The \u201cthought daughter\u201d is perfectly poised: her room is messy, but not <\/span>gross<\/span><\/i> messy\u2013<\/span>tortured poet<\/span><\/i> messy; the bags under her eyes are <\/span>just<\/span><\/i> prominent enough to express her anguish, but not enough to be ugly. Lana Del Rey is her god, <\/span>The Secret History<\/span> her gospel, and she treats <\/span>The Bell Jar<\/span> as a how-to guide\u2014she\u2019s not like other girls. She <\/span>thinks<\/span><\/i>!<\/span>The \u201cthought daughter\u201d phenomenon has recently taken social media by storm. We might see her in TikToks of journals, candles, and books, underscored by the soft timbre of Adrienne Lenker\u2019s \u201cnot a lot, just forever\u201d; she\u2019s frequently found on Pinterest reposting pictures of tearful, skinny white women and Taylor Swift lyrics. <\/span><\/p>\n The term \u201cthought daughter\u201d was originally coined after the \u201cgay son or thot daughter?\u201d meme resurfaced back in 2021. <\/span>That <\/span><\/i>\u201cjoke\u201d originated in 2012, but tends to pop up again every few trend cycles; recipients choose between having a gay son or thot (an acronym for \u201cthat h*e over there\u201d) daughter, as in, <\/span>which one would be worse<\/span><\/i>? When, ten years later, the bit reared its ugly head once again, viewers finally pushed back: some chose to call out the bigoted nature of the question, while others joked that \u201ctheir parents got confused\u201d and chose a <\/span>thought<\/span><\/i> daughter instead of a <\/span>thot<\/span><\/i> daughter. The clever wordplay was used as a way to both establish women as more than their sex lives and neutralize the use of the term \u201cthot\u201d to degrade women. Since then, the trend has taken on a life of its own. What began as a mitigation of misogyny and homophobia in the mainstream has evolved into its own twisted brand of elitism, because, of course, the internet has made it weird.<\/span><\/p>\n The thought daughter\u2019s mantra is that she cares too much. In her own words, she\u2019s \u201cnever gotten over anything in her life.\u201d While the <\/span>cool girl<\/span><\/a> uses irony to <\/span>avoid<\/span><\/i> appearing emotional,<\/span> the thought daughter <\/span>embraces<\/span><\/i> it.<\/span> She openly discusses her struggles, seemingly helping girls find solace in their shared experiences with anxiety, overthinking, and the complexities of being a woman. Despite this, the \u201cthought daughter\u201d label (and associated attitude) seems to be in close conversation with our recent \u201cgirl\u201d internet.<\/span><\/p>\n In the past five years, we\u2019ve seen the rapid rise of girlbloggers, girlbosses, and, most recently, girl dinners. The \u201cgirl internet\u201d was, like the thought daughter, first a marker of community, of reclaiming \u201cgirly\u201d stereotypes and celebrating womanhood. However, the label has since become a symbol of regression, pushing us closer to encouraging harmful, outdated stereotypes of what girls are and do. Culture writer <\/span>Biz Sherbert notes<\/span><\/a>, \u201cGirlblogging is as much of an invocation as it is a forceful slouching towards a shopping addiction, being sample-sized, and marrying rich.\u201d The fate of the infamous \u201cgirl dinner\u201d illustrates this phenomenon best: what began as a fun way of sharing struggle meals became a slippery slope of romanticizing 2000s-style disordered eating. Videos went from clips of Goldfish and Taco Bell to a handful of almonds, small portions of fruit, and even in one video, nothing but a nap. <\/span><\/p>\n Thought daughters seem to be, fundamentally, anti-girl internet. The trend, however well-meaning initially, has evolved to adopt an \u201cI\u2019m not like other girls\u201d attitude: whereas the \u201cgirly\u201d girl is partying, the thought daughter is self-isolating. While <\/span>some<\/span><\/i> girls read rom-coms and YA, the thought daughter\u2019s collection consists only of <\/span>sophisticated<\/span><\/i> authors like Joan Didion, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Sally Rooney. The girly girl so pitifully falls over herself catering to men, but <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> the thought daughter \u2013 she\u2019s more concerned with the <\/span>\u201c<\/span>female gaze<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/a> The thought daughter envies those who aren\u2019t as tortured by their self-awareness, but, oddly enough, does so with an air of superiority. She acts as if her misery somehow makes her <\/span>more<\/span><\/i> than other girls \u2013 smarter, wittier, <\/span>better<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n After all, doesn\u2019t the epithet \u201cthought daughter\u201d imply the existence of the doltish, thought<\/span>less <\/span><\/i>daughter? Aren\u2019t these girls, in setting themselves <\/span>above<\/span> aside from the rest of women, perpetuating the same systems they claim to be haunted by? Are we really making progress if we keep letting internalized misogyny repackage itself? By weaponizing our issues to win some sort of self-inflicted contest, rather than finding comfort and power in our shared experiences, we only serve to further polarize and isolate ourselves in a world already putting women into competition with each other. <\/span><\/p>\n I<\/span>nstead of giving us opportunities to talk about our shared interests, these labels lead not just to rivalry but to a subconscious kind of self-surveillance. They\u2019re more about maintaining the <\/span>image<\/span><\/i> of femininity and intellectualism rather than pursuing them out of genuine curiosity or fulfillment: rarely do we see videos discussing the <\/span>content<\/span><\/i> of \u201cthought daughter media,\u201d as opposed to just showing off collections of books. Being the \u201cthought daughter\u201d online is a performance, an imitation of identity \u2013 more often than not, you might find yourself choosing the art you experience based on how well it fits the label. Tying that label, and thereby femininity and intelligence, to consumption of media, rather than examining that media\u2019s cultural impact and our place within it, is more reductive than liberatory. Moreover, though she aims to operate outside of the male gaze, the thought daughter nonetheless exists within the patriarchy; realistically, there\u2019s no way for her to fully escape the male gaze living in today\u2019s society.<\/span><\/p>\n We can still take some things away from the thought daughter\u2019s ideology \u2013 embracing vulnerability, mitigating sexism and homophobia \u2013 but it\u2019s also important to acknowledge the trend\u2019s flaws and rooted elitism. Instead of ignoring the patriarchy\u2019s effects and confining ourselves with labels, we should be educating ourselves and actively promoting inclusivity. At the end of the day, education is a privilege, and we should be using it to empower and teach each other. Now, more than ever, we need to find strength in our local communities \u2013 to come together, not to polarize.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Cassidy LaPointe The \u201cthought daughter\u201d is perfectly poised: her room is messy, but not gross messy\u2013tortured poet messy; the bags under her eyes are just prominent enough to express her anguish, but not enough to be ugly. Lana Del Rey is her god, The Secret History her gospel, and she treats The Bell Jar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":703,"featured_media":10396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/703"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}