So, I've been watching a lot of short-form TikTok style "influencer" videos as part of some (probably largely unnecessary) research into pop culture/consumption. Here's what's recently been grinding my gears annoying me:
"Fit" to mean an outfit.
"It's serving..." E.g., "Abby's fit in her last TikTok video is serving dark academia dominatrix with a side of Mad Hatter's tea party". Somehow it seems even more transactional and late-stage capitalist than even "it's giving...", to which I could at least mentally add "... vibes" to "make it make sense".
"Cutie" as an adjective. "I got this little cutie bag at the thrift; don't you think it makes my fit?"
"So. 👏 Cute! 👏 " Yelled out like a drill sergeant, with clearly implied extreme punctuation, and often added after every single successive item listed or shown in a "haul" or "collection" video. Sometimes accompanied by actual hand claps, which are unfortunately startling for the cat.
"My show is on!" Obligatory comment left whenever someone's the first "regular" to comment on a newly-posted video.
"Let's get into it!" Used to signal that you've ended the introductory fluff and are ready to launch into the meat of your video. Makes me feel annoyed that you wasted so much time before getting to "it", and I also wonder why "everyone" uses the exact same phrasing to do this.
I HATE the self-deprecating girlie shite. Girly (girlie?) as an adjective, OK - "my four year old is going through a girly phase and insists on wearing a Disney princess dress and a pink tiara every day". Sure, it's based on artificial (and misogynistic) assumptions, but at least it has some commonly understood cultural and historical grounding. But "girly dinner", "I'm a [insert consumer good you like] girlie", "to all my vanilla girlies", etc. can DIAF should be retired. Call yourself a girlie all you want, but don't try to apply it universally to all women. And I suspect that Claudia Schienbaum, Christine Lagarde, and Ursula von der Leyen are probs not identifying as "girlies" either.
(Was that judgy?)