TikTok e-girls and e-boys take on Instagram’s VSCO influencers, topping Google searches and getting more than a billion video views
- E-girls hang out on TikTok, quiet and moody, have thick eyeliner and dyed hair, and keep up with the latest internet slang
- They are a far cry from bubbly Instagram influencers, with their photo-edited faces and streetwear aesthetic
The Instagram influencer has met her match: the e-girl. The e-girl’s emergence this year has corresponded with the rise of TikTok, the short-form video app.
Thousands of TikTok videos tagged with #egirl show girls with thick eyeliner and dyed hair and guys in beanies wearing belt chains – teens who have embraced an aesthetic separate from the VSCO girls and hipsters sporting Supreme and streetwear.
The e-girl (and e-boy) are just the latest iteration of mainstream counterculture, similar to the emo and scene kids who posted grainy pictures on Tumblr in the 2000s. These e-teens live on the internet and are fluent in the latest video games, and their goal is to push the boundaries, in spite of what parents and older generations may think.
The popularity of e-girls and e-boys became such a staple of 2019 culture that they were among the most popular Google search terms for fashion- and outfit-related queries, according to Google’s annual “Year in Search” report.
The e-girl is the modern-day scene girl: both were created as a counterculture to the mainstream aesthetic and standards of beauty. They are tuned into video games and internet slang on online platforms like Discord and YouTube.