TikTok’s memes like ‘girl dinner’ or the Roman Empire are exhausting

The first TikTok I watched made me cringe. This video was a recent trend in which women would interrupt their boyfriends working at their desks and record their response by entering the room while naked. Given my general interests at the time — which consisted of watching edits of anime characters playing volleyball and rewatching clips of Persona 5 Royal — the trend appeared wildly out of place on my For You Page.

The platform has seen a rise in trends that relate to stereotypical performances and stereotypes of cisgender and heteronormative roles. Some trends are linked to stereotypes of men and women in relationships, while others are essentializing experiences and identities of one gender, which often excludes queer identity and relationships. The prevalence of these TikTok trends gives the illusion that a very specific experience is universal among “regular people,” which feels especially insidious. It’s not just a movie or a television show peddling gendered ideas, but anyone with the app.

I couldn’t even begin to catalog them all, but there are some clear trends. The first are the videos that make fun of things girls allegedly do. We have “girl dinner,” where girls throw together a shabby collection of snacks and call it dinner. Then we have “girl math,” where women describe the complicated mental gymnastics that lead them to spend too much, or seem unable to manage their finances. And while some of these videos lean into gendered stereotypes, some of them do push back against certain norms — like girl dinner videos portraying women who publicly refuse to cook the perfect meal for a partner.

My feed has also been flooded with TikToks of women “improving” their male partners. There is the “someone cooked here” format, which can be used to imply that women are the source of betterment in men or teach men basic hygiene practices. While on the topic of girlfriends, I’ve recently begun to see videos cataloging the “girlfriend effect,” where women help their male partners dress better.

While each trend has a unique twist, all of them find humor — and relatability — in certain homogenizing narratives about what it’s like to be a girl or boy, or the roles men and women play in heterosexual relationships. In this way of thinking, men do certain things: dress poorly, don’t know about hair conditioner, and think about the Roman Empire. Women, on the other hand, don’t know how to do math, shop too much, and help men become prettier.

It’s hard to know exactly why these formats feel like they’re everywhere, but it’s probably because so many users engage with them. We don’t know the precise nuts and bolts of how TikTok’s For You Page algorithm works. Investigations and leaks revealed that TikTok tends to promote videos based upon engagement. This includes time spent watching, comments, saves and likes. This means users don’t just see TikToks related to their interests, but ones that have gone viral, creating a platform where wide swaths of users will be shown the biggest trends.

These kinds of videos likely become trends because they’re easy to make. This gives the user a template that can be used again and again. A person doesn’t need to be an editing genius or good at dancing or even appear on video. It is as simple as posting photos or a slideshow of the way your boyfriend looks before and after your relationship. It is possible to participate without having original ideas or content. With each video that is uploaded, this trend grows.

It’s important not to demonize the individual creators who participate in these trends. TikTok gives people rewards for taking part in gender memes. These memes can also bring attention to issues underlying heteronormative and cis-normative relations. According to heteronormative norms, women are expected to be able to prepare meals and act as a homemaker. In girl dinners, women can challenge this stereotype by making buttered pasta and serving it alongside carrot sticks or Cheez-Its.

But it’s still aggravating to get served this content as if these stereotypes are universally applicable when they aren’t. Of course, not every girl eats “girl dinner.” Women can most certainly do math as well as men and definitely can be Roman history buffs. Straight men will dress nicely if that’s their cup of tea.

These trends can also erase people who don’t fall neatly into the gender binary. Trans people obviously can relate to human experiences like cooking dinner, but the app hasn’t created viral moments out of such videos. Queer users, however, have transformed TikTok to a resource that allows people to connect online, create a community and share information. Users can still find ways to bend trends and use the algorithm in their favor, even if they are normalizing them. So while I might not be a fan of the girlfriend effect, maybe I’ll entertain a video about the “coming-out effect,” where a queer person documents their glow-up after they came out.

Browsing social media like this is a drag — who wants to see the same kind of joke video recommended to them three times in a row? But there’s also a social impetus to recognize the impacts these trends could have on TikTok’s many users.

TikTok reports that 150,000,000 people in the United States use this platform. If we understand the gender binary as a social construct and not as a biological fact — which leading scholars do — we need to pay attention to how media shapes gender expression. Politicians introduce new types of anti-trans legislation every week. Now more than ever, it is crucial to know how the gender norms of the U.S. government are communicated.