The Teen-Girl Tumblr Aesthetic*

Essay: The Teen Girl Tumblr Aesthetic* by Alicia Eler & Kate Durbin, 2013

This essay was first published as part of the world’s first tumblr as art symposium, hosted by Hyperallergic

*The authors would like to clarify that the teen girl tumblr aesthetic is just that, an aesthetic movement. While the majority of of it’s practitioners are “literal” teen girls, not everyone who is working in this vein is a born a ciswoman, or is currently between the ages of twelve and nineteen. We realize this may seem like a contradiction to some, as the core of the aesthetic seems to center around vulnerability and telling ones own narrative (as opposed to the projection of an idyllic youth onto an “other”). But “teenagehood” is a social construct, an idea, which exists in the cultural consciousness. It has never been mostly literal. The teen girl tumblr aesthetic is also an idea, an attempt to articulate an exciting cultural movement that has emerged recently on the Internet, where one’s identity is more fluid.

Frida Kahlo with sparkling eyebrows (via champagnemanagement.tumblr.com, h/t womenasobjects.tumblr.com)