WEEK 49
Not YOUR cool girl
Jugging beers and scotch as if her life depends on it.
Acting like their looks are not a priority in life while always having perfect hair and make-up.
Eating burgers, fries and pizza all the time, but still being a size 0.
Always joking around inappropriately.
All classic characteristics of a stereotypical ‘cool girl’, a character that exists within almost every popular movie or tv-show. But why the F is this (quite fictional) type of girl considered so freaking cool? Does she even exist in real life? I really doubt it. But personally, I quite recognize these types of characteristics within my own identity as a teenager, or at least, the identity I wanted to have. I loved to hear I ‘wasn’t like other girls’, I loved to be that ‘one of the guys’-type of girl. These girls were adored by both men and women, because of their effortless coolness & sexiness. And who doesn’t want to be adored? But for who was I doing this? For myself? For the women around me? NOPE. I wanted to be like them so that I was respected, listened to, adored. And who doesn’t want to be adored?
But what I realize now is that the ‘Cool Girl’ is in fact some weird fantasy (or even a fetish) from male writers. It’s not a real woman. Actually, it’s not at all empowering to proudly say you’re not like other girls. Because why wouldn’t you want to be? This problematic character makes it seem like tossing out all your ‘girly’ personality traits is a good thing, as if these characteristics are wrong and you can’t be taken seriously if you have them. They’ve washed away all of their femininity outside of looks, which gets to the point of emphasis across clearly. They have to be attractive. Cool girls are often so underdeveloped that they are unrelatable to anyone watching or force insane fantasies upon viewers that set an impossible standard by which we judge people in real life.
I want to argue for a new take on the cool girl, focused on individuality. A cool girl who actually does something for the women around her. One who would speak up about her rights, who supports her friends and sisters, who owns her ‘girly’ character traits, but also has a more careless and wild side. Because you don’t HAVE to choose between being the ‘cool girl’ and being the girly-girl:, you can absolutely do both. Girls aren’t those shallow, one-sided personalities the male gaze in the media often tries to make us believe. I love a good game night, beer and nacho combo once in a while, but there are more important things in the world.
My identity- column
For the logo, I looked at the logo's of retro and girly magazines, they're all super colorful, dynamic and fun, just like the overall design of these magazines. I thought the flower power, 70's-like typography would match this vibe so i've tried to combine these fonts with the colors of the magazine itself and created these 12 logo options. We've chosen 2d, but thought it would be better to ad an explanation point and if the letters were more apart, so the final one is this one:
We were discussing the name, it needed to be fun, activating, activistic and girly. We all came up with good options but chose for the name CRUSH!. Crush stands for teenage puppy love, having a crush on your classmate or gym buddy, but also stands for crushing norms. It's the perfect combination of girlishness, teenage interests and activism and therefore is a perfect match for the magazine.
The name of the magazine:
We've split up as a group and i took te online part on me. I've created two websites for the magazine, a public one and a private one for ourselves, the teachers and the minor itself.
The public website gives you a sneak peak into the magazine and the subjects we discuss in it, you can also order the magazine thru this site. The other website is a tool where you can read the magazine in an online format. I've created this so we're able to show it to our classmates and teachers but also to share it with our families and friends.