The Nihilist Femcel Manifesto, or, the Nihilist Femcel Aesthetic and its Implications, or, The Rantings and Ravings of a Self-Identified Nihilist Femcel

a statement of beliefs / general TW

Life in this society being, at best, consumed entirely digitally through Internet memes and girlblogger manifestos, and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to craft and to identify with fabricated online personas, in which they find like minded communities to perpetuate misandry, experience the innate sorrow of womahood, and destroy all allusions to the idea that there exists a world in which a woman need not perform, for her God, for her audience, or for herself. 

The Nihilist Femcel Manifesto seeks not to delve into patriarchy and/or sexism and/or feminism because it is to the eternal knowledge of the Nihilist Femcel that such things as these are simply the facts of life. The first lesson in Feminist Theory Class is that oppression is not a theory, and it is something that exists and has existed and will exist. The Nihilist Femcel Manifesto examines how that realization and internalization of such patriarchal oppression has established itself within the young women who, having grown up on the Internet as it exists and has existed, form and join online communities to cope with this reality. 

The Nihilist Femcel encompasses the different niches in online communities that run parallel to each other in terms of feeling and aestheticism. This “edgelord” brand of feminism has emerged as a typology of womanhood in the post-ironic humor of the current online landscape overwhelmingly populated by Gen Zers. 

The Nihilist Femcel typically encapsulates a smart, sardonic, slightly sad young woman who is hyper cognizant of herself and her place in society, and in the practice of subverting traditionally “serious” subjects, turns her existence into a self aware joke.  

Instagram: @bellaswansmemepage 

I. INTERNET STUDY 

The Internet and Internet culture itself has brought forth online communities since its very inception. Originating with online chat rooms, the youth of yesteryear were at grave risk of encountering any such number of pedophiles or nefarious actors which sought to destroy (or at least, to endanger). The 90s-era infomercials forewarning this harm have all but dissipated into the creation of street-smart teenagers that seek to live their lives online, because it is the only thing we seem to know how to do. Gen Zers were raised on these earlier days of the Internet, and have witnessed its evolution as we know it today. 

An expedited account of Internet meme history originates with their elementary iterations version in the 2000s, a “relatable” era in the early to mid 2010s, an absurdist variety in the late 2010s, and today in the early 2020s, a post-ironic format in which a meme is, generally, seldom to be taken at face value. Memes attempt to make jokes out of the mundane or the macabre. These themes are particularly relevant in the memes consumed and circulated by, at present moment, an overwhelmingly Gen Z user base. 

As opposed to the Gen Alpha “iPad Baby” affliction, or the Millenial chat room liability, Gen Z’s collective generational experience is influenced in large part by our interactions with the Internet and social media as tweens and teens, our digital literacy, and our relationship with meme culture. A quick survey of contemporary meme culture proves to any semi-coherent adult that these memes exist in every corner of the Internet. No matter where a meme originates, be it Twitter (now “X”), Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, etc. the jokes are regurgitated and retold onto so many platforms that any pair of functioning eyes can have the opportunity to see them. Memes have thus become Generation Z’s primary mode of communication, as they cross inter-net avenues and are publicly broadcasted. 

The nature of the meme is to be humorous; the nature of humor is to inspire camaraderie. Gen Zers use memes as a means to speak to one another, though they may never come into direct contact in the “real” world. 

Memes, in their most archaic form, featured characters which were generally understood to have a specific meaning (Bad Luck Brian, Scumbag Steve, Grumpy Cat, etc.). These memes consisted of the same image, and usually had text on the top and bottom of the picture, of which was adapted to fit into any situation the maker of the meme was trying to comment on. An essential component of the meme is that it can be tweaked in ways which alter its content, but keep its connotation intact. A meme only becomes a meme when it reaches such a level of circulation and popularity that it achieves a shared sense of meaning across individuals; in other words, it must be funny to many people, and to people who otherwise share nothing in common. In this way, memes can be instrumental in the creation of community. Meme page admins (people who run meme accounts) post the memes which are most relevant to their niche. This categorization of memes attracts Instagram or Twitter users who are interested in those niches. Communities are then formed with, within, and around those meme pages.

Today, children grow up with slim metal tablets rife with blue light and Roblox mere inches from their faces. Those youngsters with unbridled access to YouTube may stumble across a Cocomelon or Fortnite gameplay video overlaid with a smutty soundtrack or intercut with a scene from a slasher film (Google: Elsagate). There is no question that this should damage the psyche, if not the intelligence, of the generation whose name “Gen Alpha'' will one day perhaps come to be regarded with irony. For now, the youth currently coming of age is and will for the time being be the most important, as young people are accustomed to. This cohort’s unique neuroses and quirks are the subject of cultural criticism, psychoanalysis, and stereotyping, as much as the Millenial’s laziness, the Boomer’s entitlement, or the Xer’s resentment. Gen Z’s defining trait may soon be identified with their collective nihilism. What makes the memes of this era unique, and what marks them with a uniquely Gen Z affectation, is the presence of post-irony.  

Instagram: @paglianhorror

II. MEMETIC NIHILISM 

The worst philosophy major douchebag you knew in college would say that the philosophy of nihilism is often misunderstood and misdefined by people who intend to use it to describe a generally pessimistic, glass half empty worldview. They would say that nihilism is simply the belief that life is meaningless, and that nothing matters in the grand scheme of things; but is this not a generally pessimistic, glass half empty worldview? If life is meaningless-- if nothing matters, and if nothing we do contributes to a greater energy or greater collective human experience, then why would anyone do anything? Semantics be damned, a key component of the Gen Zer’s experience is the hyper awareness of the inescapable pain in the world (many a meme will refer to it, simply, as “the horrors.”) 

Most Gen Zers grew up after 9/11. The tragedy changed the world forever (inspiring an ever present fear of mass destruction and terrorism), and entered the United States into a twenty-year-long “War on Terror.” Gen Zers also grew up during the Great Recession, the era of mass shootings (many of them school shootings, in which we watch kids our age gunned down in the middle of math class), the Covid-19 pandemic which stole immeasurably valuable years of our youth and social development, extreme political polarization permeating every single level of government, tribalism, drug addiction, poverty, ever-looming climate catastrophe, and, the difficulties that go beyond the external and affect the mind (Gen Z has incredibly high rates of mental illnesses like anxiety and depression). It is Gen Z’s way of coping with this bleakness to make fun of the situation. When there is no use in crying, one has to laugh. A situation is so absurdly depressing that it becomes comical. 

Modern day memes, as previously stated, are overwhelmingly post-ironic in content. Post-irony, as best defined by Urban Dictionary, is “when the speaker is ironically being ironic.” The Gen Zer’s post-irony often contains a layer of nihilism. It can then be assumed that Gen Z, as the creators of these memes, have a generally nihilistic mentality themselves (and this very conjecture has been studied and reported on at length). The shared philosophy of nihilism, or the belief that life is meaningless, may be based in the collective feeling that life is grim. 

Let’s consider, for example, the many variations of a meme in which the OP (“original poster”) laments their not buying a house during the 2008 financial crisis. The text reads something along the lines of, “when you realize you should’ve bought a house in 2008 instead of being in second grade,” usually alongside an image of depressed looking person (i.e. Michael Scott on the swingset). The idea of owning property, though perhaps an essentially colonialist and capitalist idea, is, regrettably, one of the only ways of ensuring financial prosperity and security for an individual in present day society. That idea seems increasingly out of reach for both Millenials and Gen Zers. Both groups have less faith in their ability to buy a home than older generations given the current state of the economy and the earning projections for young people which do not keep up. The meme seeks humor in the objective dejection. Another example is the cycle of memes in which the Internet may posture an anti-hero as their new favorite person. When George Santos was kicked out of the U.S. Congress for being a grifter and a scammer, he became an Internet diva; when Gypsy Rose was released from prison Twitter referred to her as “Queen” and “Mother.” 

The rise of “dark humor” as a means to cope has also emerged as an outlet for fringe communities to perpetuate their own harmful ideologies -- memes can be subject to corruption by harmful groups, like the Pepe the Frog memes which became a neo-nazi dogwhistle. The vast majority of non-evil people, however, still use memes as a way to communicate other shared understandings or subtleties. Post-ironic memes about dark humor have begun to pop up as well. 

Communities are created around this shared understanding and relatability factor, whether a person actively seeks it out or not. The proliferation of algorithms and explore pages that specifically cater to an individual’s Internet activity proves that a person does not necessarily need to consciously enter a community before they can identify with it. 

Because memes are as much of our history, culture, and identity as Generation Z kids as anything, they can be understood as the markers of the Gen Z mentality. The practice of making memes out of objectively bad situations shows a collective unseriousness, but also demonstrates the use of memes as an outlet to deal with the doom and gloom of present day society. Today, almost every meme that is circulated is coated in irony and sarcasm, and would be considered generally unfunny and morally wrong unless the viewer recognizes and understands that it is satire. 

The nihilist mentality may be somewhat of a defense mechanism for Gen Z: while the world is crashing down around us, we might as well get some laughs while we can. The nihilism that emerges in our memes is a further indicator of overall shared experience as Gen Zers in both attitudes and expression. It is important to note that these two factors are the guiding framework for the shared experience at large. Memetic nihilism is the guiding framework for which the Nihilist Femcel owes herself and her community. 

III. AESTHETICISM IN THE DIGITAL AGE 

Nihilist Femcelism, or Nihilist Femcel Culture, or the Nihilist Femcel as she is understood today, is a multifaceted Internet community that has emerged in recent years. The Femcel takes influences from 2014 Tumblr culture, the closely related Sad Girl culture, and, more recently, the concepts of both “female rage” and “dissociative feminism.” All of these cultures, though resting on generally agreed upon understandings of the world and typically shared worldviews and shared interest in media, are first and foremost Internet aesthetics. 

While subcultures have existed in some capacity since the hippies of the 60s, the grunge kids of the 90s, and the emo kids of the early aughts, many have made the observation that the specific typology of “aesthetics” as it relates to online communities are seeming to emerge in a far higher volume than they ever have before, and with a much higher turnover rate.

If much of life at present is lived online, these aesthetics are, in essence, tools used for the creation of online personas. This idea of “living online,” or simply, having an Instagram profile, is described by writer Jia Tolentino as the extension of the presentation of self into perpetuity. Because any outside observer can access the self at any time, one may be inclined to devote a considerable amount of attention to ensuring that the presentation of that self aligns with how they would like to be perceived. 

The Art Hoes of 2018 wore warm pastel colors, with mustard yellow mini Kanken backpacks and listened to Tyler the Creator’s Flower Boy album; those who identified with the Cottagecore aesthetic favored light blouses and long skirts, and favored a return to “slow living.” There are more aesthetics now than one person can reliably keep track of, be it Coastal Grandmother, Fairy Grunge, or Tomato Girl.  While these aesthetics are largely focused on fashion and outward appearances, and translate to the creation of online personas via Instagram accounts, they also aid in the creation of the type of person that identifies with that aesthetic. In the early 2000s, an emo kid might have had scene hair, heavy eye makeup, and an unhealthy obsession with Hot Topic, with the implication that they listen to Panic! at the Disco and My Chemical Romance, and, essentially, are emotional, deep, and have a dark side to them (hence their favoring sad, emotionally charged music, dark eyeliner, and black clothing). The same thought process can be extended to other such Internet aesthetics. 

The Clean Girl aesthetic favors dainty gold jewelry and Aritzia bodysuits, and the Clean Girl is someone who is generally dainty and feminine in the demure sense; she does pilates and yoga, drinks lemon water, and exfoliates and moisturizes daily. Her direct opposite, the Rat Girl, is a girl that stays out late to party, drink, rave, and sleeps in her makeup. 

Essential to identifying with any niche or trend online is the construction of a persona to signal to viewers that an individual belongs in that niche by participating in that kind of lifestyle. An individual participating in Euro Girl Summer will post pictures to signal to her viewers that her life consists of wine on the French Riviera and boat trips off the Amalfi coast, even if she herself is at present in a middle-American suburb. This aesthetic cultivation is subject to fluctuation given the trends of the fashion industry at the time (Tomato Girl Summer materialized when red became the color of the season, leaving one to wonder if these aesthetics aren’t all entirely organic). Aesthetics may even be seasonal: Coconut Girl is for summer and Dark Academia is for fall. 

The Nihilist Femcel, though she may not have a specific wardrobe piece or favorite hobby, still is an aesthetic based on this quality of Internet positioning. The Nihilist Femcel, rather, is wrapped up in the aesthetic of media consumption and persona building. 

Instagram: @femcelsweat

IV. SAD GIRLS & 2014 TUMBLR 

Though the Nihilist Femcel has only been named as such in the early 2020s, she has existed since the dawn (or the eve) of womankind herself. Any woman grieving her sadness, rage, or cynicism can be a Nihilist Femcel; still, the Nihilist Femcel herself is ostensibly a child of the Internet. She must be understood in her relation to the Sad Girl and 2014 Tumblr, the two of which, though different in typology, must also be discussed in relation to each other. The Sad Girl was born on 2014 Tumblr, and 2014 Tumblr owes its identity to the Sad Girl. 

While it is difficult to ascertain which came first between the two, it was in 2014 that writer and artist Audrey Wollen posted an essay on Sad Girl Theory to her blog on Tumblr. She postulated that women could find liberation through their sadness as a means of resistance. Writers have offered that the rise in Sad Girlhood was a direct response to the #GirlBoss brand of feminism that was popular in that day. Either way, the Sad Girl as she is simply, a sad girl, has existed throughout all of human history. Nina Simone and Sylvia Plath are two such women who can be identified within the culture as original Sad Girls, because their sadness was so intertwined with both their art and identities. Additionally, a certain cultural significance can be assigned to the Sad Girl in relation to the performance of womanhood. The Sad Girl is, in addition to being sad, deeply complex and profound; she is complex and profound because of her sadness. 

The romanticization of female mental illness is not new. In her video on the history of the Tumblr girl, prolific YouTube video essayist Mina Le describes Edgar Allan Poe’s immortalizing Annabel Lee. Poe puts his subject, a dead girl, on a pedestal. He romanticizes her death and the sadness within it. In the age of the Internet, this romanticization takes a digitized form. Mina points out that the difference between the glorification of sadness on 2014 Tumblr and the way it had been done traditionally was that it was perpetuated by young women to their peers instead of by men. The sadness, in being objectified, was romanticized; sadness and Sad Girls, were for the first time defined as an aesthetic on Tumblr in 2014. 

Tumblr circa 2014 is remembered by those who experienced it at the time for its glamorization and romanticization of mental illness, the manifestation of which appeared at varying degrees of severity. Posts ranged from an overlay of pink text on top of pill bottles with quips about mental illness, to graphic images of legs and arms with hundreds of cuts in them and the #selfharm tag. Pro anorexia accounts promoted #thinspo. Fringe communities glorified mental illness and self destruction; they were made into aesthetics, and the 2014 Tumblr Sad Girl, beyond being obsessed with her sadness, cultivated her online persona to match. 

In order to signify her sadness or mental illness, the 2014 Tumblr Sad Girl wore dark clothing (likely also a product of the ‘90s grunge revival), and faded into the background of an American Apparel ad, or an image of five teenagers standing next to each other. They also listened to musicians Melanie Martinez, Marina and the Diamonds, The 1975, Arctic Monkeys, and, most significantly, Lana Del Rey. Though today some of these hallmarks of Sad Girlism are little more than nostalgias,  Lana Del Rey has stood the test of time; it might be because Lana had a pioneer role in the naming of Sad Girl culture herself. 

Lana’s debut album Born to Die came out in 2013, and at the time, hevaily relied on the aestheticism of Americana (as seen in the “National Anthem” music video), alongside a slow musical production with haunting lyrics of melancholia. Ultraviolence, her sophomore album, was released in 2014, at both the height of Tumblr fever and the Sad Girl era. It featured a song titled “Sad Girl.” Lana Del Rey has become so intertwined with the idea of sadness, that within her subgenre of indie or alternative pop/rock has emerged another genre, aptly called “Sad Girl music.” It is important to note that while the subject has darker undertones, it is also due to the work of the persona cultivation of Lana Del Rey herself that has let her be the Sad Girl. Taylor Swift writes songs about being sad because of her breakups, but she is not a Sad Girl and likely never will be; pop stars like Swift are meant to be palatable for general audiences. Sad Girls make an active effort to position themselves as sad and, also, as edgy. 

Much in the way the Sad Girl owes her life to 2014 Tumblr and vice versa, the Nihilist Femcel owes her life to the Sad Girl; the Nihilist Femcel is a derivative of these aesthetics. The common thread across all of these online cultures of young women is that which is identifiably angst ridden. Critically, the most important differentiation of the Nihilist Femcel may be that, while the Sad Girl sinks into her melancholia, enough to romanticize it, the Nihilist Femcel laughs at it. She is jaded enough to be friends with it. Though the Nihilist Femcel is aligned with the Sad Girl, they often share similar styles, interests, and dour senses of the world, the Nihilist Femcel purports a level of anger which the 2014 Tumblr Sad Girl does not. 

Instagram: @moonflowerette

V. FEMALE RAGE and DISSOCIATIVE FEMINISM

To understand the Nihilist Femcel, one must understand that the Sad Girl is only part of her identity; as a dynamic and complex woman, the Nihilist Femcel is the way she is because of her young teenage years spent as a Sad Girl. In her early 20s, she is Woman. She has been marked by female rage. 

In consistency with the effects of modern-day word creation and organic cultural nomenclature (the conditions for any such thing emerge, and then they are then named),  female rage has always existed. As such, the concept has had a recent emergence on the Internet, as inspired by Mia Goth’s portrayal of the character Pearl, as well as in other archetypes across media form. Other film examples can be seen in Carrie (1976) and Jennifer’s Body (2007), as well as in the riot grrl era of punk music in 1990s Seattle, girl band Hole, or in Fiona Apple. The idea of female rage seeks to name the generational, “ancestral” frustration women feel from their discontent with patriarchal oppression. What differentiates the slight annoyance from the female rage is the concept of rage itself: it is stronger than ire or anger. It is drawn against the state of the world and, as rage at some point must be externalized, it is directed towards an outside source. Here, via female rage, we see Valerie Solanas, a raging female of the mid 20th century, who penned the now-iconic SCUM Manifesto, and whose words have also been adapted and repurposed to introduce this manifesto. 

The SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto offers a scathing depiction of men by Solanas, suggesting that our world can only thrive and function if men were exterminated from the Earth, as men are responsible for the ills of contemporary society. Solanas, a mentally ill woman who suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, had been physically, sexually, and psychologically abused by men for her entire life. She is most well known for her unsuccessful assassination attempt on Andy Warhol. She shot him because she believed that he had stolen the only copy of her play, Up Your Ass, and so exercised his power as a wealthy and influential man over her. While the women on screen let their rage manifest into violence, we see Solanas embody this in real life. 

The desire to kill is rage in its purest and most undulated form, and also, rage in its simplest form. Rage is what builds up as its host is broken down. Anger, at its core, is a primitive emotion: it is what causes the animal to attack, or the infant to cry. In a civilized society, as individuals are expected to follow any such number of socially constructed and arbitrary rules which have been formed around the manmade conception of “politeness,” a mature and level headed adult should and would not exercise violence over one another. It seems that humans have evolved beyond physical means in favor of free conversation. The Nihilist Femcel, though she may never in her real life take up a gun and shoot at a prolific pop-artist, though she may never scream as Pearl does, or become a cannibal as Jennifer does, will still keep in mind the rage that everyday comes with being a female. In the Nihilist Femcel, female rage exists as the undercurrent of her being, but because of her nihilism and cynicism, she is able to dissociate from it.

Dissociative feminism may be the closest related and the most often mistaken version of post-ironinc womanhood that is the Nihilist Femcel. Of Fleabag and Moshfegh fame, dissociative feminism is more concerned with eyerolling in the face of injustice than in any real effort to change or shape the world. A woman may identify with dissociative feminism in her capacity to be completely above concern related to the patriarchy. She further believes herself to be too cynical to take affront to the fact that life is unfair, and so, she makes it into a joke. 

Take Fleabag, who smirks in the face of abuse. She, who pioneered the culture of dissociative feminism, embodies dissociation in that she separates herself from the external horrors of the world. Instead of internalizing it in a way that allows herself to come to terms with the reality of these horrors, she puts herself above them by making them into a joke. She strips them of their power to harm and instead perpetuates the harm herself. 

The major detriment of dissociative feminism may be just that -- the dissociation with real world, ongoing problems. After all that is said and done to give less power to the gender-based oppression that women face, it is not without noting the utter brutality that is committed against women in every part of the globe, every fucking day (the difference between homicide and femicide is that a homicide may be committed against any human for any reason, femicide is committed against women because they are women). 

A woman may rage at the ridicule society inflicts on her simply for existing. She may ignore or detach from the rage in the background corners of her mind. To be a woman is to be the lone actor on stage of an eternal performance. Contemporary society, however, allows us to choose who we would like to perform as. The Nihilist Femcel, in the crucial construction of her identity, is a Femcel. Moreover, she is a Femcel in how a Femcel performs on the Internet to her peers. 

Instagram: @fairy.bl00dred

VI. PERFORMATIVE INCELHOOD  

The word femcel, subverts the portmanteau of incel. Involuntary celibates (incels) are a class of young men which have are now generally associated with the alt-right pipeline and a woman-hating, Reddit-scrolling, loner loser boy who blames women for all of his ineptitudes, failures, and unsuccesses as a man. 

The concept of an incel might be more ominous, and accidentally turning down a wrong corner of some unsuspecting alleyway of the web, one might subject themselves to an accidental case study in the horrors of the Internet, the horrors of men and how those men interact on the Internet, the likes of which causes one to immediately close their webpage browser, slam their laptop shut, and read an old tattered copy of Seventeen magazine to remind themselves what happiness might have felt like five minutes before. On a more surface level, memetic experience, one might identify an incel by the type of media he consumes, made for and produced by other such incel archetypes. 

Classic incel media can be found in the character of Scott Pilgrim or the discography of 90s rock band Weezer because of their general feelings about women. Interestingly, the Femcel has taken to reclaiming this media. She may seek to subvert the expectations of traditionally masculine movies and “incel” content, with like movies Donnie Dark or Fight Club, and will go to her grave urging others that  Fight Club is in fact a feminist film which critiques toxic hypermasculinity in a late stage capitalist society, and that it is to the detriment of the art piece as a whole that it is so painfully misunderstood by its overwhelmingly hyper-maculine, incel, fanbase. She will also choose cult classics of her own to herald as Femcel media. 

Media as has been mentioned in this piece such as the music of Lana Del Rey, Fiona Apple, Hole, and Nina Simone, the literature of Sylvia Plath and Otessa Moshfeng, the film and television of Sofia Coppola, Fleabag, Jennifer’s Body, and any such other piece of media will also work to the signaling of aesethticism and persona building itself; remember, that consuming media, and in being intrigued and entrenched by a certain pop culture niche, is supposed to say something about the person who consumes it. So it is that, though a person may genuinely enjoy these pieces of media (and she does), there is also the idea that in the performance as a Nihilist Femcel, she performs the consumption of that media. She acts in the performance of media consumption. 

Critically, a Femcel differentiates herself from her Incel counterpart in that she may not necessarily be involuntarily celibate (though some certainly are). Her sexuality seems to be the least of her concerns, and in fact, the type of media she consumes which celebrates her sexuality is the foremost and of utmost importance to her character as a Femcel. Take all of the compounding conditions and identities, and she becomes a Nihilist Femcel. She finds herself online.

Instagram: @atelierlaurenjane

VII. NIHILIST FEMCEL 

If the Nihilist Femcel was simply a nihilist femcel and her life stopped there, what good or what bad would come out of that? She would regurgitate her beliefs to her online community, and then, would there be any movement towards a resolution for women to be liberated from the oppression of the patriarchy across the globe? 

There are several critiques and limitations of the Nihilist Femcel culture and all its influences. The dangers of the romanticization of mental illness on 2014 Tumblr is self-explanatory. The danger in dissociative feminism is that it runs the risk of accidentally absolving unjust systems as they are at face value; it does not help, rather it harms, to accept things as they are and to not challenge them in the name of dissociation. A critique of the Sad Girl is that she is tied to the mold of her place in a heterosexual relationship, in which men abuse women (look at literally any song from Lana Del Rey’s entire discography). Sad Girl culture as it stands today seeks to break down this mold, with other diverse groups emerging like boygenius, a girl band that is as idenfiable with contemporary lesbian culture as it is with Sad Girl culture. It is important to note that the women of boygenius are still three white girls. Sad Girl and Nihilist Femcel culture has a history of being exclusionary to non-cis non-white women. 

A Nihilist Femcel should be interested in the liberation of women from the oppression of patriarchy for women of all types. The association of the Nihilist Femcel with white cis hetero women is to the fault of society at large which allows pretty thin white women to shed their tears and to be romanticized for it, and which does not expand this allowance to women of other identities. Conscious work needs to be done to make space for non cis, nonwhite, non conforming women; it is to the detriment of these online communities that there isn’t representation nor identification with women of differing identities. Additionally to avoid the failures of white feminism, while a Nihilist Femcel may practice some form of dissociative feminism, she must be aware not to dissociate or separate from the real-world tangible issues of intersectionality which harm her sisters. 

There needs to be a demonstrative effort across Nihilist Femcels to not fall into the same traps of 2014 Tumblr or Sad Girl-hood. There needs to be an effort to be cognizant of feminist issues which apply to all women, instead of those groups of women being siloed into another more depressed, more edgy version of white feminism (if it is not #girlboss mugs, then it will be #feralgirl mugs, and what will be the point of it all?).

The culture needs to make an effort to be inclusive of women of color, trans women, women with disabilities, and women of any and all other marginalized identity groups. Many blog posts tag their pictures with #waifcore or are overlaid with images of Lily Rose Depp, emphasizing these white eurocentric beauty standards. This is the death of the Nihilist Femcel, in which she is no longer a self-aware smart young woman, but a vulnerable and naive girl inflicted by internalized misogyny and so therefore complicit in the oppression of her sisters of intersectional identities. 

Nihilist Femcels therefore supersede any and all types of identification via the confines of gender binaries, racial hierarchies, and political parties (FYI the Western political system will never save you). Critically, a Nihilist Femcel must do work on her own. 

The Nihilist Femcel is so because of her history as a 2014 Tumblr Sad Girl, which leads her to enjoy “edgier” media and pride herself for her taste in sad girl literature, music, film, and etcetera, in addition to being one that is afflicted with female rage, that has matured into a woman facing the reality of patriarchy which has been in part coupled with the Gen Z nihilism that leads her to become a dissociative feminist, though, if she is smart and if she is thoughtful, she will reject all defeatist ideas and so she will be a Nihilist Femcel. 

A Nihilist Femcel must, lastly, identify as such. She cannot be given that label if she does not choose it. She must be willing to wear it with pride, and to understand what it means to be a Nihilist Femcel as boldly and as brash as she wishes to be. She must follow this blog. 

Instagram: @final.girl.boss