little self-agency is outweighed by gaining shared understanding, belonging, calm, peace, a feeling of solidity.

But according to Zygmunt Bauman, in the modern world of liquid identities, how we think of ourselves has become more and more impermanent and rootless and ever-shifting. People are constantly pushed to reinvent themselves. See: the trend cycle, fashion seasons, and ever-shifting beauty standards, even widely-celebrated cultural moments like Taylor Swift’s Eras or Madonna’s Reinvention. See also: the TikTok verbal tick “I’m in my xxx era” (for maybe a week).

Maybe the West Village Girl scene is actually less about being shallow and basic and thoughtless and unbearable (all of which are probably true of some of ‘em), and more about feeling lost, overwhelmed and unsure of yourself - young people trying to mould to a script that makes them feel accepted and safe and part of something. A stable identity in an unstable world.

In this weird time of turbulence and uncertainty - this cultural interregnum, when we’re no longer where we were, but not yet where we're going - clinging to safe-seeming tribal codes, however uninspiring and however damaging to the spirit of an area, does make some psychological sense.

I think this furore is really about about how deeply uncomfortable we - esp American people - can be when confronted with the idea that some people might choose to conform, to so readily give up their chance of developing their own point of view and being their own person.

Not out of laziness, stupidity or lack of imagination, maybe, but out of a desperate yearning for connection and meaning. Maybe they’re not (just) uninformed, brazen and disrespectful youngsters. Maybe these young people are lonely, lost and overwhelmed. Maybe we all are.

I’m trying hard not to sound like a grown lady sitting here either excusing - or adding to the pile-on of - these young women. And ofc I’m not even a little bit American. I’m Welsh. I’m just trying to understand why these women’s life choices are striking such a chord.

(I think) I’m reading the backlash as a symptom of the tide turning on cultural flattening. Not just on gentrification. Which to me is very interesting.

Until next time/thanks for reading.

Beth

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