'Girl' trends are sticky and fun. But they can also be problematic.

In July, the "lazy girl job" took over social media. In a TikTok video, 26-year-old creator Gabrielle Judge, who coined the term, described this kind of role as "basically something you can just quiet quit" while making a comfortable salary and having excellent work-life balance.

If it sounds like an ideal job that anyone can do, it is – yet Judge wrapped it as a "girl" phenomenon. It was one of the reasons the term went viral.

Lazy girl jobs are just one instance of a parade of content recently branded as "girl" trends. In the past month, we've seen the rise of "girl math", which allows shoppers to justify pricey purchases with a bit of number crunching; and "girl dinner", in which meagre snack platters constitute a full dinner.

As these trends rise, there's one key thing they have in common besides their nomenclature – there's nothing inherently feminine about them at all. Just as easily as women, men can have good, low-stress jobs; do mental gymnastics to permit themselves to buy something expensive; and eat five strawberries, two boiled eggs and a lone cheese stick for dinner.

Yet experts say these creators are onto something – branding them as girl trends is a smart move if they want maximum impact. At their core, these labels are clever marketing, which gets people talking. However, as much as girl trends can build community and drive conversation, they can also be infantilising and reinforce harmful gender stereotypes.

Savvy branding

In many cases, there's very little inherently gendered about these viral girl trends.

For instance, in girl math, the TikTok phenomenon that argues "any purchase under $5 is free", has its roots in a common behavioural finance concept called the "pain of paying", in which people – regardless of gender – experience negative emotions when shelling out for goods or services, especially when paying with cash. The premises in girl math – that anything purchased with a gift card is free, as are items discounted by more than 50% – are non-gendered psychological justifications to skirt discomfort of shelling out money.

Financial experts say there's nothing gendered about the 'girl math' trend – it's underpinned by universal behavioural finance concepts (Credit: Getty Images)

Yet leaning into the girl label with content like this is smart branding, says Shilpa Madan, an assistant professor of marketing at Singapore Management University. She argues these terms become sticky because the framing makes them more approachable. They let groups – in this case, women – feel seen.

"As human beings, we have an innate desire to belong to social groups. When something is labelled as a 'girl' thing, it creates an immediate sense of relatability, fostering a feeling of community and shared sisterhood," says Madan. "Any excuse to partake in a shared ritual or join a 'tribe' as part of a viral trend – even temporarily – is hard to resist."

TikTokers are leaning into the girl-trend action to expand their audience. It's a savvy move, explains brand strategist Liv Steigrad.

"Using 'girl' as a prefix has picked up enough traction to be an effective brand asset. When you see 'girl'-something, you have an idea of what to expect. And when your audience knows what to expect, you can either fulfil their expectations or subvert them in some way," she says. Both are important: "Fulfilling an expectation builds community and connection, and subverting an expectation creates something new and surprising. Both aspects play into what makes trends go viral."

Businesses also know the value of the tribalism inspired by this label – they've capitalised on "girl" trends for years. In summer 2019, musician Megan Thee Stallion's Hot Girl Summer inspired supplement companies, beauty brands and influencers to hop on the trend train. Today, online marketers are sharing round-ups of "essential" girl dinner toolkits, with high-priced charcuterie boards and aprons.

Confirmation bias – for better or worse

Yet for as savvy as these hashtags are, there may be an unintended downside for wrapping trends in feminised branding. Experts maintain that girl trends can create prescriptive gender dynamics out of thin air.

"Gendered labels may be catchy, but they're restricting," says Madan. "Men can also be interested in 'lazy jobs', and some women might not appreciate their careers being labelled 'lazy' or their dinners as exclusively 'girl' territory. It is easy for these labels to feel patronising, especially since they may inadvertently minimise the complexity of women's experiences or undermine their autonomy."

Isabel Barrow, the director of financial planning at US-based investment company Edelman Financial Engines, points to the girl math trend as particularly problematic. "As a financial planner, I don't think that this is a male or female thing. Calling it 'girl math' is trying to say that women are more susceptible to making bad financial decisions than men, which I don't find to be the case."

Barrow also believes adding "girl" to a trend's nomenclature feels derisive. While TikTok creators may note that the trend is steeped in sarcasm – one creator says "pls don't take this seriously" in her video's caption – a general audience might misconstrue the nuance.

For this reason, other TikTok personalities have pleaded with their audiences to stop normalising the girl math term.

"What's 'boy math'? Opening spreadsheets and doing finance?" posted Jess Ramos, a data analyst who shares her experiences in the tech world on TikTok. In her video, she notes the problem is "using 'girl' as a proxy for bad math or silly math or illogical math".

Steigrad says that girlification as a marketing tool can enforce confirmation bias – the human tendency to look for things that confirm one's pre-existing beliefs. "People who believe women are empowered will see feminism in girl dinner," says Steigrad. "People who think society and social media are absurd will see the absurdist comedy. People who deep down believe women are silly or lesser will interpret the trend in that way."

Yet Steigrad says that as lazy girl jobs, girl math, girl dinners and their other girly counterparts have invaded the zeitgeist, the gendering isn't all bad. For some, it can be a reclamation of traditionally derisive terms.

"It all started when words like 'girl boss' and 'mumpreneur' popped up, followed by the collective frustration and recoiling against those terms," says Steigrad. "And so, as a way to deal with being infantilised, women reclaimed the 'girl' prefix, turning it into something sarcastic and funny. Sometimes you have to laugh so you don't cry, right?"