NLOG= not like other girls.
When I was younger, I was what you consider a girl who was, “not like other girls”. I thought I was cool and unique because I felt different from most girls. Grant it, other girls reminded me that I wasn’t like them because, according to them, I wasn’t pretty enough or not being feminine enough and not having the latest trends geared towards girls. I hung out with the nerds and weirdos, and the few male friends had use to tell me, “you’re different. You’re not like other girls” as a compliment. I would actually be happy about this because girlhood was often portrayed as boring in media. Films and television shows made it cool to be a girl who’s not like other girls. Even girls who were considered “not like other girls” used that to make fun of themselves because they considered themselves inadequate when it came to other girls.
In the past few years, the internet started using a new word for girls who thought they were different, “Pick-me”. This term originated in african-american vernacular english (AAVE). A “pick me” is a girl or a woman who thinks that she’s better than other girls and people believe that Pick-me’s are the same as NLOGs. However, NLOGs are different from women and girls who are considered “pick me’s”.
NLOGs, while knowing they don’t really fit in with other women, aren’t necessarily doing it for male attention and they are not really trying to compete with other women. NLOGs are pretty much the awkward girl, the nerdy girl, the tomboy, or literally just girls who are seen as shy, quiet, and doesn’t really light up room. While NLOGs are left in girlhood and grow older and wiser, Pick-me’s, are a more extreme version of NLOGs. They compete with women and adhere to the misogynist rhetoric that men spew about women. They do so by making themselves seem superior towards other woman and they shame other women in the process. This is just so they can appeal more to men.
Pick me’s tend to follow traditional gender roles and are victims of internalized misogyny. They’ll typically gloat about how they are “wifey material” because they cook and clean. They make fun of other women just for doing fun stuff like clubbing, drinking, or dressing in a “scandalous” way. They even blame women for the sexism that oppresses them. They think feminism is outdated and the modern version of feminism just hates men. They believe men have it harder than women in this world and even think men are the true victims of society even though statistics, data, and just…logic will prove otherwise.
Because they feel superior to other women, they don’t help women who are trying to build themselves up. They don’t mind shaming and degrading other women just to get the approval of men. They typically make themselves the voice of all women when they agree with a man who says something sexist or misogynistic. One example of this is the word “Female”. If there was a group of ten women who say they don’t like it when men refer to them as female, instead of women or girls. Then one of those ten women comes out to say, “well, I don’t find a problem with that word.”. Pick-me’s put way too much value in men and finding a man. Making it seem like everything that women do, we do for the attention of men.
Now, NLOG’s have probably slut-shamed women and thought it was cool to have guy friends. However, NLOGs just really took pride in not being full-on girly girls. They never felt accepted into girlhood, sometimes they were even bullied by their peers for not adhering to the status quo. And while NLOGs liked being accepted by men, Pick-me’s are often trying to appeal more to men. I know this because the popular girls use to make fun of me for not being girly enough. It’s ironic because the same girls that use to make fun of me for being an NLOG are the same ones have turned into pick-me’s.
With that being said, as a NLOG in my youth, I thought it was cool to be different from other girls. However, when I became an adult I realized that women and girls aren’t a monolith, we aren’t all just the color pink and lipgloss. We are a multifaceted sex. We could be dykes but wear make up, we can be gothic but still love bright colors. We could be into trending fashion but still play violent video games. We are all different in our own way. And while there are still women out there that feel superior to other women in some manner, sexism and misogyny is here to remind all women that regardless of what we do, we will never be respected by men nor will men accept us as equals. Instead we should help build each other up. Instead of shaming NLOGs and pick-me’s we should teach other women about internalized misogyny instead of shaming them for their ignorance because we we’re probably pick-me’s and NLOGs at some point in our lives.
@theneverbroken, copyright 2021.
Never Broken 