Female Bloggers Invent Term "Goblin Mode" To Describe Looking Nasty and Slummy;
Woke Activists Object to the Term, As It Denigrates Actual Goblins

You may think that last part is a joke, but hold on.

First, let's talk about "goblin mode."

No, I don't want to talk about it either but I've already come this far so let's just put our chins down and bull through it.

A goblin -- a small, grotesque monster -- is the last thing you would expect young women to model their behavior on. People going goblin embrace acting like they're from the dregs of society. Reddit, TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are where you'll find plenty of visual evidence of goblin mode using the tag #goblinmode.

The Guardian reported that, according to a "real-life goblin," the mindset is a purposeful lack of aesthetic for those exhausted by high-maintenance fashion trends. Goblin mode has also been described as an inevitable descent into nihilism after people have grown tired of not indulging in their most "debased tendencies." Instead of bettering yourself, going goblin is embracing being a slob in order to stick it to those who are well put together.

Oh, okay. #Goblinmode is what I call "living my life as usual."

So Goblin Mode is just lounging around in sweats all day and watching tv and eating junk food. Not living aspirationally, but hey, we've all been there. Fair enough.

We could end the discussion except for two things. First of all, we have to deal with this fact, first observed by The Onion as a joke in 2003, but which is actually an Iron Law of online "feminist" discourse: Anything a woman does must be reframed as empowering.

But, you say, surely female feminist online scribblers couldn't possibly turn "goblin mode" -- not showering and wearing the same nasty pair of Lululemon knock-off so long that you dig a hole through them from scratching your dirty butt -- into a source of female empowerment, could they?

Au contraire, mes amies. All dark humor becomes prophecy in our demented hellscape.

On TikTok, #goblinmode is often accompanied by the adjacent phrase #feralgirlsummer. That hashtag has 366,000 views and features videos of users proclaiming to be the opposite of "that girl" -- a highly curated aesthetic popular on TikTok in recent years.

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The trend "sets an unrealistic standard for girls to think that if they aren't waking up early to exercise, their lives are not put together", one blog indictment of "that girl" culture reads.

"I have absolutely no interest in being 'that girl'," one video with 160,000 views says. "I will never wake up at 5am and drink green juices and be hyper-organized. I will instead be in 4am Reddit holes, Diet Coke first thing in the morning, [and] fistfuls of raw pasta as a snack."

Goblin mode 'is kind of the opposite of trying to better yourself', said Juniper.

Though they do not explicitly use the term "goblin mode", videos expressing similar ideologies have been rising in popularity. "My body is a garbage can with an expiration date and I got no time for healthy shit," one with 90,000 views says. "I love barely holding on to my sanity and making awful selfish choices and participating in unhealthy habits and coping mechanisms," said another with 325,000 views.

Evie Magazine, at least, pleads: Let's not make this the new trend.

In what backwards world is embracing all of the worst behaviors possible supposed to be self-care?

But you can't have an argument between feminists over conflicting notions of what "empowers women" without someone playing the Trump card and claiming they've been microaggressed.

So many people with nothing much to sell except their Identity.

So, here's her disability now packaged up and sold for clicks: She says that "OG Goblin Mode" was originally made up of crippled people in "crip culture."

And that's now being appropriated by non-disabled people who are just lazy and smelly.

It is unfair not to distinguish between the OG goblin mode (OGGM?) and its more recent calibration as reported in the mainstream media. Unlike "that girl," goblin mode was instigated by a fringe group of people posting what could be described as anticapitalist content that showed a rejection of mainstream ways of existing. These are people who for a long time have been disinterested in what others think and who operate online in the vein of shitposting. Many Twitter users have insisted that they've been goblin since before it was cool.

Perhaps inevitably, goblin mode eventually moved above ground, was caught by the TikTok algorithm, and the trend emerged. Now we see videos of girls, mostly attractive and thin, confessing to the camera (while looking hot) that they eat raw pasta in the middle of the night and mess up their sleep schedules by binging Netflix or Reddit. It gives "I'm not like other girls" energy. Some Twitter users have pointed out that these are signs of clinical depression and although that could be true, pathologizing all behavior that is not inherently self-improving as mental ill health is another example of how productivity culture is deeply entrenched in today's society.

To me, and within the crip communities I reside in, goblin mode is a natural state of being. Crip, short for crippled, reclaims the slur used historically to discriminate against disabled people. This is not to say that all people with disabilities will relate to goblin mode, but for those of us who do, it is both a political stance and a way of existing. Crip communities organize around disability justice, lobbying for societal and legislative change that seeks to force non-disabled people to view the world as we do and fights to obtain actualized inclusivity instead of surface-level change. It has been spearheaded by activists such as Patty Berne, founder of Sins Invalid.

Crip communities often embody goblin mode because there is often no choice not to. I am writing this in the same outfit I have been wearing since last Sunday, my hair is over a week unwashed and, truly, I stink. I do not tell you that as a badge of honor, to prove how goblin I am. It is simply a regular occurrence in my life as a disabled person, working and living amid the often hellish landscape we are all trying to navigate. But there is a distrust that surrounds disabled people. Stereotypes of benefit scroungers, lazy citizens, and the rest have real-life repercussions in the way that others, particularly the state, treat us. To be disheveled at an appointment with a doctor is to assume it is only your mental health in crisis. To keep a nocturnal schedule and binge television shows is opening yourself up to suggestions that getting a job might be a better way to spend your time.

In crip culture, there is often no time for grooming and false pretenses.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Fake Goblin Girlz.

Ugh. Of course we're now fighting about who the authentic, original Goblin Girlz are.

Via The Boyscast.

But if you thought women deliberately making themselves unattractive could go no further, brother, you have got your head on ass-backwards:

I guess it's kind of cool that leftwing women think about us Republican Men so much they're thinking of new ways to deform themselves to get our attention.

[M]icro bangs are like the "ugly" shoe of the hair world. They're a bit wrong, but that is part of their appeal. They're like pairing your white fashion sneakers with a fancy dress. It’s not perfect and you know it is a bit off, but that transgression is part of what makes it so interesting -- and frightening to Republicans.

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The worst thing that can happen if you get micro bangs is that you just have to put up with them for a few weeks until they grow into a regular fringe or grow long enough to clip them back. It's not like you’re chopping off all your hair, although that is also a daring look that unnerves the bad guys.

Beauty is all about experimenting, so give micro bangs a try. They might just become your new signature hairstyle.

And you'll have the relief of knowing any guys who might approach you won't be Rethuglicans.

What we're worried about is that you'll be approaching our children with some hot new ideas about gender transitioning, Groomer.

Also from The Boyscast.

Woke Activists Object to the Term, As It Denigrates Actual Goblins&bodytext=You may think that last part is a joke, but hold on. First, let's talk about "goblin mode." No, I don't want to talk about it either but I've already come this far so let's just put our chins down...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 04:20 PM

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