The Mass Production of the "It Girl"

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Cool girls always have this. You're a cool girl if you're buying that. You can't be a cool girl without owning one of these. You want to know what makes a cool girl cool? Is that she does whatever she wants. It's just attitude.

[00:00:15]That's what makes anything cool is the confidence in it. You could be wearing a paper [ __ ] bag. It's 2026. The cool girl is not going to be a marketing tactic anymore because that's not [ __ ] cool.

[00:00:30]And why all y'all look the same? Y'all lashes look the same. Y'all hair look the same. Y'all dress the same. Y'all all want the same aesthetic. I don't get it. Y'all all want this it girl aesthetic.

[00:00:43]>> If it's not the it girl aesthetic, it's the soft, mysterious, quiet, pretty put up aesthetic. Like what happened to being your [ __ ] self? I've been seeing a lot of content around Carolyn bet Kennedy recently and that's because Ryan Murphy released American love story which is a show about her relationship with John F. Kennedy Jr. but from what I've seen people seem to be a lot more interested in how much of an icon she was rather than her love story. Back in the 1990s Caroline worked at Calvin Klein in New York City. And she was definitely the eight girl of her time.

[00:01:16]She was really fashionable and she was progressive and she married John F.

[00:01:19]Kennedy Jr. which pretty much made her American royalty. She kind of reminded me of Princess Diana if Princess Diana was American. The paparazzi also used to give her a lot of hell, so she became a pretty private person.

[00:01:31]>> Or photographers, >> please don't get so close to me.

[00:01:35]>> She's told uh friends about instances where where people will just grab her on the street and and talk to her or try to photograph her.

[00:01:44]>> She didn't really like taking interviews or being in the spotlight and she probably wouldn't be a fan of the fact that she's getting famous again. She died at the age of 33 in 1999 because of a plane crash off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. And I noticed how she's quickly becoming the new face of the clean girl old money aesthetic movement.

[00:02:02]I don't know if it's actually a movement, but that's what I'm calling it. There's Tik Tok tutorials on how to dress like her and articles breaking down her formula. And her actual wardrobe sold for over $170,000 at Soft Bees. Apparently, people are even trying to imagine what her morning routine would have been like or what she would have eaten or what kind of lifestyle she would have had. Yeah, people are quite obsessed. And I think because she spent a lot of her life resisting being overly visible, it's ironic to me that she's now becoming this identity template for people to copy. Looking at her style, it does fit a lot of what's popular right now, especially with the way she carried herself. She would have easily been an IT girl even in 2026. Her style was minimalist and clean and really easy to break down. So, the pieces feel like they might be attainable or at least like you can find a dupe cuz I'm pretty sure they were really expensive, but people who've actually studied her for years say it was never just about the clothes that she wore. It was about her and the way that she carried herself.

[00:02:58]You could tell she wasn't trying to impress anyone and she was just being herself. And I think that's why people are actually becoming so obsessed with her. She had this sense of cohesion and a very effortless identity that she built for herself. And in today's culture, a unique identity feels a lot harder to come by. We're so focused on aesthetics and cohesion and status and being curated, especially online. But at the same time, a lot of people don't feel like they even know who they are or how to express themselves. So, there's this tension between wanting to have a clear and compelling identity and not really knowing how to get there. So, what I see happening is people start looking to social media and celebrities.

[00:03:36]And when you do that, you tend to land on the same references and aesthetics as everybody else online. And I honestly wonder what that's actually doing to us.

[00:03:43]Because Carolyn bet Kennedy is just one example of how drawn people are to something that feels cohesive and magnetic. But why does this actually happen? And what does it mean that we keep reaching for the same kinds of identities? That is what we're going to discuss today. What's up, YouTube? I'm Tiny C. And if you are new here, thank you so much for dropping in. Feel free to look at this video, my previous videos, and just, you know, hang around.

[00:04:06]And if you are returning, thank you so much for coming back. I hope you guys really like the topic today. And yeah, don't forget to comment, like, hype the video, and subscribe. And welcome to my digital garden.

[00:04:28]So, I want to get into what a cohesive identity actually looks like so we're on the same page. When someone has a cohesive identity, everything about the person usually just makes sense. Like the way they dress, the way they carry themselves, where they hang out, their hobbies, all of that usually connects in some way. And it's usually so impressive because so many people are also still trying to figure that out. Like if we look at Zoe Kravitz, she is someone that people love to reference because of the consistency she brings in her presentation. She also allegedly just got engaged to Harry Styles, which I think reignited people's interest in her. But I think that part of her also aligns with that elusive cool girl persona that she has. And it looks effortless, but I'm sure a lot of intention was put into it, like a whole team's worth of effort. People also break down how she dresses and styles things because it might feel attainable.

[00:05:20]Kind of like with Caroline bet, people feel like if you understand her formula, you can also get there. But my theory is that what people are actually drawn to isn't just her aesthetic, although I'm sure that plays a big role. I think the sense of identity she has behind all of it is playing a big part. I mean, she's a Nepo baby. She's been married and engaged to these handsome men. She acts, she writes, she's fashionable. I mean, how does she do it? and why does it all make so much sense and makes this cohesive picture? We usually just boil it down to them having a nice aesthetic, but there's this feeling that her life makes sense together. And I feel like in this day and age, a lot of people don't know who they are, which makes that kind of coherence really desirable to try to emulate. Somewhere out there in the world, there's someone who has been a Haley Bieber clean girl, a Charlie X Gabriette party girl, and now is slowly transforming into Caroline Bet Kennedy.

[00:06:14]all in the space of two years. So, if you think you're easily influenced, just know you're not that person.

[00:06:20]>> I've been noticing how much curation is important to people and it's a skill that people really want. And I think we're at the height of the age of curation. So, rather than identity being something that you just have, it's something that you can construct and ultimately present to the public. And your identity is multiaceted. It shows up everywhere. Your social media, your apartment, your routines. As one writer put it, you don't just have an Instagram account anymore. You become one. An idea, a concept, something that's being communicated and interpreted. And I think what makes this different from just caring about how you look is that being aspirational is also profitable.

[00:06:55]Now, influencers build their entire career on having a compelling and curated identity and then brands pay to access that. So, there's an incentive to have a clear, cohesive, and legible identity. And I think that pressure is shaping how people show up, even if they aren't trying to be influencers. Now, there's this underlying question that people are trying to answer. Who am I perceived to be? And I think that question changes how they show up in their lives. Instead of just figuring these things out naturally over time, people are definitely overthinking it.

[00:07:26]And at its worst, I see people forcing themselves in a box, which no one can do perfectly. So, they end up editing out the complex parts of themselves. There's a line from a sociology paper I came across that talked about how we sacrifice parts of our lives to make ourselves appear less complicated. And you can see how this is playing out. I saw in that same paper, someone was interviewed and they said, "My house doesn't match the aesthetic of my profile. So, I avoid sharing photos taken there." Which is crazy, but I'm sure a lot of people can relate, especially if you are trying to curate your social media feed. The identity you've built can start to exclude parts of your real life. And I think that's the cost of curation. The more cohesive you get, the less room there is for contradiction. And this is where the homogyny problem enters the building.

[00:08:12]Everyone wants to be curated and unique, but they're using the same references to get there. And honestly, this just feels like a general problem we have in our culture where we find something that's interesting and then play it out and then we look for something new. But either way, that's why we keep seeing the similar kind of identity. The cool girl, the clean girl, the it girl, and the people at the forefront of those aesthetics like Kylie Jenner, Bella Hadid, and Haley Bieber. And if not them, there's still usually another thin white wealthy person that comes across as effortless. Oh, and they also have to be conventionally beautiful, but it has to be like natural. Can't look fake.

[00:08:49]That's not to say there aren't like, you know, some diversity people sprinkled in there like Zoe or Zenaia or Rihanna, but they're usually just the exception to the rule. So, we have the younger generation who I think actually really does care about their identity, but they're building it using the same played out references. So, we see the same uninspired things over and over again.

[00:09:12]So, if this is the culture we're living in, why do we all end up referencing the same kinds of people? And the answer is this isn't new. Humans have always looked to other people to figure out what's worth wanting. There's a sociologist named Thornstein who wrote about this in 1899. He called it pecuniary emulation, which is basically the tendency for people to imitate the consumption patterns of those they perceive as above them in the social hierarchy. And we pretty much do it for status and belonging or to get closer to what a life might represent to us. And he also talked about how what gives something status at one point eventually becomes accessible to everyone. And once that happens, it naturally loses what made it special in the first place. And then people have to find a new thing to distinguish themselves. We've kind of been doing this for a long time. Even in the late Middle Ages, there were laws that made it illegal for commoners to wear certain colors and fabrics because the nobility didn't want to be copied.

[00:10:07]But obviously those laws didn't really work because the impulse to copy is kind of impossible to suppress. There's also this idea from psychology called social learning theory from Albert Bura. And this is about how we learn from observing the people around us. We're more likely to imitate people we see as successful, attractive, or high status.

[00:10:28]You can see that reflected in the way we talk about aesthetics nowadays. The cool girl and the clean girl are all just different versions of what our current culture is associating with status.

[00:10:38]Social media is the main thing that feeds into this loop because you can see what people are wearing. You can see their mannerisms. You can see what they eat, their lifestyle. They're just putting it on display. And I think even the accidental things that people do online will get copied if the right person is doing it. And my theory is that people are actually trying to copy the feeling around certain aesthetic identities. Like Kendall Jenner was wearing a basic Hannes tank top. It was like a $2 tank top and it went viral because people wanted to portray that same vibe that she was giving off while she was wearing it. But I think the difference is and especially with celebrities is that the shirt might be accessible. I mean it's $2, but the life sure isn't. She was wearing this tank top courtside at a NYX game and I think that's the context that actually made the tank top feel cool or desirable. But also it's Kendall Jenner and she's a supermodel. Before last year, there was this trend where Haley Bieber was eating sushi wearing a mask and it became this whole thing where people were posing themselves doing the same thing. And I think people were imitating it because of what it represented. It was giving casual luxury. It was ordinary, but something about it clearly spoke to people. It's about the context around her actions. And I think this is where it comes back to identity because they aren't just trying to buy the tank top or copy Haley Bieber's um behavior.

[00:11:53]They're buying into what those things represent, which is a certain kind of lifestyle and a certain kind of person that has access to that lifestyle.

[00:12:00]Kendall Jenner represents being a stylish young adult that's living this cohesive and luxurious, effortless life.

[00:12:06]She can sit courtside at a NYX game in a $2 boys tank top and still look cool.

[00:12:11]And same with Haley Bieber. She occupies a similar space of casual luxury to the point that her smallest, most unintentional moments feel aesthetic to people. And I think people are trying to access that. But the reality is that their identity is most likely built from an accumulation of the life that they live. The environment they grew up in, their experiences, the context that we can't really see and we don't really have access to. Those things are harder to actually replicate. But on social media, the culture is to turn the things we can see into their own categories or aesthetics and lifestyles. So it is easy to replicate like clean girls and soft girls and all of those things. even without their original context. People are drawn to the feeling that those identities give off and that's what people are actually chasing. And these identities are shaping what's considered the most desirable in our culture. You have these it girls who become the reference point for so many people and they influence how people dress and how they live. If they go to Airwan one day, you know, the next day all the influencers are going to go to Air1 and get that exact drink or whatever it is.

[00:13:14]if they embody a certain aesthetic like the clean girl, that becomes a blueprint for everyone else to follow. And so, even though we're all trying to define ourselves, which is completely natural, we end up using the same references as a shortcut to get there.

[00:13:31]And I think underneath all of this is a very human desire. We want to define ourselves. We want to understand who we are. I see so many people discuss this online and the consensus seems to be that the feeling of not really knowing who you are even after trying and exploring so many different things is pretty common. We want other people to be able to understand us and what we're trying to represent. But also when something is more clearly defined, it's easier to grasp and explain or even recognize, which also makes you feel a lot more stable in your own head. So, it makes sense that we'd look for ways to make that clearer, especially in a world where so much of who we are is being presented publicly. We're constantly aware of how we're coming across, how we're being perceived, how we're being read to the point that it's stressing people out. Like, we're in a nonchalant epidemic. People don't want to show their emotions. They don't want to be caught being cringe or exposing anything that's unfavorable. So, we have overly curated social media accounts.

[00:14:29]Everything has to be perfect and presentable. That's pretty much the culture that we're living in. But I think the same desire to define ourselves is also what makes us more susceptible to the patterns that we've been talking about so far. When identity starts to feel unclear, it's really easy to look at the latest it girl for answers. Especially when things like social media are right there to go to as a reference. But clearly using social media for references is just flattening us because identity is actually more fluid and always in a state of becoming.

[00:14:57]Or at least that's how I like to look at it. But social media is the main tool used to put people in boxes that feel very restricting. And our identity is a vulnerability that's used to sell us things. Use the squasha and you'll be more of a clean girl. Wake up, drink matcha, and you'll be more put together person. Or wear this headband and you'll be more like Carolyn bet. It's a very easy desire to take advantage of in order to sell you things because if your identity feels like something you can build, it also starts to feel like something you can buy. And there are so many industries structured around this feeling. So I think by relying on the same external references to define ourselves, we're limiting who we can actually become. It's cool because it's me.

[00:15:41]It's cool because it's me.

[00:15:45]It's cool because it's you. It's you.

[00:15:49]Okay?

[00:15:52]So be you because that's cool.

[00:15:58]And I've definitely felt this myself.

[00:16:00]I've always been really interested in the idea of customizing my avatar, but I've also always been pretty eccentric in the way that I dress. I love fashion and design. That's really the main thing I post about on Tik Tok and Instagram.

[00:16:13]And it's also my profession. I'm a designer. So, I've spent a lot of time building my taste over the years, which took me a lot of trial and error. I use Pinterest boards and I save things on Instagram. I've even taken pictures of people I see in real life when I feel inspired, but I don't post them. It's just for my own archive. And this is just my way of slowly exploring who I am and what interests me. There's this concept of identity curation, which is a term that describes this process of choosing which parts of yourself you show to the world. Just how you curate your social media feed or your bedroom.

[00:16:45]You select certain things, art, furniture, books that represent who you are and present it. And of course, some things might not make it, and that just becomes the private stuff that's just for you, which I think is also very necessary. This is pretty much what I like to do. And when I'm looking for inspiration, I try to find people that look like me or are into what I'm into.

[00:17:04]Like, I've recently been into Blender, so I follow a lot of people that make really cool 3D art. And it seems pretty self-explanatory, but I try to build in a way that makes sense for who I already am. and some of the trends still interest me, but I tend not to act on it until time has passed because I don't want to waste my money and I've definitely learned my lesson. And when I look at my style and interest now, there isn't one person I can point to and say I copied as a reference. It's more like a mix of different influences that I've used over time. When I was younger, I definitely tried out a few aesthetics, but it was so hard to stick with one cohesive thing because aesthetics can be so narrow. And I realized the whole aesthetic thing is working backwards in the sense that I was starting with an aesthetic and hoping that the identity would come along with it. And it never really did because I wasn't letting it just come with time. So now I approach identity, I want to say cautiously, but it's just slower. Over time, my identity became cohesive in its own way. and my frontal lobe being developed might also play a part cuz I definitely had my phases. But I think once I was able to build my identity from the inside out, it was a lot more natural. And I think that's what we're seeing with the whole Carol Limpus at Kennedy thing. Of course, people can break down her style, but what they're really responding to, in my opinion, is her her coherence and draw came from her sense of self, and the clothes were just an outward expression of that. And I think that's the ultimate goal.

[00:18:32]So, back to the question underneath everything that we've been talking about today. What happens to identity when everyone builds it using the same references? I think over time those references stop feeling as compelling because they're being overused and oversaturated, but also becomes separated from the context that made them interesting in the first place. The aura that originally drew people in becomes less potent, and then everyone goes looking for a new reference to Chase. So, this is exactly what Vevel said in 1899. That cycle doesn't really end. It just keeps moving on. And that probably isn't the only thing that's happening because I don't think everyone's building identity using the same methods. Some people are trying to be more organic with it. And that doesn't mean they aren't also following references. They probably are too, but they're probably pulling from different references than everybody else. They're pulling from a wider range of experiences or interests or influences.

[00:19:25]Maybe it's something from their childhood or their culture or their family. And I think when people go about finding themselves in that way, it can be a lot more interesting. So, not necessarily more original in a dramatic sense, but more grounded and specific to who that person is. Because what I've noticed is that the identities we keep referencing even years later usually weren't built quickly. They came from people living a certain kind of life over time. Caroline bet Kennedy wasn't trying to be a style icon. her identity emerge from what she was doing in her actual life. And I think that's the part that's really easy to overlook. And I find that so interesting because it suggests that the most compelling version of your identity probably isn't the one you try to intentionally build.

[00:20:09]Instead, it could be the one that naturally forms as you're just going about living your life. And that's probably also why certain identities feel really magnetic because they weren't built to be references. They just became something that we deemed worth referencing. So, I don't think the goal is to stop being inspired or to stop exploring different aesthetics. My goal is to become a little more aware of where references are coming from and be more aware of how much space I'm giving them to define myself. Because when everyone's building from the same blueprint, things can get kind of boring. That's all I have for you. What parts of your identity feel chosen and what parts feel influenced? If you made it this far in the video, please comment your favorite emoji. I don't know what mine is, but I'm going to post it right here. And thank you so much for watching. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Hype the video, and I'll see you guys in the next one.