Is There a Prerequisite for Living a Soft Life?
I'm asking for a friend.
In between rebranding posts and calls to ease into the new year, there’s been an increase in “soft girl” content. However, there seems to be different definitions for it. There’s the girly aesthetic side, but then there’s the more introspective stance. Sometimes the two intersect and it’s assumed that it’s business as usual.
So, what is a “soft girl?”
Towards the end of 2023, Glamour released an articled called “The Soft-Girl Revolution: How Young Women Are Rejecting ‘Girlboss’ Culture for a Life of Leisure” that aimed to properly define a supposed ‘new’ phenomenon. While the era of Girlbosses like Sophia Amoruso (former founder of Nasty Gal), Leandra Medine Cohen (former founder of The Man Repeller), and Audrey Gelman and Lauren Kassan (founders of The Wing) started to come to an end a few years ago, there was still a widespread desire to climb the career ladder. But, burnout became something people weren’t afraid to talk about and then whispers of choosing the “soft girl” life came into play.
Based on Glamour’s research, living a soft life means “breaking away from the grind to focus on your own well-being is held up as the bastion of success and the women who leave the corporate world to do things like traveling abroad, going to work as an innkeeper, or living ‘off grid’ are #goals.”
Does everyone feel it’s realistic?
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t label a few pieces of content as “soft living” or something similar, but I’ve been thinking about the accessibility of it. There are times I’ve noticed the TikTok algorithm labels videos in the same niche differently based on who is creating them. For example, I came across this video that starts with, “Welcome to my new series ‘She’s Soft, But She’s Disciplined…” and the search at the bottom appears as ‘self care black girls’ on my end. That one is a little less inflammatory, but I’ve seen other videos with ‘ghetto’ in the search and it’s always odd that you hardly ever see that on the content of creators of a different demographic.
That being said, further digging on one Reddit thread reveals how some Black women feel about the “soft girl” life. The OP said, “If anything, if we choose this lifestyle..we should be doing this for ourselves and not to stoke a mans ego and make him feel like he is the leader.”
Other responses include:
“…these 30 second clips don't really say much about how to get from A to B and I'm gonna assume the vast majority of them are just faking it.”
“…I feel like Soft Life as a trend is more in retaliation to the world as a whole always expecting black women to be able to handle more, handle worse and do it all with a smile.”
“…do your thing focus on relaxation, leisure pursuits, space to explore hobbies, unlocking your creativity and spending time in and around nature but if its a goal to center romantic companionship by becoming 'soft' you may want to slow down.”
Is there a prerequisite to live a soft life in today’s society?
Sigh I recently had a conversation with someone about how it feels like some of us live in alternate realities. For example, not everyone can afford to take vacations after being laid off because dwindling financial accounts and the threat of homelessness are real. It’s the reality that we’re all one to two life situations away from losing things we’ve worked hard for in an economy where the job market is shaky.
While it’s nice that some people are rejecting the push to hustle themselves to the point of exhaustion, what happens when people are in a position where they have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet? Do they even have time to think about being soft by certain standards? This also brings to mind the conversation about how some people feel like others should prepare better as if the powers that be haven’t been consistently moving the needle every chance they get.
Does this mean a certain demographic can afford to participate in the surface-level aesthetics of the “soft girl” life? Or does this mean the approach to it should go beyond that if someone chooses to partake in it?
The Final Takeaway
The ideology behind having a soft life or being a soft girl feels like it’ll always be subjective. Depending on which side of the internet you’re on, some people may be for it while others are vehemently against it. You may not feel the need to put a label on how you choose to live life whether you create content or not. Maybe doing so doesn’t rub you the wrong way.
No matter which side of the fence you stand on, it seems the ideology is here to stay for now. However, I wonder if people will turn their backs on it like they began rejecting the once beloved “Girlboss” era.
TBD.