E-boy

[Zoraida]

Ekids,[1] split by binary gender as e-girls and e-boys, are a youth subculture of Gen Z that emerged in the late 2010s,[2] notably popularized by the video-sharing application TikTok.[3] It is an evolution of emo, scene and mall goth fashion combined with Japanese and Korean street fashion.[4][5]

Videos by e-girls and e-boys tend to be flirtatious and, many times, overtly sexual.[6][7] Eye-rolling and protruding tongues (a facial expression known as ahegao, imitating climaxing) are common.[8]

According to Business Insider, the terms are not gender-specific, instead referring to two separate styles of fashion, stating that "While the e-boy is a vulnerable 'softboi' and embraces skate culture, the e-girl is cute and seemingly innocent".[9]

The terms "e-girl" and "e-boy" are derived from "electronic boy" and "electronic girl" due to their association with the internet.[10] "E-girl" was first used in the late-2000s as a pejorative against women perceived to be seeking out male attention online. According to an article by Business Insider, the earliest example of e-girls were found on Tumblr,[9] with Vice Media stating the subculture evolved out of the earlier emo and scene cultures.[11] Vox writer Rebecca Jennings instead referred to the Tumblr aesthetic as a precursor of the subculture, as it lacked the cutesy aspect that would come to define e-girl hair and makeup.[12]

Ruby Barry of Heatworld traces the origins of e-girl fashion to 2000s Japanese street fashion, including anime, kawaii and lolita fashion styles.[4] Kayla Marci of Edited described it as an evolution of emo, scene and mall goth fashion that was heavily influenced by Asian fashion styles such as anime, cosplay and K-pop.[5] i-D referred to Avril Lavigne as "the original e-girl" due to her polished take on alternative fashion, contrast to mainstream norms of the time and affinity for Japanese kawaii culture.[13] Additionally, fictional characters such as Ramona Flowers, Harley Quinn and Sailor Moon were influential on the development of the subculture.[14][15]

By the late-2010s, e-boys had split from this original all female culture, embracing elements of emo, mallgoth, and scene culture.[16] The popularity and eventual death of emo rapper Lil Peep also influenced the beginnings of the subculture,[17] with the New York Post describing him as "the patron musical saint of e-land".[18] E-boys also make use of "soft-boy aesthetics" through presenting themselves as sensitive and vulnerable. According to the Brown Daily Herald this is due to a transformation of ideal male attractiveness from being traditionally masculine to embracing introvertedness, shyness, emotional vulnerability and androgyny.[19]

The subculture gained mainstream attention in 2018, following the worldwide release of TikTok. According to an article in i-D, the subculture's emergence on the app challenged the polished and edited photos of influencers and VSCO girls common on Instagram, due to TikTok lacking the features to do so.[20] An article by CNN stated that "If VSCO girls are the sunshine-basking hippies of 2020, e-girls are the opposite".[21] The subculture first began to gain mainstream attention in 2019.[9] MEL Magazine attributed the subculture's popularity to the increased interest of K-Pop groups like BTS, Exo and Got7 in the Western mainstream, due to the two's similar style of dress and hair.[22] A trend soon began on TikTok and other social media platforms, where people would upload videos "transforming" into an e-boy or e-girl, according to Vox Media, this is how the culture "entered the mainstream lexicon".[12][23] In the summer of 2019, Belle Delphine's emerging online prominence helped bring attention to the e-girl subculture; Business Insider described Delphine as "a symbol of the first wave of e-girl".[24] The July 2019 murder of Bianca Devins also brought attention to e-girls due to Devins' participation in the subculture.[25]

The subculture continued to grow in prominence through 2020, with Vogue publishing an article featuring Doja Cat discussing e-girl makeup,[26] and "e-girl style" being in the top 10 trending fashion terms on Google in the year.[27] Additionally, a number of mainstream celebrities began to adopt the bleached stripes hairstyle associated with e-girls, including American socialite Kylie Jenner[28] and Kosovar-English singer Dua Lipa.[29] In July, high fashion designer Hedi Slimane released a preview of a collection called "the Dancing Kid" for Celine, influenced by the fashion of e-boys. In a July 29 article from GQ, fashion critic Rachel Tashjian referenced this as a sign that "TikTok is now driving fashion".[30] Corpse Husband's song "E-Girls Are Ruining My Life!", which was released in September, gained large amounts of attention on TikTok,[31] eventually charting in the UK Singles Chart for three weeks.[32] In late 2020 and early 2021, a number of high fashion designers, namely Ludovic de Saint Sernin and Celine, began designing collections inspired by e-boy fashion.[33][34][35] Both InStyle and Paper magazine credited e-boys and e-girls as important to the rise in popularity and resurgence of pop punk in the 2020s.[36][37]

Both boys and girls may wear heavy makeup, in particular pink blush on the cheeks and nose, imitating anime.[53][8] Fake freckles[53] unkempt nail polish,[54] and winged eye liner[6] are common. YouTuber Jenna Marbles made a video imitating an e-girl's makeup style, calling it a mix between "Harajuku, emo, and igari makeup",[52] the latter of which is a Japanese makeup style imitative of a hangover.[55] Some e-girls draw over their philtrum using lipstick to make their lips look rounder.[56] One notable element of e-girl makeup is under-eye stamps, often in a heart shape,[43][57] a trend that has been influenced by Marina Diamandis.[58] Discussion of mental health is also common.[15]

E-boys and e-girls are associated with "Sad Boy" music,[59][60] a broadly defined grouping of musicians, who similarly write music influenced by sadness and mental illness, that often overlaps with emo rap.[61] The term has been criticized by artists such as James Blake, due to its portrayal of mental illness, which he considers "unhealthy and problematic".[62]

For all our technological advances, humans continue to be simple creatures who group together based on shared tastes in clothes, music and opinions. The latest of these clans? Just as man went from homo erectus to homo sapiens, the emo has evolved from scene kid to "e-boy".

If this is all new to you, here's an e-boy primer, starting with how they look: their hair is styled like Leonardo DiCaprio's as Baz Luhrmann's Romeo, via Michael Pitt in The Dreamers. They smoke cigarettes, sometimes, for the aesthetic, but they're as sober as an AA counsellor. They've been raised on Mac Demarco, The 1975 and lo-fi terrorcore-era Tyler, the Creator, but also Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez. Their vibe is the climax of all those faintly related spheres, filtered through Brockhampton's brightly-coloured, post-One Direction world.

For all their love of musicians you'd probably think of as tolerant and progressive, I wouldn't put it past some of these guys to absolutely devour the words of Jordan Peterson (via Insta story soundbites, not his books). Really, they spend so much time in front of their phones, absorbing so much information and so many slogans, that they may well latch on to this kind of stuff without really interrogating it.

That's another trait of the e-boy: being generally gross. It's something they've cribbed from Billie Eilish, queen of the e-boys (and their female counterparts, e-girls, who i-D wrote about here). But alongside that grossness, they also rival 2007 Myspace kids in the pouting stakes. It's a fine line, really: a load of posturing to show everyone how beautiful they are, with just enough purposefully manky stuff to remind their audience they really don't care about looks.

Sort of related: the surprising amount of references made to BDSM sex (dom, sub, switch, etc). Which makes sense, because really the arrival of the e-boy is the culmination of an online culture maintained by grown adults who refer to everything from pop stars to pens as "daddy".

Most of the videos feature users filming them self while lip-syncing or acting out sketches using songs, effects and sound bites from just about any other medium they want. This may sound familiar to its predecessor, Musical.ly, that was acquired by the Bejing-based tech company, ByteDance, that already owned TikTok and absorbed it in August 2018.

The first thing that stood out to me about these e-boys was that they felt extremely familiar. Even while watching compilation videos of them winking at the camera and pretending to choke themselves, a hazy feeling of dj vu compelled me to continue watching.

These boys knew that they were hot. In some of their most popular videos on TikTok, e-boys show off their good looks, highlight their bone structure and other features many of their peers would find attractive. They smirk, roll their eyes and touch their faces in ways that are extremely suggestive.

Of course, no one really accredits the invention of the e-boy trend to Timothe Chalamet. My familiarity with the e-boys is possibly just because trends are recycled over and over again with a slightly different filter and shared on a different social media platform.

The style that e-boys are sporting is clearly not brand new and even the meaning of the title e-boy has changed over time, so we should investigate their female counterparts in order to understand them better.

Now, e-girls are taking back the identity and making it into something new and different. Almost meshing all of these concepts together into one type of women, E-girls are now the cool girls of the Internet, well at-least, TikTok.

Because modern e-boys and e-girls are characterized by their emo fashion sense as well as their presence on social media, we can look to the evolving emo culture for some possible answers to our burning questions.

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