"We discard the priority/possibility of authenticity online, if at all. instead we yield to the pearly cavern of artifice, play, and swarm that might reveal that there was 𝓃𝑜 𝓉𝓇𝓊𝑒 𝓈𝑒𝓁𝒻 in the first place."

Introductory text of zine one (2024)

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Everyone is a girl is an ongoing multimedia project that attempts to weave together several generations of critical theory and creative work around femininity and its associations with performance, seduction, and theatrical/baroque aesthetics. We are particularly interested in the relationship between femininity and internet culture which has culminated in the concept of the "girl online".

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While I originated the concept, I work with graphic designers/visual advisors/amazing people Paloma Moniz, Jules Halasy, and Sofya Rakitina in order to keep our project lively and growing. We've also received a lot of support from Zlata Mechetina at Fetchish Net and Alisa Oleva at Pushkin House's Pushkin Young programme. 

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Drawing our project’s name from Alex Quicho’s article "Everyone is a Girl Online", we follow Quicho in theorizing the girl as one who ‘tactically’ submits to the wills of the digital algorithm, “vying for both privacy and visibility” through a delicately ‘real’ performance of identity. To participate online is to be a feminine subject, because it subjects one to a self-surveillance from the perspective of the masses. Girls embrace the ‘dark forest’ (after Bogna Konior) of the internet in hopes to manipulate, collectivize, and forge the future.

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Originally, my goal for the project was to create a one-time academic journal, almost like a rhizomatic almanac, that proves seminal in collecting larger texts around recent girl theory and linking them to texts by older researchers and theorists in the fields of gender studies/feminism, queer theory, posthumanism, and media studies. With this project I'm particularly interested in the abundance of writers and journalists online whom use their social media, their body, and their artwork as means of researching femininity, and thus operate at the intersection of “influencer” and “researcher”. What does this blend of public persona and academic output imply for the future of cultural studies? How can we recognize this autotheoretical turn as a legitimate heir to older forms of critical theory?

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However, we are first building a community around our interest in girl theory through releasing semi-monthly zines and holding accompanying events. Our audience is growing into a strange but fruitful concoction of UAL lecturers and students, fashion and beauty journalists/content creators, trend forecasters, leftist literary presses, meme makers, cyberfeminist academics, post-internet artists, and coquette influencers. On instagram, we curate art, texts, and memes relevant to contemporary articulations of femininity -- often reposting the work of our audience in the process. 

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Through our zines and events, we aim to create playful environments that allow this range of people to engage with cultural introspection deeply yet comfortably. Ie: A presentation night, an open mic reading, and hopefully panels, longer talks, workshops, etc. in the future. Please get in touch if you wish to collaborate or host us in your space: everyoneisagirl@gmail.com.