No E-Girls

By Joe Badalamenti

While I usually don’t write about cultural issues, for the sake of the “sex issue” I’ve decided to make an exception. When looking back on the last year since the previous sex issue you could see that there’s much to talk about, from debate about banning porn to recent scandalous Super Bowl performances. However there was one thing that stuck out to me recently, and that’s e-girls. Yeah that’s right, the rest of this article is gonna be exposing (pun intended) the dangers of e-girls.

Although the word “e-girl” stands for “electronic girl,” it refers to a type of female (usually someone popular) found on social media sites such as Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and, most commonly, the popular live streaming website Twitch. E-girls typically get attention through dancing and interacting with viewers while wearing lewd outfits. While many will refer to some e-girls as “emo” this has nothing to do with the subculture and is probably only used to express their “depression.” Another characteristic of these e-girls is that they will surround themselves with subservient men. These men go by many names (beta, soyboy, simp) but I’ll refer to them as betas for simplicity. These betas interact with these e-girls (online or in person) through a series of submissive behaviors. These behaviors range in severity depending on how subservient they are. One behavior called “whiteknighting” occurs when these betas defend e-girls from trolling, negative criticism, or any other perceived threat. Additionally, betas will give cash to e-girls via Twitch donations, premium Snapchat subscriptions, and other electronic media. The rewards for donating can be as innocent as subscribing back to the donor, or as obscene as sending lewd albums or hundred-dollar bottles of “gamer girl bath water.” So why is any of this important? After all, no one is getting harmed and the e-girls are making a profit. Although this may seem insignificant, these relationships are toxic and if left alone can become harmful in the long term.

Let’s start with the e-girls first. So many of these e-girls probably see what they do as a job or even a career. This is probably because of the amount of money that can be earned from streaming or selling access to their premium Snapchats. Now there is one major problem with this attitude. The first problem is the unreliability of it. Unless you’re someone like PewDiePie, being an online entertainer is a very unreliable source of income. This is mainly due to the uncontrollable nature of online popularity. As mentioned earlier, online entertainers such as PewDiePie are able to stay popular and relevant because of their character as well as putting up content of consistent quality. The problem with e-girls is that, by definition, their main appeal isn’t their character but rather their physical appearance. While this can be profitable, viewers looking for this kind of entertainment will most likely move on to porn as it is more explicit and less expensive. Thus the popularity of e-girls would realistically resemble that of a fad where they experience a short term boost of fame only to eventually fall into irrelevance. This happens because without variety, viewers and fans will eventually seek content of higher quality. The unreliability is even worse when considering the effect of social movements such as “cancel culture.” But what about an e-girl that transitions into something less shallow such as comedy or some other passion? Well if someone were to do this then they technically wouldn’t be an e-girl and will have a much better shot at retaining popularity. However, until they shed the label of “e-girl,” they will be no match for the alternatives.

Now let’s move on to the betas. The entire experience for these betas is similar to watching porn. The main reason why porn is bad is because frequent exposure to pornagraphic materials affects the brain in a way that is similar to a drug addiction. For instance, if you consume an opioid drug such as heroin, the drug acts on neurological receptors in a way that changes bodily function and leads to dependence on that substance. With porn, viewers can experience the pleasure of sexual arousal instantly, eventually leading to addictive behavior. With that being said, watching e-girls comes with the added bonus of paying actual money for either slightly more revealing pictures or goodies such as “gamer girl bath water.” So as you can see these betas are wasting their (or worse, their parent’s) money on someone that they’ll never meet in their lifetime. Now this is the definition of a toxic relationship. While this may not be the case for all, the most likely explanation I can think of is that the internet has warped the minds of these betas. This has had such an impact on their brains that the only way that these betas feel they can have a true relationship with a female is through these e-girls. However their situation is not hopeless. If a beta would take a break from this life and find a hobby then maybe they’ll see things differently. But if that doesn’t work then maybe my co-writer Musclini might have some advice. 

As it turns out both being an e-girl is risky and supporting them (through watching their content) is extremely unproductive. Now that you’ve read this article, you can get back to doing non-e-girl related things. Have fun with your newly productive life.