The Rise of Women Laughing at Women
Delaney Rowe has become big on TikTok for poking fun at people — especially women. Her characters include the “girl who works her boyfriend into every conversation,” the “girl who doesn’t want to make a big deal out of her birthday” (but in fact makes multi-day plans) and — perhaps her most popular — the “absolutely insufferable female lead of an indie movie.”
Rowe is one of a new generation of women comedians on TikTok who have become famous by using character play to imitate certain “types” of women. The skits, usually around 30 seconds long, satirise traits that are vaguely narcissistic in nature. The comedy style is smart in that it feels niche while actually being uber-relatable — everybody has crossed paths with an annoying person — and is accordingly popular, with creators attracting millions of likes and comments of assent. So it’s clear that the videos are broadly funny. But if women are the punchline, does the content veer into misogyny?
Often, the characters being mocked in these videos have a lack of self-awareness that feels derived from privilege, or from existing in a bubble. For example, “sit-down” comic Preeti imitates “THAT girl at an LA influencer party” who is obsessed with follower counts and taking photos for a brand deal. Holly & Brooke take on the “Surrey girl,” complete with a rich “Daddy,” who is chronically un-self-aware. Juliette pretends to be “your rude friend who DoorDashes bc she doesn’t like what your mom is cooking,” who can’t understand why you don’t have a “housemaid or a cook” and complains that your house isn’t “fancy.” In this sense, oblivious privilege is the butt of the joke; the gender of the character being played feels secondary.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
This becomes clearer when you watch comedy that, in a similar way, parodies specific “types” of men. “Guy with a podcast” has become a memefied trope, capturing Joe Rogan lites who are partial to spreading conspiracy theories. Josh Berry’s Clapham chap — a yuppie in finance or consulting who goes shooting with his family at Christmas — has a similar vibe to that of Holly & Brooke’s “Surrey girl.” And many of the skits are gender-neutral: one of Rowe’s go-to characters is only gendered as “the worst person on earth” in various scenarios (asking to borrow a chair, opening presents, ordering at the bar.) Oblivious and self-centred behaviour is the punchline in all these cases.
The demand for this style of comedy could be explained by TikTok users’ growing appetite for videos that make them cringe. The volume of squeaky bumhole content has exploded in the past couple of years, with videos tagged #cringe garnering nearly 50 billion views collectively. Creators are purposefully making awkward, grimace-worthy content with the knowledge that many viewers experience a masochistic enjoyment in being made uncomfortable, at least for the short duration of a TikTok video and from behind the safe glass wall a screen allows. The imitation videos fit this category — I often get second-hand embarrassment watching them. The comment section agrees: “Painful as always,” "Another difficult watch,” “Traumatising” read some. Others hint at the relatability factor: “There's a girl in my class like this.”
“It relieves the pressure on women to always behave perfectly, and it gives us the tools to laugh at ourselves when we (inevitably) don’t.”
The element of categorisation in this type of character-based comedy resembles the oceans of TikTok content and trends that feed on categorising “girls.” There’s the infamous That Girl phenomenon — the wellness trend that encourages women to wake up early, exercise, journal, say affirmations and eat a plant-based diet — which has drawn criticism for glamorising disordered eating and hustle culture, as well as predominantly being promoted by thin, wealthy white women. Add to this the Clean Girl, the Hot Girl, the Soft Girl, the E-Girl, the Onion Girl (don’t ask). Living by these labels may help some young women feel a sense of belonging in a community with an established identity, but many are fashion-based trends, which can die as quickly as they rise.
While these categories often feel sinister and reductive, flattening women into aesthetic subtypes, labels in skits like Rowe’s are drawn up based on types of privileged and problematic behaviour (for example, the “Surrey girl” or “rude friend”), which feel like fair game.
However, occasionally the jokes seem misguided. The “Pick Me Girl,” sometimes mocked in these skits, refers to a woman who puts down other women to seek validation from men — the supposed opposite of a “girl’s girl.” Srill, it’s been pointed out that regardless, this type of behaviour is perhaps driven by internalised misogyny. Patriarchy should be the butt of the joke here, not the women navigating it.
Sometimes, the videos are self-deprecating over outwardly criticising. For example, Rowe posted a video titled “woman rapidly realizing she has no actual reason to be upset and it might actually be her fault,” which is captioned "Me until I die.” Often, I recognise my own bad behaviour being called out in these videos, and laugh before sharing them with my friends and partner accompanied by a message along the lines of “if this isn’t me!!”. Laughing at your own human terribleness somehow feels even better than laughing at other humans’ terribleness.
This brand of humour resembles that of Reductress — a women’s satire site launched in the early 2010s, which takes aim both at patriarchy and problematic feminism in its jokes, for example, “5 Feminist Aunts Who Keep Asking Why You’re Not Married.” It too loves self-deprecating humour, with articles like “Woman Foolishly Thinks She Just Needs To Get Through This Week.” Reductress remains wildly popular, with tens of thousands of likes on each of its Instagram posts featuring its quintessential tongue-in-cheek headlines.
In many ways, women laughing at women, and at themselves, is a balm. In calling out genuinely problematic behaviour, it makes those who have been affected — or even just irritated — by it in real life feel seen. And by satirising harmlessly silly behaviours that most of us engage in, it allows us to have a day off being self-critical. It relieves the pressure on women to always behave perfectly, and it gives us the tools to laugh at ourselves when we (inevitably) don’t.
Words: Ella Creamer
