Scrunchies, Hydro Flasks, baggy T-shirts and shell necklaces are some of the common known qualities that make-up a VSCO girl image. The recent VSCO girl trend has been popularized all over the internet influencing girls to fall under a certain stereotype. 

VSCO was first created in 2012 as a photo editing app for other social media platforms. However, in 2016 the company added a social feature to the app allowing people to create profiles, post pictures as well as republish them. From then on, the app’s reputation grew bigger and bigger creating the VSCO girl trend. 

Senior Gracie Rodlund said she first downloaded the app in eighth grade to use as an editing app for her photos until she saw her friends posting pictures and republishing others and started doing the same.

“Now I use it [to] edit all my pictures on it, and then I’ll like post the ones that I like, and it’s almost like Instagram in a way because you can favorite people’s pictures and republish them,” Rodlund said. “I feel people post like it’s a second Instagram, almost [all] people post pictures that they want to post, but they don’t post on Instagram … I just think it’s a cool way to keep up with people.” 

Similar to Rodlund, freshman Sophia Keyser said she came across the app while browsing through the app store one day and decided to download it for fun.  

She said she now uses the app for relationship goals, quotes and posting pictures of her and her friends.

“I really like how it doesn’t show your followers or how many likes you get on something, because I feel like right now it’s just a really big problem when you have a number of followers or a Snap score or something,” Keyser said. “And  on VSCO, it’s just a way to share pictures you like without that number.”

Junior Ella Wallace said she also likes the way the app hides the number of followers and people you are following to others. She said she posted pictures on the app mainly in the summer around the same time she heard of the VSCO girl trend.  

 “I heard about it over the summer seeing it on TIK TOC …all the girls making the weird … point of view videos of each other, that’s when I started realizing it was a trend,” Wallace said. “And then when I got back to school, it just got worse because I started making friendship bracelets like two years ago, and I would make them on my water bottle, and I was like ‘oh no, I don’t want to get made fun of.’” 

According to dictionary.com, VSCO girl is “a term generally used as an insult for a young, usually white woman, who posts trendy pictures of herself edited on the VSCO app.” 

Sophomore Kendyl Cook said she describes herself as “kind of a VSCO girl” because she has some of the qualities that fit the stereotype such as owning Hydro Flask. She said she believes there are a lot of girls out there who fit the VSCO girl personality but deny that they do. 

“I would call myself a VSCO girl, but I really don’t,” Keyser said. “I’ve had to hide my Hydro Flask and get a new water bottle, and I stopped typing ‘sksksksk’ when I text because I don’t want to get bullied.”

Rodlund said she doesn’t intentionally try to be VSCO and that it was something that just happened because she owned a Hydro Flask, wore baggy T-shirts and Birkenstocks. She said she doesn’t act like one, but has the qualities of becoming a VSCO girl.

“When I think of a VSCO girl, I think of middle schoolers,” Rodlund said. “They…want to be… just someone that thinks they’re older than they are. I just remember [in] middle school wanting to be a high schooler and that’s what VSCO reminds me of, or wanting to show that you have this perfect life.” 

Unlike Rodlund, Wallace said her definition of a VSCO girl was someone who had all of the qualities of a “basic white girl,” thinking the trend was just renamed to VSCO girl trend. 

“I see a ton of people with Hydro Flasks [at school] plus, I have a Hydro Flask even though I don’t use it,” Wallace said.  “I’ve had a Hydro Flask longer than before it became a thing, but I feel like everyone is kind of a VSCO girl in their own way, because we all have friendship bracelets, we all have Hydro Flasks and everybody makes fun of each other. But it’s like we’re all VSCO girls in a way.”

 Keyser said she thinks others are jealous of the way girls are choosing to express themselves when they haven’t figured out how to show off their own style yet, so they take it out on others. The style has key traits of a VSCO girl and has brought a lot of new things to fantasize over.

“I feel like the trend brought a lot of the relationship stuff to VSCO, and like all the cute pictures of …couples, which it made me feel left out, but I also really liked it because I’m like, ‘oh, I want a VSCO boyfriend,’” Keyser said.

In addition to the VSCO girl image, new slang terms: “sksksksk” and “and I oop” were adopted as part of the trend.

“‘And I oop’ is like if you drop your Hydro Flask, it’s like ‘and I oop sksksksk,’ and ‘sksksk’ is also my initials. It’s just like when people spam the keyboard but, it’s just, ‘sksksksk’ you know, it’s just like a more put together way,” Keyser said. 

Wallace said she remembered hearing “and I oop” in a video of a person with a wig on. She said “and I oop” is another meaning for “oh no” and “whoa that just happened” often said when people are in shock. 

Rodlund said the sayings are sometimes used to make fun of the VSCO girl trend.

“I always… hear someone,  drop their Hydro Flask in the hall and I’m just like, in my head, ‘and I oop’ and I’m just making fun of like, the whole VSCO girl thing,” Rodlund said.

However, Rodlund said people should feel free to do whatever they want.

“If you like the whole big T-shirts, Hydro Flasks, like, do what you want to do, because there’s always going to be people out there that are going to hate what you do,” Rodlund said. “But it’s like, [as] long as you’re confident in yourself  I think you [can] do whatever.”

Cook said she thinks the VSCO girl trend will last until the end of the school year. However, Rodlund said she disagrees and thinks it will last longer than that, for a couple more years to come. 

“I don’t think it’ll be necessarily called ‘VSCO girl trend,’ I just think it’ll be like what teenage girls are their whole [life]” Rodlund said. “I feel as the years have gone on, girls have gotten more confident in themselves and they feel confident enough to wear baggy T-shirts, no makeup and messy buns to school, which is awesome. So, I think that’s just something that will be a new normal.”

|ishapatel