Look around. The girls are not alright. One swipe on Instagram, and you'll see an army of influencers so identical it's like a Mary-Kate and Ashley clone experiment gone rogue. That is, if you're not watching women crying in car confessionals while narrating every bad date like a congressional hearing. Or, young, attractive girls pushing bizarre get-rich-quick schemes that make you wonder if they need to blink twice for help. And this is on a good day. There's the relentless culture war with people ready to die on the hill that there is the one, and only one, correct way to be a woman. If things take a dark turn, you may also accidentally stumble into the corners of the TikTok momosphere where droves of women are throwing inanimate objects at you and declaring women like Lindsay Clancy their heroes . Just girls being girls, apparently! It's no wonder women are having an identity crisis. Gone are the days of the Valencia filter and strategizing your Top 8. Dollz Mania walked so the influencer with a ring light and an affiliate code could run. It's no wonder women are having an identity crisis. Their personalities are increasingly being chosen for them and fed through their devices all day long. In this copy-and-paste hellscape, you start to wonder if you're crazy when everyone dresses the same, reads the exact verbal cue cards, and is performing "authenticity" at just the right angle against a perfectly lit backdrop like they're shooting on the Paramount lot. In a world that reinforces and rewards this conformity, having an individual identity actually becomes radical. That's why the most empowered and, frankly, sexiest and boldest form of womanhood may now simply be developing a personality offline. But honestly, you didn't have to be Miss Cleo to see this coming. I was in the epicenter when and where this all took shape: Hollywood. When I interviewed Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Stephanie Beatriz , she compared our Kardashian-aesthetic obsession to junk food. We knew it wasn't good for us, maybe it made us feel crappy afterward, but we couldn't stop reaching into the bag for one more bite. The difference was that back then, we could see an influencer's surgically enhanced ass poking our eyeballs through the screen, scratch our heads, and move on with our day. Today, the glass separating what we consume from who we become is essentially gone. Apparently, no one took notes when Harry Potter magically made the glass wall disappear at the zoo. Because now we're inside. We are the zoo. Today, the glass separating what we consume from who we become is essentially gone. My conversation with Marvel star Olivia Holt suggested she could already feel it happening. "It's a lot," she told me. "Especially when you're living in a world that's constantly picking at you and trying to make you different." Today, the algorithm doesn't just give inspiration like a Tumblr feed with emo songs minding its own business. It works overtime dictating exactly how to date, vote, decorate a kitchen, or describe your trauma to people who never asked. Nail the hook, and the machine may toss you a few thousand extra views for being your favorite influencer's best understudy. Yes, women have always had questionable influences. Ultrathin supermodels. Sexually suggestive pop stars. Reality stars turning humiliation porn into a business model. Still, there was an unspoken separation. Britney Spears was my idol. I didn't actually believe I was Britney Spears. There's a difference between having influences and being manufactured by influence. The Stepford Wives apocalypse hits different when you hold it up to a treasure we just lost. Dolly Parton was the epitome of the true original woman. Long before influencer feeds or personal-brand consultants, she built an identity so sacred and singular that no trend report could have reverse-engineered it. She was big hair and bigger boobs. A generational talent with sharp business savvy, deep generosity, and a nearly 60-year marriage she largely kept private. She famously modeled her look after the "town tramp" everyone else, including her mom, considered trashy. The world told her what a woman like that represented, yet she saw beauty and freedom and claimed it. No amount of Barbara Walters' vibe checks would change that. Dolly was her own woman. She intuitively understood that femininity can be maternal, sensual, ambitious, domestic, intellectual, irreverent, and contrarian… and sometimes all before noon. She never asked for validation. That is the true antithesis to algorithmic identity. It's the blueprint, or sheet music, for the true cool girl. The modern cool girl doesn't need the internet to hand her a script. She can admire other women without actually becoming them. She can confidently live against the grain, or enjoy something simply because… she likes it. The best part? She doesn't need validation or permission from anybody. The world does not need another perfectly curated female specimen. When I was young, my mom gave me a card that said, "Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken." It always spoke to me. Now it's like a rallying cry. Because when you are genuinely different, the world will do everything in its power to talk you out of it. It'll scrutinize, shame, and slap you on the wrist with disapproving hot takes and shadow bans. It'll make you question everything. That's why the most powerful thing you can do now as a woman is reject the algorithm's authority altogether. To truly step away, disconnect (after reading Evie , of course), and be your own person when no online tribe is applauding. The world does not need another perfectly curated female specimen. It needs more women who simply won't be defined by the algorithm. Women who set their own rules. And make everyone else catch up.
