Girl crushes -- don’t fight it because everyone has one; it’s perfectly normal and usually inescapable. Your girl crush is the girl you find yourself saying, “I wish I could be her.” You wish you had her eyes, her wardrobe, her confidence, her hair, or her personality. It could be the girl who sits in front of you in class, or the hot new celebrity, or model, on TV.
The girl crush phenomenon is spreading. It has moved beyond a casual conversation with friends about your favorite female celebrity or model, and has become a well known phrase and has entered the Instagram world through the trending #WomanCrushWednesday. Everyone seems to admire someone different. Where I confidently admit my girl crush to be Blake Lively, if you ask my sister, Nina Dobrev is even more amazing and should always be put on a pedestal. Pictures of celebrity crushes, as we’ve all come to call them, surround every social media account girls today have access to.
I never expect the term to become such a fad. Wednesdays are now known globally as “Woman Crush Wednesdays,” a day where it is expected for you to publicly announce your female crush on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or any other social media page you have access to.
Wednesdays are in no means reserved only for celebrities. The hashtag has also been used to honor friends, family members, and sometimes objects, following right along with the equally popular #ManCrushMonday.
Despite the #WCW and girl crush term’s popularity, I have never seen it used as often as it has over the breakout star, Ruby Rose. Since "Orange is the New Black" season three has been released on Netflix, the appearance of Ruby Rose’s character, Stella Carlin, has fans in an uproar. My various social media feeds have never been filled with so many tweets, pictures, Instagram posts, and Facebook statuses about the same celebrity.
These crushes are non-sexual, and their explanation may only be that we admire in others what we feel is lacking in our own physical appearance. But I think there’s more to the trend, the crush usually extends beyond physicality, and the term will be used to describe someone who’s personality or intelligence we admire. Regardless of what provokes the admiration, the drive to announce it on social media doesn’t seem to be coming to an end anytime soon.
I can’t seem to find a good, clear-cut explanation for the girl crush phenomenon that has found such a strong foothold in today’s society. But one day, in my sorority house, we were talking about how we should all start reminding each other how much we appreciate one another. Of course, I thought it was really corny when we then started walking around saying, “I appreciate you.” But when I thought about it, a lot of people are scared of being straightforward, they don’t say how they feel, are afraid of being corny, like me, and don’t realize that people need to be reminded that they are appreciated.
So maybe that’s why having girl crushes, or Woman Crush Wednesdays, is valuable. It shows others you appreciate and admire them without making you vulnerable, because you can blame it all on a social media trend. What would this generation be if we didn't live use social media as a main communication tool?
