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Overused Words and Phrases There are always trends floating around, and these often originate on the internet. The trends can be with anything - fashion, music, books, but recently I’ve noticed certain words and phrases being overused and oftentimes I feel that these words have lost or become disconnected from their original meaning. Words and phrases related to mental health and abuse have always been misused and overused, words like ‘narcissistic’, ‘sociopathic’, ‘bipolar’ etc., the list is literally endless. Gaslighting, by definition, is a form of abuse, described as a victim being manipulated into doubting their perception of reality. The term is often used by people when another person disagrees with them, or when someone is being insensitive or ignorant towards them, obviously these are not nice things to experience, but they aren’t gaslighting or abuse. Gaslighting is something that happens gradually over a long period of time, often in very close or intimate relationships. Terms related to mental health and abuse need to be treated very carefully - when used in the right context they can be so useful to a victim in claiming a sense of authority by putting a name to their experience. But when these words are thrown around and used incorrectly, it can cheapen the word and make it harder for victims to make sense of their experiences. The term ‘pick-me’ has gained traction in the last year, particularly on TikTok, where users act out the common traits of a pick-me girl or call out female celebrities for being pick-mes. I first heard the term a few years ago in feminist commentary YouTube videos - the idea is very similar to ‘Not Like Other Girls’, and it is used to describe a woman who acts unpleasantly towards other women to appear more desirable to male partners. I’ve noticed people on TikTok, and in real life, throw around this word, using it as a name to call women they deem overly annoying or ‘quirky’. It’s often used in situations where men are not even involved so it has nothing to do with gaining their approval, making the phrase basically redundant in this context. Identifying a woman’s actions as harmful to other women is valid, at the same time I’ve seen people mocking and ridiculing these same ‘pick me’ women and
citing harmful patriarchal stereotypes. Both people in this situation are reflecting their internalised misogyny and are just as bad as each other. I’ve seen people calling girls ‘pick me’ for eating a salad, suggesting the belief that anything a woman does is for the approval of men; a classic misogynistic trope, these ideas are harmful and perpetuate the already high standards that women must live up to. Policing women’s behaviour in this way is reductive and helps no one. I believe that we need to look at the pick-me within all of us and have open discussions about the topic of internalised misogyny; we are all victims of misogynist rhetoric because it is so deeply ingrained in our culture. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud developed a theory called the Oedipus Complex, where a young boy will unconsciously desire to have sex with his mother and envy his father for his sexual relationship with the mother. Carl Jung built on this idea with his theory of the Electra Complex. Sometimes these complexes are unresolved for whatever reason, in the case of the Electra Complex, it results in a woman being submissive and hyper-sexual, in other words ‘daddy issues’. These ideas are highly contentious and rooted in heteronormativity and gender roles. Unfortunately, the narratives around the concept of ‘daddy issues’ still seem so intertwined with the theory of the Electra Complex. There are now whole subcultures dedicated to the romanticism of daddy issues, it seems that this may be because men fetishize women with daddy issues, they assume a woman will be more sexually promiscuous and more eager to please. At the same time, women with ‘daddy issues’ are seen as untrusting, jealous, insecure, and needy. Throughout all of this, ‘daddy issues’ are constantly framed as a woman’s problem that should be dealt with by women, yet it fails to acknowledge the cause; a neglectful, emotionally distant or even abusive father figure. Not to mention that anyone, regardless of gender, can experience the trauma associated with a neglectful parent of any gender. ‘Daddy issues’ is a catchall term that fails to identify the nuances of dysfunctional parent-child relationships, where a child re-enacts the same unhealthy attachment in their adult life.
Otty Allum I find that the way TikTok functions inherently perpetuates the spread of misinformation and the overuse of these mentioned phrases, on every level, not only when it comes to things like mental health, abuse and misogyny. We can see this, for example, in the alarming turnover rate of fashion trends, or the absurd virality of songs, I’ve seen people constantly complain when something they like becomes popular as they fear it will be ‘ruined’. On one hand I think that sharing ideas, art, information etc. is a good thing, however, the problem with TikTok is that the platform becomes saturated, the production of content becomes less about sharing and more about getting views and money by using the algorithm. There’s so much misinformation present on the platform being viewed IMAGE: FLICKR by teenagers and preteens, who make up the largest percentage of TikTok users, they may struggle to think critically and sensibly about information offered to them. These phrases like ‘gaslight’ and ‘daddy issues’ are tied to negative situations and sometimes even trauma - they are words that should not be thrown around so flippantly. It is cathartic to apply a name to an experience, particularly a negative one, however, people need to proceed with caution. Often these words are associated with the negative experiences of women and feminine people carried out by men. I find it interesting, firstly, that we use such general and catch-all terms to describe actual abuse, not only that, but it identifies the way in which we frame male violence against women as a women’s problem.
Heartbreak and Meaningless Club Snogs The title of this article could be the name of the latest ‘The 1975 Album’ or, as my mum amusingly said, the title of a trashy novel based on my experiences (thanks Mum). I arrived at the University of York last year believing I had already met the love of my life in a Freshers group chat, it turned out very quickly as first term went on that was not the case. Since then, I have been trying to find what I thought was missing - it has not gone well, and as the title suggests, has led to a lot of heartbreak and meaningless club snogs. I found university to be such a minefield when it comes to relationships. There are those who find a serious relationship, then of course there are the oft-disastrous consequences of ‘flatcest’, there are people who have what I call a fairly libertine attitude to sex and relationships, and there are people who
are trying to manage long-distance, just to give a few examples. Trying to navigate this whilst staying true to myself was a very hard task, not helped by instances of my own naivety and stupidity admittedly. My advice to the reader would be to absolutely prioritise yourself, don’t do anything for the sake of getting into a relationship or even just getting some ‘action’, it will save you a lot of hurt for something which is not worth it even if you do get a cheeky kiss in Salvos. My final piece of advice would be that it really doesn’t matter if you don’t find a serious relationship whilst at university. Whilst I portion a lot of the blame on myself for simple boyish stupidity, I do think social media creates unrealistic expectations, splitting university into an unrealistic binary between endgame relationships or sleeping around every club night, when in reality it is a complex, diverse stratum. Relationships do not automatically equate
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RELATIONSHNIP EDITOR OTTY ALLUM DEPUTY RELATIONSHIPS EDITOR position VACANT
Jacob Bassford
happiness. For some, true love can be something that evades one for a long time - if that’s the case with me, I am completely okay with that. Some find their soulmate at 18, some at 50. Sometimes the pain can be worth it, but sometimes it is not. I have had an amazing experience thus far at university regardless of my shambolic love life, I am enjoying my degree, I live in a good house and I have a really good group of friends for life that I have found whilst here at York, and I will always have that, regardless of my relationship status when I graduate.
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