Scrunchies, $80 Fjallraven backpacks, and Birkenstocks: There's a new type of 'it' girl online, and of course the internet is already hating on her

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Scrunchies, $80 Fjallraven backpacks, and Birkenstocks: There's a new type of 'it' girl online, and of course the internet is already hating on her

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emma chamberlain

Jerod Harris/Getty Images

Influencer and YouTuber Emma Chamberlain is a popular example of a VSCO girl, according to Buzzfeed News.

Forget YouTube creators, Instagram influencers, and fashion bloggers.

There's a new persona taking over social media - the VSCO girl, reported Lauren Strapagiel of BuzzFeed News.

VSCO girls are identifiable by their appearance, according to Strapagiel. They wear Brandy Melville, Birkenstocks, puka shell necklaces, scrunchies, and a Fjällräven backpack (which retail starting at $80) along with natural makeup and beach-wave hair - a contrast to the contoured faces and lip fillers of Instagram influencers, she wrote.

They also have money to buy the trend's high-end staples, Strapagiel added. The VSCO girl gets her name from the photo editing VSCO app, but she's easy to spot on Instagram or IRL (in real life), too. She can be the girl on the street, but she can also be a popular influencer, like Emma Chamberlain.

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"Normally when you're talking about a VSCO girl, it is predominantly people who are white and very skinny and they own all these big name brands," Caiti DeCort, a 15-year-old YouTuber, told Strapagiel. "So typically it's associated with being rich."

 

Read more: A woman who pays Instagrammers and YouTubers for brands like Cosmo and Esquire says people who make the most money as influencers all have the same background

And the internet loves to hate on the VSCO girl.

"She's grown up online and is pretty accustomed to the internet's hypercritical gaze," wrote Freya Drohan for Cosmopolitan. "But while her vibe is care-free and nonchalant, the internet's reaction to her is anything but."

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From YouTube takedowns on the aesthetic to sarcastic VSCO girl tutorials, this new social media-identity has been endlessly ridiculed online, reported Drohan, who points out the irony - the ridicule often comes from "young female content creators who look just like the archetypical girl they're trying to mock."

The VSCO girl is part of one of the many communities carving out a niche in social media. Consider mukbang YouTubers, who share videos of themselves ingesting massive quantities of food. There's also the rise of virtual influencers - computer-generated social media marketers designed by companies to attract followers and likes. And that's not to mention the "murfers," a term coined by Carina Chocano of Vanity Fair to refer to the surfing Instagram "mamas" of Byron Bay, Australia.

Generation Z from Business Insider Intelligence

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