on the allure of the tumblr girl

being a fluorescent adolescent comes with a lot of mess

With it’s airy vocals and Lana Del Rey-esque music video, Addison Rae’s latest release “Diet Pepsi” is the most recent exemplar of the “tumblr girl” aesthetic’s resurgence. But, it is not the only one. Scrolling through my FYP, suddenly I am transported to 2014; Lorde, Charli XCX, Lana, and the 1975 make up a majority of the audios I hear; posts praising Victoria’s Secret supermodels and idolizing 00s TV characters are back with a vengeance; and makeup tutorials are touting routines that promise to deliver the perfect marinated, lived in look.

Described as indie sleaze’s moody younger sister by Vogue, the tumblr girl carries an air of mystery, and perfectly balances a sense of edginess and softness. She’s characterized by softly saturated colors, slightly eccentric style and an alluring messiness that comes off as effortlessness.

In contrast to the perfectly slicked back buns that come hand in hand with the “clean girl” aesthetic, the tumblr girl’s hair is anything but perfect. Instead of glossed lips and glowy skin, her makeup is quickly done and smudged with the remnants of last night’s look. In other words, the tumblr girl has permission to be messy.

During its heyday, Tumblr was a site known both for aesthetic moodboards and deeply personal blogs. Many users had a penchant for anonymity, cultivating communities without showing their faces. People poured out their deepest secrets to strangers in one post, and posted a series of aesthetic selfies in the next.

I think it’s important to say that the tumblr aesthetic’s messiness also translates into a lifestyle of sorts. Most so-called aesthetic do. While the clean girl aesthetic’s corresponding lifestyle fixates on wellness (often through the form of extortionately priced drinks and workout classes), the tumblr girl aesthetic often comes hand in hand with nights out with friends, a disregard for propriety and a hedonistic desire to do things for the plot.

The sliver of a venn diagram between the two aesthetics is a shared idolization of effortlessness, but even that comes in very different forms. The clean girl lifestyle expects glowing skin, even when bare faced. The tumblr girl lifestyle expects perfectly tousled hair and smudged eyeliner that doesn’t make you look like a raccoon. Both of which are often unattainable without at least a little bit of effort.

That being said, I think that it’s easy to say that it takes a lot less effort to be messy. It takes a lot less effort to be unpolished. It takes a lot less effort to make bad decisions. All of these things are especially true when you are a teenage girl.

To me, the heart of the tumblr girl’s resurgence is more than a fast-moving trend cycle. I think that the tumblr aesthetic’s allure lies in that messiness, that lust for life that goes beyond carefully curated wellness routines. It provides something more attainable for teenage girls, and - perhaps more importantly - something more exciting.

For young women experiencing a growing sense of independence for the first time, the idea of making bad choices on a night out with friends makes for a much more attractive experience than staying in on a Saturday night. It glamorizes the parts of being a teenage girl that aren’t perfect; the love of things that aren’t the best for you; the desire to make something beautiful for yourself; and the intensity of emotion that makes every night feel like the most important night of your life.

In my eyes, the second life of the “tumblr girl” aesthetic transcends microtrends and nostalgia; it represents a growing sentiment against the pressure of perfection and constant self-curation that is so often perpetuated online. It’s something simultaneously romantic and dark. It’s raw, sometimes hysterical and most important unpolished.