In Which We Join Our Heroine On The Cusp Of Something Super Duper Serious, Namely, Viral Videos.

There's this thing that just started happening on the internet, and it began with the "Stuff* Girls Say" video. It feels stupid to say it "went viral" (because I never liked that saying, this isn't small pox okay) but it kinda went viral.

The videos, for by now, there are 3, consist of Graydon Sheppard, (Toronto-based writer and filmmaker) in drag playing a fairly simple minded "anygirl" reciting quick one liners of dialogue off of Sheppard's twitter, (Stuff* Girls Say) co-created by his friend, Kyle Humphrey. Since the video is essentially calling out an entire gender, obviously some people are going to have reservations or even be insulted by the insinuation that these are typical "girl" things to say. I, myself, wondered, while viewing, 'why aren't I more insulted by this?'

The truth is that, this is stuff* I say.

I thought maybe having a man portray the female character in the video might make some people uncomfortable, and indeed, the entire twitter is written and maintained by two dudes, which, I admit, does give me pause. However, the things girls say do not portray women in a bad or stupid light, and I think that's what makes it humorous. The stuff* girls say is so mundane and yet so female specific; as I started to write this blog post last night, I was reading some of the tweets out loud to a co-worker, and she kept wanting to respond as if I was casually talking to her. Things like, 'I'm so excited for tomorrow!' or 'first of all, ew' are so undeniably part of my vernacular, and I am an (over???)educated, employed 20 something woman. What I'm getting at is, I'm smart, ya'll. This video still applies to me.

The most interesting thing about these videos is the thousands of others they have spawned. Every culture, sexuality and gender presentation have their own "Stuff* They Say" videos, and even a broad search on youtube brings up numerous different varieties. This phenomenon is fascinating to me, and I'll be interested to see what becomes of it, and what other people think about it. Is it more insulting than perhaps I think it is? Or is it lightly poking fun at itself, because it's so clearly impossible to delineate what an entire gender "says", and yet, these are all girl things to say? I'm interested in what you guys think.

*not the original word, but another, similar, four letter word starting with S.

Stuff* Girls Say, episode 1

Stuff* Girls Say, episode 2

Stuff* Girls Say twitter