Why is everyone a 'girlie' all of a sudden?

The way people talk on social media is completely unhinged

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but at some point this summer, it feels like every woman on the internet became a “girlie”.

On my Threads feed this month, for instance, I have encountered…

• Pinterest girlies

• Anxiety girlies (because I guess anxiety is cuter if it’s a ‘girlie’ experience?)

• Millennial girlies

• Gym girlies

• Book girlies

• Fashion girlies

• Romance girlies

• Digital marketing girlies

• Skincare girlies

• And just straight-up ‘girlies’.

Last week, we hit peak “girlie” with the publication of this post, which came close to making my head explode:

I can only assume it was an unfortunate oversight that led the second person in this conversation to claim they were simply “an overachiever” rather than “an overachiever girlie”, because, I mean, COME ON. Why would you miss an opportunity to out-girlie the first girlie? Disappointed in you, babes. I mean girlie.

Now that I’ve mentioned this, you’re going to start seeing it everywhere — if you haven’t already — and, if you’re anything like me, it’s going to start grating on you like a rogue piece of LEGO buried in a thick pile rug. You, too, will start to encounter ‘girlies’ in the wild: the gym girlies, the bookish girlies, even the Jesus girlies. You will think things cannot possibly get any worse, or any ‘girlier’ … but then one day you will stumble upon the phrase “girly pop” and you will know that all hope is lost. (You’ll probably also hate me a little for making this A Thing; apologies in advance…)

Then you’ll start to be annoyed by other words and phrases on social media, too.

“doggo”

‘hot take’

‘secret sauce’

‘touch grass’

There is absolutely no reason for the almost visceral reaction I have to these words and phrases. I know perfectly well that language is ever-changing and evolving; that slang has always existed, and that sometimes it can be quite fun. I even use it myself from time to time, although obviously the slang I use is creative and hilarious, and totally above criticism. *cough*

I know all of this, and yet every time I see someone online refer to their dog as a “pupper”, my body practically turns itself inside out with the cringe.

WHY AM I LIKE THIS?

Oh no, wait: I know why. It’s because I’m an old girlie, isn’t it? So old, in fact, that I’m the kind of person who correctly punctuates her Whatsapp messages, because she can’t bring herself not to, although I have started to — somewhat daringly — omit the final full stop in some of them, because I read that Gen Z find punctuation abrupt and ‘triggering’.

It does fascinate me, though, the way certain words suddenly take over social media, with no explanation, and suddenly everyone sounds exactly the same. Until ‘girlie’ came along, for instance, it was ‘unhinged’. Everything was ‘unhinged’ — even things that weren’t even remotely unhinged.

Most of the people who claim to be ‘unhinged’ turn out to be disappointingly normal; they want you to think they’re unhinged, but then you find out it’s just because they like spicy books, say, or Taylor Swift, and you’re like, “Wait: this is, in fact, a totally hinged person?”

Disappointing.

As for me, this week I’ve mostly been an author girlie, but I’ve also been a tired girlie, and at one point I was a migraine girlie, which is one of my least-favourite girlies to be.

But I’ve written over 17,000 words of my next book. (Overall, I mean: not this week alone). I’ve had my best ever week of book sales. I even did two Pilates workouts, although they were only 10 minutes each, and I spent most of the last one lying on the living room floor feeling horrified about all the random crap I could see under my couch, so I’m not sure it counts.

I should really go clean my living room, shouldn’t I?

Until next week, girlies,

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Ghostwriter Holly Hart lives in a town where everyone’s obsessed with two things:

1. Christmas

and...

2. Holly’s ex-boyfriend, Elliot Sinclair... who just so happened to write a bestselling Christmas novel based on his relationship with Holly, before disappearing from her life completely. 

All of this makes life pretty tough for a Christmas-hating grinch like Holly, who’s completely given up on romance. But when she’s given the opportunity to ghostwrite a Christmas romance novel for popular author Vivienne Faulkner, Holly sees an opportunity to get her revenge on Elliot by using the book to tell her own — true — version of the story. 

It seems like the perfect plan.

But now Elliot’s suddenly back in town — and rumor has it he’s working on a new book, too. Can Holly somehow write the perfect Christmas romance, while somehow avoiding her ex… or will the ghosts of Christmas past continue to haunt them both?

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