“Not Like Other Girls” and Other Lies We Believed in 2012
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Once upon a Tumblr dashboard, a generation of girls decided they were different. Not because they cured diseases or had elite emotional intelligence - but because they liked band tees, hated cheerleaders, and “ate pizza like one of the boys.” They were not like other girls, and they needed you (and your crush) to know.
But looking back? Yeah… we were lying.
Let’s unpack the mythology of 2012 internet girlhood, the internalised misogyny it was built on, and the glow-up we’ve all (mostly) made since.
💔 The Rise of the “Not Like Other Girls” Girl
Picture this: it’s 2012. You have a The Perks of Being a Wallflower quote in your Instagram bio, black nail polish, and a deep belief that leggings aren’t pants. You love Arctic Monkeys, hate lip gloss, and you “just get along better with boys.”
It was everywhere:
“I don’t wear makeup.”
“I’d rather stay in and read than go to a party.”
“I’m not into drama like most girls.”
We really thought we were onto something revolutionary. Spoiler: we were just being a little internalised-misogyny-core.
🧠 What We Were Actually Saying
When we said “I’m not like other girls,” what we really meant was:
“I’ve been taught to see other girls as competition.”
“I think femininity is embarrassing because that’s what the world taught me.”
“I want to be chosen, and I think the way to do that is by distancing myself from other women.”
It wasn’t our fault. Pop culture fed us this narrative. From She’s All That to Twilight, we were told the “cool girl” was the one who drank beer, wore Converse, and never showed emotion - basically, a manic pixie dream girl in denial.
💅 The Rebrand (aka Our Feminist Era)
Flash-forward to now, and we’re healing. We’ve realised that being “like other girls” is not only not an insult - it’s kind of iconic.
Because other girls:
- Have your back in public toilets
- Share lip gloss mid-crisis
- Cry during everything and still show up
- Run businesses, write books, start podcasts, organise protests, and look incredible doing it
Other girls are smart, funny, chaotic, powerful, soft, loud, angry, brilliant. Why wouldn’t you want to be like them?
🔥 What We Unlearned
Here’s what we (hopefully) ditched with our Tumblr usernames:
The Cool Girl Myth – Being chill, effortless, and low-maintenance is not a personality.
Pick-Me Behaviour – Performing non-femininity to gain male approval? Nope.
Girl Hate – We see you, teen rom-coms that made the other woman the villain.
Now we say: wear the glitter. Cry in public. Post the thirst trap. Compliment girls you don’t know in bar toilets. You’re not competing—you’re collaborating.
Final Thought: Like Other Girls? Absolutely.
“Not like other girls” was never the serve we thought it was. But the glow-up? Is real. We're done dimming our shine to be palatable. We're done pretending we don't love candles, Lana Del Rey, or emotionally spiralling on a Tuesday. We're not like other girls -we are other girls. And that's the point.
So yes. Like other girls. Be like them. Hype them. Love them.
Because other girls are amazing. And so are you.
