Tumblr Girl vs. VSCO Girl
No matter the decade, pop culture has always dictated the way young girls dress and act, influenced their vocabulary, and determined what weird fad would give users official Cool Girl status. For Millennials, it was Tumblr.
The rise of the hipster, neon Penny Boards, the ultra high-waisted denim shorts, and the infamous Starbucks Pink Drink took over the blog-style platform and laid a foundation for the 21st-century girl. Popular Tumblr accounts showcasing teenagers clad in American Apparel (RIP)and vintage clothing engaging in mildly reckless behavior (does anyone else remember the allure of the casually climbing over a wire fence or standing on top of a car I’m too young to drive photo?) poured over the websites’ trending pages and became the aesthetical goal for late 90’s girls.
But with Tumblr no longer a popular form of social media, teens have found new inspiration through the photo editing and sharing appVSCO. The new cool girl posts DSCO’s instead of Boomerangs has a couple hundred thousand followers on Tik Tok, and carries a sticker-covered neon Hydroflask everywhere.
She’s concerned about the environment, just look at the stack of Pura Vida bracelets on her wrist to prove her point. She’s a blast from the past with her Polaroid camera and record player and is more concerned about her health than her Tumblr predecessor-instead of posing with an entire box of pizza, she’d opt for an acai bowl or fresh-squeezed juice.
And though it can be easy to bash on the basic, the reigning quality of the new VSCO look boasts a holistically healthier image than its older sister Tumblr ever did. The posts are positive and don’t tolerate hate speech and photos are mixed in with inspirational quotes about prioritizing self-care rather than self-deprecating humor and glorifying body image issues.
Sure, she may have one too many scrunchies on her wrist, but her carefree spirit is a refreshing change from the ‘I hate people’ rhetoric of Tumblr. This is not to say the look is not incredibly inclusive—a quick search of VSCO girl on Google is evidence that most are thin white girls—but is by far a more positive overall message than the tone of Tumblr.