To ask you to tell me about 14/15 year old girls

[Cheeseandlobster]

I am finally writing a novel which I have wanted to do for years. My main character has a 14 year old daughter and I have realised I don't know a lot about them. I really don't want to be one of those authors who gets teen speak/music/interests/fashion wrong. I was a 14 year old girl once and I was a bit of a goth which isnt what my character is. She is probably a bit more trendy, used to be sporty (maybe lapsed though now), has moved away to a new area with her mum so is a bit moody/ uncommunicative.

Please tell me about girls this age now, or rather in 2019 as I have been agonising about including covid too and decided not to.

What type of music / bands might they like?
Do they like gaming?
What sort of clothes might they wear?
What phrases / slang might they use?
What social media? I understand Facebook is for oldies so I am assuming Instagram and Snapchat?
And anything else at all. For example how do they hang out these days? Ds is 19 but when he was 14 he was so antisocial and insisted that people his age communicated via their X box headsets. Thankfully he is more sociable these days

I appreciate teen girls are all different and not a homogenous bunch but anything will be helpful as I am a bit lost with this. Thank you

Maybe it would be easier to write about what you know

I would avoid any slang....it dates badly. I have two girls aged 16 and 13. They both like clothes (a lot!) and both love Instagram and TikTok but the older one won't admit that she likes TikTok.

They wouldn't be caught dead on Facebook. It's for old people.

They love makeup and spend an hour a day applying it. They aren't particularly antisocial...one was when she went through a bout of anxiety but the antisocial thing was only with me....she hid in her room for about 10 months. Still saw her mates though!

Now they're quite needy of my attention and love sitting and talking to me about themselves and will compete with one another which is wearing.

Clothes....jeans...dresses...nice tops...pretty stuff. One had an Emo type phases but that lasted only about a year.

They like ice skating with their friends and shopping and going for Boba tea and sometimes for coffees. The youngest skateboards a bit with her mates. We live by the beach...they like sitting by the sea at sunset and listening to music. They seem to be always trying to live in a movie...talking about who is "The main character" which seems to be a trope from the internet..."Which one of your friends is the main character!?" type of thing...

They consume a LOT of media....TV comedy and drama on Netflix. They have viewing parties for RuPaul's Drag Race at weekends.

They're quite sharp tongued but also love a good laugh and do stupid dances to entertain one another.

Agree with @Coriandersucks

I know. I thought about making the child a boy but for various reasons it just works better being a girl.

I read a couple of books in the last year - both of which featured children of about 3 or 4. They both got it so wrong it was glaringly obvious the authors didnt know a lot about children of that age. I really don't want to be this author too if I can help it hence asking on here

Oh and they communicate by short videos. Not often will they have long conversations on the phone...about twice or three times a week I'll hear them talking on the phone in the traditional way. They send a short video to one another...older DD I'm talking about here...for example her mate with send a vid of herself in the kitchen poking at whatever she's got for tea and then pull a face. Then DD will send one back...they do this a LOT.

@FortunesFave this is exactly what I need! Thank you. They are just so different to my friends and I in the 90's. What's Boba tea?

It all seems to be about aesthetics with mine, light/dark academia, cottage core etc

I think they like thick eyebrows. Or has that trend passed?

They like Bubble tea, YouTube. All very woke on transrights, 90% are gay/pan sexual/non binary. Don't use FB, Discord is the only app worth having. Probably veggie, or considering it.

Love gaming - my bank account and their Steam account will attest to that.

Still love a cuddle and hanging out for a tv day, when the rare opportunity presents itself.

Are far more funny and socially aware than I was at that age and would even contemplate going down the woods and smoking/getting drunk/and all the other questionable stuff I did at that age.

A nearly 14 year old

Boba
Japanese sweets and snacks
Harry styles
Taylor swift
Dodgy 80's style jumpers
Fishnets with the toes cut off worn as fingerless arm glove things!

Also stopped watching friends and gone back to kids programmes like my little pony!

They are manipulative.

2 years ago my then 14yr old God daughter was obsessed with Annmarie (sp?)
Can't help on the other stuff, my 15yr old is emo/skate/not remotely labelly so no idea what is going on outside that. FB is apparently for old people, Tiktok is for kids and Instagram is for basics, whatever that is.

Music: Mother Mother and Youngblood , plus "oldie music" like Florence and the Machine and The Killers
Gaming: Animal Crossing, Splatoon 3, Mario Kart
My 14 year old lives in dungas, boyfriend jeans, stripy long sleeve t-shirts and converse or DMs. She also loves a huge jumper. She always wears t-shirts with the front tucked in. Always wears mascara.
(Avoid slang. It dates horribly)
SM: WhatsApp Snapchat and very occasionally Insta. Facebook is social suicide.

Oh also spends 90% of her life wearing a bucket hat.

Grow houseplants
Play About Us
Watch videos of streamers playing minecraft
Facetime their friends or boyfriend but just get on with whatever they are doing and leave it on and talk occasionally only.
Make things to sell on their depop shop (such as rings, tote bags)
Listen to a play list on Spotify using fake earpods

Have you anymore info about the character. Her background, education, etc. I think it’s would be very hard to try to use slang and make it seem convincing.

NEVER uses the phone to ring someone. Zoom or facetime is accepted. I've never seen my teen use a phone to call ANYONE.

My 14 yr old is pretty much nothing like these
No make up
Disinterested in clothes but has an aesthetic she likes. Big jumpers are in.
Instagram. Makes lots of little films and status updates, profile very locked down strictly close friends only.
Very into music and sketching.
Plays a ukele, quite likes football (to play) hates netball and rounders.

Mine (16) doesn't game, never has; she uses art apps, that's about it. Agree with the consuming a lot of media, including watch parties over text/chat (more of a covid thing maybe). Likes horror movies, many 18s have been watched between the ages of 15/16.

Mine isn't a cool girl, doesn't wear (or even see the point of) makeup, though has 2 holes in each ear; clothes are generally selected because they are comfortable and suit her, not because they are in any way trendy. She flips between happily talking nonsense with her brother (15) and I, and sitting in her room not wanting to communicate at all!

I find the tendency for teens in books is for them to speak either far too archly and wittily, in a way that the author perhaps wanted to be at that age, or to grunt like Harry Enfields' Kevin....

15yo, very up on her rights, and societal issues. Friends all LGBTQ+/asexual/pansexual.

Clothes are sweatshirts, skinny or boyf jeans. Boots, docs, converse with cool prints. No flaunting of bodies, her friendship group are determined not to be sexual objects.

Gaming, yes. Animal Crossing, pokemon on switch. Crappy mobile phone games. Lots of media, streaming videos. Memes
Lots of memes.
My dd does her own slang, overuses certain words/phrases until we all end up saying them. Uses text shorthand in speech ironically. Such as smh my head.

Social Media is insta and three dozen WhatsApp groups with various combinations of friends. She watches tik tok but doesn't post. Lots of cat pictures. They like picnics, going to the milkshake bar, poking round the shops and cat cafes. My dd lives for music, and loves gigs. She cannot concentrate on a 30 m episode of a tv show without picking her phone up several times.

I have a 14 year old and a 15 year old girls. In essence:

Super woke views on everything, which they get entirely from Tiktok. Quite humourless, can’t take a joke in debates etc. Do not bother engaging on trans issues or anything like that.

90s clothes. Baggy trousers. Crop tops. Like to search second hand stores. They buy and sell stuff themselves on Deepop.

Instagram. They use this for group chats with friends etc

Japanese stuff. Bubble tea. Ramen.

Lana Del Ray.

Expensive skincare. Expensive phones. Expensive shoes. But it’s ok because mine then sell them on for a profit.

Obsessed with going to Paris.

Won’t watch normal telly at all. Only Netflix.

Oh and yes, much more aware of social/environmental issues than I was. Enraged by the fact her brothers' (boys) school covers the wars in History and offers much more tech studies whilst her (girls, and a pretty forward school) focuses on the history of medicine and offers no tech other than food tech and design. (and her brother is too in fact ).The equality of men/women is a given.

Chewy tapioca pearls - who knew

This is such an education.

I am definitely going to rule out the slang

Never heard of Discord so off to do more googling

So its dungas? And docs rather than dm's?

Very woke
Anime and all things Japanese
Mine craft
Make up but no huge eyebrows etc, quite a natural look
A fringe
Vegetarian
Starbucks
Doesn’t want to be like everyone else but doesn’t want to stand out too much

What type of music / bands might they like? Hamilton Soundtrack and other musical music, loads of other stuff too but I've lost track tbh.

Do they like gaming?
Yes, Minecraft with friends mostly. Also Pokémon, Among Us and whatever the current trend is.
What sort of clothes might they wear? Cosplay, lots of eyeliner, vans, DM's, hoodies, fishnets, mostly all black and white but colour block 90's stuff too.
What phrases / slang might they use? Recently says Peng for cool also says UWU all the time.
What social media? I understand Facebook is for oldies so I am assuming Instagram and Snapchat? Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok and does have a Facebook but doesn't seem active on it. Wants to be on Reddit and gaming forums but I don't allow it yet.
And anything else at all. For example how do they hang out these days? Ds is 19 but when he was 14 he was so antisocial and insisted that people his age communicated via their X box headsets. Thankfully he is more sociable these days

Spends all Evening talking to friends on a group phone call playing Minecraft etc does meet up in the park or into town for a Milkshake with them on a weekend but... lockdown so there hasn't been much other choice.

Also constantly has wireless headphones in. Either in a call or listening to music.