Forty-one years ago, the late singer, songwriter, and education activist Whitney Houston urged us to teach children and let them lead the way.  

Decades later, some believe that this means instructing kids to use scissors as forks; teaching them that zookeepers can sweep under water; and leading them to believe that magical, mystical, rainbow-hunting unicorns speak like an HR manager delivering a performance review.  

There’s also video after video and post after post claiming that it’s not just easy to write and illustrate a children’s book using AI prompts, but also that you can make thousands of dollars doing so. 

The good news for authors and illustrators — as well as parents who do not want their children to eat salad with office supplies — is that AI in kids’ books is still relatively easy to spot, particularly in illustrations. But the willingness of so many adults to outsource such a foundational and joyful piece of childhood to a computer speaks to a bigger issue: the fundamental misunderstanding of what makes children’s books meaningful and distinctly human. 

Children’s books are about how much we respect children

Books are often the first pieces of art that adults — who were all children at one point in their lives — bestow on the next generation. They’re also the way we teach children about the way the world works, whether that’s the ABCs, shapes and colors, or how to be a good person. 

There’s a misconception that because kids are young, they might not notice or appreciate quality in their literature the way that grown-ups perceive it in work made for adults. That type of thinking not only underestimates how smart kids are, but is also an abdication of the responsibility adults have to nurture and inspire young people. Kids deserve art that was created and chosen for them intentionally, by people who are actively thinking about the way the child will receive it. 

AI “cannot make a conscious choice,” Megan Kearney, an artist who teaches children’s book illustration at a college level, told me. “It’s giving you things that look similar to other things. It’s giving you things that fit into certain trends, but there’s no conscious decision-making happening.” To write or illustrate a book for kids, “you really need to be someone who cares about the development of children, their emotional development, and their intellectual development,” Kearney said. 

Despite how AI appears to make writing and drawing children’s books seem easy, doing it well actually takes an enormous amount of skill. The people who do it professionally are dedicated to understanding how children process information, and know how to connect words and pictures in a way that will resonate with a young reader.

“If you’re willing to take shortcuts, you’re probably not fully engaging with any of those things or those children either,” she added, noting this is exactly what she tells her students. “If people don’t care enough to make a thing — anything — why would anyone care enough to read it?”

The idea that AI could somehow generate a thoughtful story accompanied by beautiful, moving art is not only disrespectful to the artists creating these books, but to the children reading them, Kearney said. “You’re really underestimating the intelligence of your readers,” Kearney said. “You have not spent enough time with this medium to know enough to identify what is good and what is bad, and now you are producing it without that knowledge.” 

It’s fairly easy to avoid AI children’s books (for now)

If you’re motivated to avoid AI-generated books right now, it’s actually pretty achievable. But it requires adults to be conscious, savvy readers. 

“Because kids can’t control their access, they’re not making those purchasing choices; adults are doing that,” Kearney said. “If a parent is the gateway or an adult is the gateway to what kids have access to — that will be what shapes their tastes and that will shape how they develop.”

Essentially, choosing books for kids has to be a conscious decision; if you’re doing it mindlessly, it’s more likely that the books you choose will be a bit mindless too. And further, if books are a way children learn about our world and how to exist in it, do we really want them basing this fundamental knowledge on something a machine spat out?   

“We already have a lot of bad books out there. We don’t need a bad book machine!”

Megan Kearney, an artist who teaches children’s book illustration at a college level

The good news is that you probably aren’t going to find AI-generated books in a bookstore at the moment. The experts I spoke to said that these books are usually the product of self-publishing and mostly live on Amazon. That may explain why so many of the ones you see people discussing online were presents from relatives or friends (who might be looking to buy quick gifts online) or show up in dentists’ or doctors’ offices. If you’re not physically paging through a book, it’s harder to spot AI. 

Buyers for bookstores, and especially indie shops, are more discerning, experts say. 

“The thing about independent bookstores is that these people have their finger on the pulse. They all chat with each other,” Rex Ogle, an author who writes children’s and middle grade books as well as comics and graphic novels, told me. “If someone says, This book is AI, they’ll be like, Let’s take this off our shelves. Because independent bookstores, in my opinion, are very much the last refuge supporting writers.” 

Ogle also said that major publishers currently have no-AI clauses in their contracts with authors and illustrators. For now, he says, the feeling among him and his cohort is cautious but not quite paranoid. What worries him is a future in which publishers loosen those restrictions because they see AI as a way to cut costs. 

“Books do not pay very well, so I need to write a lot to pay my bills,” he said, noting that he’s published 17 books in six years. “What happens when someone sits down at their laptop and has AI write an entire 240-page graphic novel that takes me weeks, sometimes months to write, and they can do it in an afternoon?” 

The impact could be even more devastating, he says, on artists, because illustrations usually take more time than text does, which might incentivize publishers (and even writers) to use AI instead. Ogle also said that some of his writer colleagues have, in private conversations, told him they’ve used AI to help generate an outline or the start of a story — a use he feels strongly against. 

“I think there are writers who are like, I would never use AI except for the outline, or helping me put the script together and then I go back through and clean it up and again, to me, that’s cheating,” Ogle said. “That’s like having a robot run the football field, and then at the last minute you step in for the touchdown.” 

Kearney, the illustrator, is slightly more hopeful. 

She believes that kids will genuinely want to read things that they enjoy. AI, in its current state, can’t deliver that — no matter what self-publishers are telling their followers. Kids aren’t going to have a personal, internal moment with a book that a computer put together for the same reason that adults aren’t. 

To be clear, just because something is human-made doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. Not every book is going to be great, and not every author or illustrator is going to knock it out of the park every single time out. Again, that’s why it’s worth actually looking at the books you’re buying for kids, and making an earnest attempt to choose something you think is worthy, even if you need to buy online. But creating original work, even if it’s awful, is still important to Kearney. 

“We already have a lot of bad books out there,” Kearney added. “We don’t need a bad book machine!” 

In an age where it feels like we should all know less about each other, there’s at least one place on the internet where you just want to know more: It’s called r/GirlDinnerDiaries. 

As its name suggests, the subreddit consists of women posting a photo of their meal accompanied by a brief story about what’s happening in their lives. 

That could look like a gripping saga about a raccoon that has chosen terrorism and theft. Or a woman insisting on riding on a motorcycle with the poster’s boyfriend. A large number of the posts are relationship-oriented: the various stages of dating (not, are, breaking up); sex and desire; problems and triumphs in marriages. And sometimes it’s just about eating chocolate cake for supper — okay, maybe it’s never just about chocolate cake.  

The confessions are met with commiseration, helpful suggestions (turn that thieving raccoon into a friend by investing in a puzzle feeder!), supportive advice, or just compliments on the meal. The commentariat is generally as open as the OPs (original posters), speaking frankly about their own experiences. They chime in to offer perspective on the realities of long-term relationships, the very normal reaction of feeling insecure about someone’s extremely beautiful ex, the warning signs of abuse, how expensive it is to raise children, and the difference between setting a boundary and punishing a partner. 

What makes GDD thrilling is that it is (or at least feels like) real secrets from real women. 

The posts aren’t the kind of life updates you’d see on Instagram, nor are they long, multipart “storytime” videos that people post hoping to get hundreds of thousands of views on TikTok. And perhaps that partly explains why the forum now gets more than 2 million visitors per week, according to one of its moderators (who ultimately declined to participate in this story). 

While our collective social media fatigue is high, people are still naturally curious about other people’s lives. And while GDD fulfills that desire, it’s also just a robust and thriving community in its own right — one that can teach us something about the power of a good story, our own curiosities, and the connections we allow ourselves to make. 

What are Girl Dinner Diaries?

GDD was created in January 2026, a spinoff from the original Girl Dinner subreddit. The idea behind a girl dinner is that it’s not a “real,” composed meal, but something messier (e.g., a chaotic assortment of pretzel sticks, crackers, and pickles versus a filet mignon with a side of asparagus and potatoes). 

r/GirlDinner is more food-focused, and centers the untamed spirit of women foraging in their fridges. r/GirlDinnerDiaries is about the girl who’s eating the dinner. (The sub’s description is, “For the feral plates and the feral thoughts. Post your unhinged meals, your relationship spirals, your late-night thoughts, your soft moments, your messy moments.”)

There are three crucial things needed for Girl Dinner Diaries: a girl, a diary entry, and a picture of food. (After publishing, a moderator for Girl Dinner Diaries reached out to Vox to emphasize that being AFAB is not a requirement to participate.) Separately, they can be interesting. But something magical happens when one girl tells one story with a picture of the supper she’s currently eating. It feels like bliss — a secret you’re not supposed to know, and an opportunity for a little moment of connection with a stranger that you didn’t know you needed. 

Alexandra Solomon, a clinical psychologist who specializes in relationships and is an adjunct professor at Northwestern University, told Vox that an integral component of human relationships is having witnesses to our lives. Social media seems like an obvious extension of this urge. But with apps feeling increasingly transactional and focused on getting views and likes, these platforms may not be satisfying the emotional connections we’re seeking when we share stories on them. 

We’ve all had the urge to text that friend about the annoying day we had at work, or to call someone to vent about the rude person we just encountered while running errands. The experience you’re discussing could be mundane, salacious, or anything in between, but the important thing is the connection. 

Solomon said that, in general, women are more inclined to do this than men because society encourages women to talk about their feelings, verbally express themselves, tell stories, and have the kind of conversation that “meanders from the ordinary to the profound, back to the ordinary.”

And the anonymity of a subreddit allows for more candid storytelling. While the desire to have people bear witness to our experiences is very human, people aren’t always comfortable telling their loved ones everything. On GDD, those barriers are gone, which allows participants to share and respond more openly.

“I think about my own friends, dear friends that I love, but I wouldn’t tell them I fucked up the laundry,” Solomon said. “Another characteristic of this community, though, is that when you say you fucked up the laundry, you’re going to get affirmation.”

Girl Dinner Diaries is community gossip 

GDD is also a look into how we can create online relationships and spaces that people actively participate in. 

“They’ve done a really nice job of creating community,” Melanie Green, a social psychologist at the University at Buffalo, told me. “They’ve sort of set this social norm of people being kind to each other and supportive of each other.” 

Green studies online friendships, as well as trust and identity on the internet. She explained how GDD’s rules — like “start with decency and restraint,” “engage in good faith,” and “tough love must be loving” — set a standard for how people behave on the site. (Also, if you were wondering, men are allowed to join but are encouraged to only react and comment with emoji and GIFs.) The moderators are also active in making sure the posts and replies follow the rules. Because these guidelines are implemented consistently, it creates a space where people are willing to share with more honesty. 

“Having those norms of supportiveness and positivity and things like that, I think they’ve sort of created a bit of a baseline of trust. It seems like people feel comfortable disclosing,” Green said. 

According to Green, people are naturally curious about other people’s lives, and storytelling creates trust and leads to bonding. “One of the things that stories can do is they help us feel a sense of belongingness. You feel that connection,” Green said. “It makes us feel like, oh, we’re all in here together, experiencing this thing, connecting with someone else who’s having this human experience, and maybe you’ve had a similar experience, and so you kind of resonate with that.” She also pointed to research that food, specifically comfort food — and one could argue these dinners, no matter what they are or what form they take, bring comfort — creates a sense of community. 

The overall effect is something that feels, for those who remember, like the old internet, specifically the comment sections of mid-2000s women’s websites like The Hairpin and Jezebel. The humor and thoughtfulness in the replies are just as valuable and tantalizing as the original posts. Everyone seems to be on the same wavelength and understand the vibe. It also helps that while conversations on GDD can get into darker topics, it’s still relatively (compared to the seriousness of current events) light. 

“Maybe in a world where things are polarized, intense, high-stakes, and urgent, we are craving spaces that are low-stakes, mundane, and ordinary,” Solomon, the psychologist, said. “You’re not going to feel activated or triggered or angry or scared. You’re going to just feel curious and supportive and supported, and you’re probably going to feel maybe a little more regulated when you leave.”

Update, May 19, 4:30 pm ET: This story has been updated with other information on requirements to participate in the subreddit Girl Dinner Diaries.

There are few things NBA fans can agree on. Is Michael Jordan or LeBron James the greatest player of all time? Do the Boston Celtics have the greatest legacy, or does that belong to the Los Angeles Lakers? Who’s the best player to never win a championship? These questions spur debates that have existed perhaps before some people reading this were born, and they certainly will continue long after everyone reading this has died. 

But there is one thing that many NBA fans believe is true right now in 2026: The Oklahoma City Thunder must be stopped. 

According to their critics, the Thunder are everything that’s wrong with the NBA. They flop and flinch at every turn, seemingly crumpling if someone breathed on them the wrong way. At the same time, they hack and whack their opponents on defense and are barely called for any fouls. They’ve turned this strategy into the winningest team this season and made what’s supposed to be a beautiful game unwatchable. 

There is no team in the NBA more hated than the Thunder. No matter which fanbase you ask, they are the villains. They have people, many of whom have no allegiance to the great state of Texas, rooting for the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals, which are happening right now. 

But are the Thunder really that bad? 

Why so many people think the Oklahoma City Thunder are ruining the NBA

When it comes to team sports, hate is not a strong word. 

There are a variety of reasons why people hate teams, and it’s often rooted in allegiance to one’s own team and longstanding rivalries. Sometimes this is a matter of proximity and geography, like the way the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers can split allegiance among Midwest families or how the roughly eight miles that separate Duke and North Carolina have created college basketball’s biggest rivalry. Other times, it’s a matter of history. You see this with the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics, or the New York Yankees and the Red Sox. (Sometimes people just hate teams from Boston, too.) And loathing can also stem from visibility and success, as any of the aforementioned teams, along with Notre Dame and Ohio State football, the Kansas City Chiefs, and the Los Angeles Dodgers can attest. 

In that sense, the Oklahoma City Thunder aren’t a unique case. 

They were originally the Seattle Supersonics, which may rub Washington state residents a particular way since they don’t currently have a home NBA team. (The sketchy manner in which the team was “relocated” from Seattle is also a point of contention.) The Thunder are also the best team in the league. As the reigning NBA champions with two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (who is generally known as “SGA”), they have a target on their backs. 

But the main reason NBA fans give for not liking OKC is that they don’t like the way the Thunder play. 

“The Thunder are constantly accused of flopping, with most of the allegations directed at their two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander,” Ricky O’Donnell, the basketball editor and associate director of programming at SB Nation, told me. (SB Nation and Vox are both part of Vox Media.) “SGA certainly does play for the whistle often, and there are plenty of examples of him acting like he got crushed after what appears to be marginal contact.”

It’s easy to find these accusations on social media and Reddit forums, where fans scour game footage and post clips showing Gilgeous-Alexander falling, writhing on the floor, and hobbled over as if tremendous amounts of violence have been inflicted upon him. Those basketball aficionados allege that these gestures and flinches are merely illusions — embellishments to get calls — when, in reality, the Thunder aren’t fouled as hard or as frequently as it seems. 

Shai flopped on every single shot attempt. pic.twitter.com/EGsbp3dUbT

— House of Lowlights (@HouseLowlights) May 21, 2026

At the same time, O’Donnell explained to me, OKC plays defense in a way that pushes the rules to their limits. “The Thunder are betting that the refs won’t call a foul on every possession, and that means they can get away with playing with extra physicality,” O’Donnell said. “Thunder wing Lu Dort is just about the dirtiest player in the league, and he’s always toeing the line between acceptable and obscene amounts of physicality. I love Alex Caruso, but he gets away with a lot of hacking when defending bigger players, too.” 

In the eyes of their haters, OKC is double-dipping. The team attempts to get all the calls on offense by embellishing or exaggerating when they are fouled but doesn’t seem to get penalized for its physicality when playing defense. It’s not just fans who see OKC’s gameplay with this lens. NBA coaches have expressed the sentiment that their teams can’t breathe within the vicinity of SGA without a foul being called, and, simultaneously, aren’t afforded the same whistle against the OKC defense. 

The Thunder and SGA may take advantage of the rules, but not statistically more than any other team or player 

Despite the dominance of this narrative from rival fans and coaches, the statistics paint a slightly different story. 

“You would think they lead the league in free throws the way people talk about them,” O’Donnell said, explaining that he personally believes that the flopping narrative is somewhat overblown. “Yes, Gilgeous-Alexander was second in free throw attempts per game at 9.0 this season, but Luka Doncic led the league at 10.1, and no one talks about him as a flopper in the same way. If you go back to free throw rate — number of free throw attempts per field goal attempts — Shai’s 46.5 free throw rate even trails Austin Reaves at 48.7,” O’Donnell said.  

SGA, in O’Donnell’s eyes, does exaggerate contact, but fans are also looking for it more with him. “The reality is that great players get to the free throw line. … If you drive to the hoop a lot, you’re going to get fouled a lot — especially when you’re as good as he is,” he added. 

The intense focus on the calls that the Thunder do and don’t get may explain some of the vitriol. Refs could be missing calls left and right in other games, but these aren’t examined as intensely as they are in Thunder contests. Because the Thunder won last year’s championship, many of those games are premier national broadcasts and draw in an even bigger audience.   

One way to think about the backlash is that OKC is the best team at creating a style of play that takes advantage of the league’s current state of officiating. The NBA has made it a point this season to give offensive players the edge when it comes to straight line paths to the basket — essentially giving offensive players more freedom of movement. The league has stated that refs will call fouls on defensive players who make contact and aren’t squared up (i.e., defenders staying in front of and facing opposing players). SGA and OKC push that point of emphasis to its limit — perhaps to fans’, coaches’, and opposing players’ chagrin.   

The OKC Thunder will be villains until they lose 

For the last few years, the knock on the NBA is that it’s become a bit boring, with critics citing a lack of superstars and more emphasis on three-point shooting (teams are shooting more threes than they were a decade earlier, which can make for terrible games to watch if they’re not hitting them). Critics also point out that this may be one of the reasons the league saw a decline in viewership heading into the 2025-2026 season. 

The Thunder have been the top team during that viewership slump. They’re disliked. Their superstar doesn’t have a decades-long, multichampionship resume (and the mainstream recognition that accompanies that kind of resume). It’s not a stretch to believe that they could be seen as an extension of the league’s ills and confirmation for those who already have a distaste for the modern NBA. 

But, it’s worth pointing out that amid all this backlash and critique, this year’s playoffs — which the Thunder are an integral part of — have, according to the NBA, the highest post-season viewership in the last 29 years. That could mean that basketball enthusiasts don’t really hate the NBA or the Thunder as much as they say they do. 

It may also be evidence that tons of people are tuning in hoping that some team may be able to take down Thunder. Much like the way the NBA can’t officially gauge the number of fouls not called on the Thunder, we unfortunately have no way to scientifically gauge the number of hate-watch viewers a Thunder game might fetch.  

But, if that dethroning occurs, OKC’s status as the league’s supervillains could possibly change. 

“Narratives change quickly in the NBA,” O’Donnell said. “If the San Antonio Spurs knock them out in the playoffs this year, OKC will quickly go back to being an underdog again, while Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs will be the hated top dog. It’s always a cycle.” 

Once upon a time, women were asked if they had danced with the devil and howled at the moon. Now, a more important question is being asked: Is she a girl’s girl? 

Is Amanda Batula of Bravo’s Summer House a girl’s girl? How about Tituba? Anne Boleyn? Do you think Athena, goddess of wisdom and warfare, was Team Ciara? Even if she was not really a girl’s girl to Medusa?

Girl’s girl is, in its simplest and most earnest form, shorthand for a woman who prioritizes her female friends as opposed to the men in her life. The term acknowledges that female friendship is special — magical even — and should be cherished. Girl’s girls don’t fall into society’s trap of pitting women against each other. Being a girl’s girl is a way to say screw misogyny without having to wade into complicated feminist theory.

“Girl’s girl” can be a proud affirmation (I’m a girl’s girl). It is seeing someone scorn the most beautiful woman in your life and defending her vigorously. It’s also a stern assessment of loyalty (She is not a girl’s girl). 

Our collective desire to celebrate girl’s girls comes from a good place. But it can also be wielded like a weapon, or a mafia threat — a way to collectively punish women who fail to live up to these standards.     

How reality TV fell in love with a girl’s girl

The girl’s girl isn’t a new phenomenon, especially on the cable network Bravo and its streamer sister Peacock. 

Back on season 10 of the Real Housewives of New York (2018), Ramona Singer famously yelled at co-star Bethenny Frankel, telling her “you don’t support other women” after Frankel made fun of her skincare line and did not, in Singer’s eyes, thank a fellow Housewife profusely enough for procuring her a Christmas nutcracker decoration. 

It was also a major point of discussion during the “Scandoval” era of Vanderpump Rules, in which Tom Sandoval cheated on his longtime partner Ariana Madix with co-star Raquel Leviss. Leviss was seen as not a girl’s girl, while the women who supported Madix during this time were. Girl’s girl has, more recently, come up on newer shows like Real Housewives of Rhode Island, in which one cast member called another a “slam pig” for constantly spreading lies about her home, job, and colitis; at the same time, it appears that a different Rhode Island Housewife is being cheated on. The rest of the cast wants to be girl’s girls and support her, while also calling out her husband. 

“The whole appeal of reality TV is that it helps us. It’s both a mirror and sort of a prism into looking at ourselves,” said Gibson Johns, Bravo aficionado and host of the reality TV podcast Gabbing With Gib. “I think everybody wants to be considered a girl’s girl. It’s the ultimate phrase, honestly. It’s a reflection of your values and how good of a friend you are.”

“My understanding is that a girl’s girl is somebody who places primacy of female friendship over romantic relationships — especially if it’s just the potential of a romantic relationship versus an actual existing friendship,” said Anna Peele, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of Enter the Villa: The (Unauthorized) Reality Behind Love Island. 

Love Island is the epicenter of girl’s girl-ing. For the uninitiated, the show is an amalgamation of competitive reality shows like Survivor and reality dating shows like The Bachelor. Women and men pair up, and face eliminations if they don’t have partners (or become “single and vulnerable,” in the show’s parlance). Peele explained to me that while girl-on-girl loyalty was always a component of the American version of the show, it wasn’t until season six that a girl’s girl pact was made.    

The main women on that season — Serena, JaNa, and Leah — banded together, forming an alliance known as the Powerpuff Girls (PPGs). Instead of following Love Island’s unspoken rule of putting men first (which would ostensibly keep you on the show longer and get you closer to winning the prize money) and allowing production to pit them against each other, the PPGs rewrote the show in their own way. 

“What was so moving about it was that they would give each other the time that ostensibly is supposed to be spent finding romantic love … comforting each other or encouraging each other,” Peele said, also pointing out that Ariana Madix, the Vanderpump Rules star who came out of Scandoval as the reigning queen of girl’s girls, hosted that sixth season.  

The most recent example of reality TV girl’s girl discourse is a rift among Summer House’s Ciara Miller, her ex West Wilson, and her longtime friend Amanda Batula. Miller and Wilson dated a while back, broke up, and have, onscreen, had a tenuous friendship since. At the same time, Miller and Batula were allegedly good friends until a March 31 joint announcement from Batula and Wilson that they were dating. The sudden confirmation of rumors that had been circulating for months — which Batula and Wilson had previously denied — set the women’s friendship on fire. 

Of all the men in the world to date, why did Batula need to be with Wilson? And of all the women in this world, why did Wilson betray Miller by choosing Batula? The backlash from fans was swift and unforgiving, and mostly directed at Batula. 

“If you’re a woman on Bravo, one of the worst things you can be called is not being a girl’s girl,” Johns said. “Nobody wants to be slapped with that label.”

Obviously, Love Island and Summer House aren’t real life. But no matter how unrealistic these programs are, they’re designed to tap into very human feelings of desire, lust, and jealousy. The twist, as the PPG showed us, is that these shows are also capable of showcasing more positive, less toxic, and genuinely aspirational versions of female friendship. 

That a reality dating show became a bastion of feminism and female friendship is not completely surprising to Yalda Uhls, a developmental psychologist. Uhls is the founder of UCLA’s Center for Scholars and Storytellers, which studies young people’s relationship to entertainment. 

She and her cohort have found that teens and young adults have continually expressed more desire for depictions of friendship in popular media. It just so happens that the young women on reality TV, like Love Island’s Powerpuff Girls, created the media they want themselves.  

“It kind of makes sense, and I think it’s a really positive thing,” Uhls said, noting that it’s also possible that producers would also encourage friendship-building, especially if it resonated with audiences.

“I hated those reality shows, which would just make all these women fight over men, and that’s so unhealthy,” she added. “So if we’re encouraging women to have healthy relationships with each other first, then they can start having healthy relationships with the opposite sex if that’s what they’re interested in.” 

When being a girl’s girl is actually a knife

Peele told me that you can’t really be a girl’s girl of one; the term exists to explain how you relate to other women. Perhaps that’s why, so often, it’s defined by its absence: She’s not a girl’s girl. In fact, she is their foil.  

Plug “Amanda Batula” into the search bar of any social media platform — Reddit, X, TikTok, perhaps even LinkedIn — and it will yield various posts and countless more comments about what a terrible person she is. The backlash to Batula stems from the perceived betrayal, says Peele. To the people most invested in this drama, Batula is not a girl’s girl. 

Peele pointed out that many viewers just accept Wilson’s villainy as a given, much like they do when it comes to the men on Love Island. There aren’t belabored dissertations about how Wilson’s hair could be a sign of terminal laziness or, worse, a moral failing. Nor is there a comparable number of Reddit threads about how his friendships have all been manifestations of a deep-seated, incurable insecurity. 

Uhls, the researcher at UCLA, told me that the criticism might be tied to just how much young people, and young women, value friendship. 

“I think it’s unfortunate to have backlash, but I guess in some ways it’s sort of trying to reward the good behavior and punish the bad behavior,” Uhls said. (To be clear, Uhls was not fully versed in the trials and tribulations of Summer House or Amanda Batula, and was speaking in a more general context.) “When someone is not modeling a positive relationship with another woman and there’s backlash online, it might be reinforcing that young people want to see positive relationships.” 

The ongoing Batula pile-on raises a conundrum, though. If everyone’s a girl’s girl and if girl’s girl means supporting women, the girl’s girl thing to do would be — as difficult as it seems — extending this girl a shred of grace, even if she didn’t do the same for her female friends. That she’s being punished so vigorously points to girl’s girl being less about positivity and more of a weapon to use against girls — women — who don’t pass the litmus test. 

Despite — or perhaps because of — the recent uptick in the term thanks to the Summer House fallout, the term might be on the wane. People have begun to recognize that “not a girl’s girl” can be applied to anyone and everyone (except men), for all manner of alleged crimes against women, and that there’s really no way to litigate it. There also seems to be a growing awareness that while holding women accountable for shitty behavior is good, witch hunts are bad, and so is letting men off the hook.

“I think that it means the most when coming from somebody else,” Johns said. “If somebody leads with being a self-identified girl’s girl, I think there’s probably reason to be suspicious of it.” 

Peele, the author who has consumed an unfathomable amount of Love Island, explained to me that a contestant on the eighth, now-airing season, quipped that anyone still describing themselves as a “girl’s girl” earnestly is a red flag. 

“Being a girl’s girl is obviously a principle that we should all strive to live by,” Peele said. “But it’s too meta at this point, and so it’s like, I don’t know, like a guy wearing a shirt that says Feminist.”