I felt tenderness for these girls, as well as recognition + rolleyed myself as well. I studied in NY early 70's & every single girl either was a Woodstock hippie wannabe with stringy long hair and a vacant stare traipsing around Manhattan barefoot 😜 or clones of Ali Mc Graw in Love Story.
Our algorithms at the time? Besides those artsy fartsy cultural events? Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Glamour.
The minute the post arrived with those glossy mags I was happily earmarking the latest "look" with my curly/wavy hair wrapped around my head to force it into the sleek straightness with a middle part to turn myself into another McGraw clone, spending nnnn minutes painting on Twiggy eyelashes just so. Or squeezing myself into a tiny low slung Mary Quant-like mini. Like every other girl around me. Security 🤷🏼♀️ in anonymity. I'm assuming it's the chicks pecking at the shell before being expunged out into the real, cold, nowadays not so comfortable, diverse world.
Conformity is a part of adolescent development - identifying with your age group over everything else. Is the problem that these young women do not seem to have grown into individuated adulthood?
Thing that came up for me, a lifelong outsider and clothing obsessive. Are the "normies" as much a crew as the punks or mods, finding safety in codes and sartorial phemones, albeit ones that are a bit easier to pick up on and adopt b/c they REQUIRE no edge or POV?
I feel you on the response to cultural flattening. Now that there's no world to sell out into, the naked fork of commercialism seems all that much grosser.
I love this because it’s such a thoughtful take that isn’t 100% for or against them. This is how I felt - I do fall slightly more into the ‘against them’ camp as someone who lives in NYC and has recently been to east London. It’s extremely sad to see how flat things are - I feel like I’m stuck in a mall no matter where I go because yes most people want to conform to the norm. But I love that you highlighted how these girls may be feeling and it adds depth to what they’re doing.
'gentrification' or more broadly a change in neighborhood's culture & demographic has been happening to the wv since the early 1900's with european immigration and all that. and people of higher income has been moving there since the 70/80s. what's interesting to me about the 'west village girls' epidemic now is how much of a force social media has played behind it. people are now moving to the wv for a life sold to them on tik tok/youtube/pinterest and not for what the actual place is/once was. ALSO, i find it realllyyy interesting that only the young women are the ones villainized. You don't see nearly as much coverage/hate on the finance bros doing the same. ignoring the history/culture of their neighborhood, flocking to their crowd, staying exclusively with them.
This is such an interesting (and charitable) take on it:
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.
I think it’s so true and no different than girls in high school — all wearing the stupid same pink skirt. When you’re insecure and/or don’t really have your own identity, it’s so much safer to just go the herd mentality route and copy a leader. Inevitably, some queen B at some point start dressing and acting that’s and the rest followed suit. Sheeple gonna sheeple 🐑 🤦🏽♀️
Interesting though that you have and the totally other spectrum all in one city! New York is just one giant social experiment isn’t it 😂
I felt tenderness for these girls, as well as recognition + rolleyed myself as well. I studied in NY early 70's & every single girl either was a Woodstock hippie wannabe with stringy long hair and a vacant stare traipsing around Manhattan barefoot 😜 or clones of Ali Mc Graw in Love Story.
Our algorithms at the time? Besides those artsy fartsy cultural events? Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Glamour.
The minute the post arrived with those glossy mags I was happily earmarking the latest "look" with my curly/wavy hair wrapped around my head to force it into the sleek straightness with a middle part to turn myself into another McGraw clone, spending nnnn minutes painting on Twiggy eyelashes just so. Or squeezing myself into a tiny low slung Mary Quant-like mini. Like every other girl around me. Security 🤷🏼♀️ in anonymity. I'm assuming it's the chicks pecking at the shell before being expunged out into the real, cold, nowadays not so comfortable, diverse world.
Hear you so much. And security in anonymity...love.
Conformity is a part of adolescent development - identifying with your age group over everything else. Is the problem that these young women do not seem to have grown into individuated adulthood?
Agree. I think that might be it for a lot of people (in my feeds, anyway!).
Thing that came up for me, a lifelong outsider and clothing obsessive. Are the "normies" as much a crew as the punks or mods, finding safety in codes and sartorial phemones, albeit ones that are a bit easier to pick up on and adopt b/c they REQUIRE no edge or POV?
I feel you on the response to cultural flattening. Now that there's no world to sell out into, the naked fork of commercialism seems all that much grosser.
Yes! (And I do always love your turn of phrase very much Elz)
I love this because it’s such a thoughtful take that isn’t 100% for or against them. This is how I felt - I do fall slightly more into the ‘against them’ camp as someone who lives in NYC and has recently been to east London. It’s extremely sad to see how flat things are - I feel like I’m stuck in a mall no matter where I go because yes most people want to conform to the norm. But I love that you highlighted how these girls may be feeling and it adds depth to what they’re doing.
I liked how you delivered this different take with thoughtfulness and compassion.
Thank you for reading + for saying that.
'gentrification' or more broadly a change in neighborhood's culture & demographic has been happening to the wv since the early 1900's with european immigration and all that. and people of higher income has been moving there since the 70/80s. what's interesting to me about the 'west village girls' epidemic now is how much of a force social media has played behind it. people are now moving to the wv for a life sold to them on tik tok/youtube/pinterest and not for what the actual place is/once was. ALSO, i find it realllyyy interesting that only the young women are the ones villainized. You don't see nearly as much coverage/hate on the finance bros doing the same. ignoring the history/culture of their neighborhood, flocking to their crowd, staying exclusively with them.
I have no opinion about the subject, but you raise general questions about individualism and conformity:
Individualism for the sake of what? What specifically is being expressed? Does it really matter if someone dresses differently?
Conforming to what? Is all conformity bad?
Great read!
This is such an interesting (and charitable) take on it:
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.
I think it’s so true and no different than girls in high school — all wearing the stupid same pink skirt. When you’re insecure and/or don’t really have your own identity, it’s so much safer to just go the herd mentality route and copy a leader. Inevitably, some queen B at some point start dressing and acting that’s and the rest followed suit. Sheeple gonna sheeple 🐑 🤦🏽♀️
Interesting though that you have and the totally other spectrum all in one city! New York is just one giant social experiment isn’t it 😂