TikTok trends are now a dime a dozen. While some of them make everyday life easier or just serve to entertain users, others are completely absurd or even dangerous. So far there are no barriers that stand in the way of the specially devised challenges.
While some trends such as the “Blackout Challenge” have obvious health risks, content promoting certain ideals of beauty or lifestyles is often overlooked. Effects on the psyche of young users are now being discussed much more frequently, but are usually underestimated.
A recent example is the so-called “Vanilla Girl Trend”, which idealizes the appearance of flawless, mostly blonde, slim women who take good care of themselves and their environment with great care. With comparable trends, possible feelings of pressure and stress are no longer limited to appearance, but also to certain behaviors that should be striven for.
And this is where the danger lies. Similar to the “Vanilla Girls”, the users of the “LaLa” and “OkOkOk” girls idealize certain character traits and behaviors and categorize young girls into two groups based on these.
The contributions to the “LaLa” girls now have almost 25 million views. They show various pictures of young women and lists of character traits that make up the so-called “LaLa” or “OkOkOk” girls. In the background of each recording, the song “See You Again” by “Tyler, the Creator” can be heard, in which the singer raps “okokok” and a woman sings “lalala” at the same time. The big question that users ask under the posts: Are you a “LaLa” or an “OkOkOk” girl? That not only sounds absurd, but it is, as a look at the description of the “LaLa”s and “OkOkOk”s shows:
While “LaLa” girls are defined as girlish women who love the color “pink” and go about life in an extroverted and open-hearted manner, “OkOkOk” girls prefer dark colors and like to spend time alone. According to the definition, “LaLa”s are extroverted, “OkOkOk”s more introverted.
The clichés continue: “LaLa” girls are said to be self-confident, mature and talkative, have a soft spot for flowers, nature and books and always have an optimistic, almost dreamy perspective on things. They should always assert themselves loudly, impulsively and expressively among people and occupy a space full of passion for themselves.
“OkOkOk” girls, on the other hand, think more rationally, tend to overthink things and let their minds guide them more than their emotions. You should be sensitive, empathetic, reserved and introverted, but you can put yourself in other people’s shoes and give them an open ear. Once they are more unrestrained, the “OkOkOk” girls should show their sarcastic humor. However, they tend to hold back, letting the “LaLa”s go first and avoiding confrontations and conflicts.
“LaLa” and “OkOkOk” girls complement each other. They form two poles that fundamentally differ in their behavior. A mix of both? There is not any. Sounds a bit like Wednesday Adams and her roommate Enid Sinclair in the Netflix hit “Wednesday” or Gabriella Montez and Sharpay Evans from “High School Musical”. But what works on Netflix, in the cinema or on TikTok does not necessarily correspond to reality. Because just as most people aren’t just extroverts or just introverts, they’re not just “okokok” or “lalala” either.
In the world of social media, that is ignored. Black and white and pigeonhole thinking dominates the platforms, categorizing people into groups and thereby promoting the maintenance of stereotypes. And these not only damage the perception of our fellow human beings, but also that of ourselves.
Clichés and stereotypes can act like a corset, especially for young people who are in search of the self: they give them a supposed identity, prevent any kind of flexibility in development and natural self-discovery and keep outdated beliefs in their minds young people’s heads upright.
It certainly won’t be long before another trend on social media fuels this regression – and enables the next categorization of people based on clichés and stereotypes.
