My Year of Rest and Dissociation: The Anti-Feminist Feminism of TikTok

Graphic by charlotte lawson

The newest brand of “it girl” is fading herself away, and it’s not helping anyone.

Those privy to a certain highly feminine side of TikTok in 2021 and through to 2022 will know the narrator of Otessa Moshfegh’s acclaimed novel “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” (thin, blonde and attractive despite her deliberately near-comatose state) alongside Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag (brunette, messier, hypersexual and dislodged from reality) as symbols of a woman proclaiming to be going through a distinguishable phase. The anonymous depiction of these deeply flawed, externally unlikeable characters allows their majority-female audience to place themselves in their twisted minds. Young women are permitted an escape from the under-satisfying and uncool options of either social justice warrior (a disparaging term for someone who promotes socially progressive and liberal values, particularly in a way that is disingenuous or, worse, cringe) or girlboss (a (now ironic) term for the feminist who will hustle, grind and “lean in” to achieve capitalistic success in male-dominated fields). In their despondency, they are invited and allowed through these aesthetic symbols to take a rest, to clock out — at least until the end of one’s “Fleabag era.” 

Arising from the optimistic yet comfortable peace of white, liberal feminism, an ideology ultimately more interested in serving capitalistic patriarchy than any true liberation, this incoming sect of young women has responded to the futility of their foreseen feminism by lying down, zonking out and achieving a balanced messy hotness the TikTok algorithm will reward. Through the media they purport to consume, these young women curate an appearance of trendy nonchalance: their tastes are “problematic” in the eyes of liberal feminism (think Lana Del Rey and “Red Scare” podcast) and an alternative to the flashy materialism of pop culture (the Kardashians are used only to numb the brain further, rather than as aspirations). No longer is it cool to try and make the world or your life better, let alone actually engage in it, because what hope is there? These young women are intelligent and have had every opportunity to care about social justice, to get into the arts or make it in the corporate world. These young women, typically of a leftist lilt, are exhausted not only by the burden of capitalist patriarchy but by the failures of liberal feminism. 

I will concede: leaning in to a state of serious depression and being able to glamorize it, not only to a level where it is acceptable but to a place where it is praised, is an appealing path. In 2019, Emmeline Clein for Buzzfeed first wrote on this phenomenon, noting the dark sarcasm she and her friends had turned to, and coined it “dissociative feminism.” Like Clein and so many others, I have joked about giving in to fatigue, coping with poor mental health with humor and apathy and wishing myself to be lobotomized. Like these girls on TikTok, like the characters they emulate and fictional madwomen before them, I’ve spent swathes of time crushingly depressed and less than super engaged in my own life. I understand that to not only be able but also encouraged to romanticize one’s suffering is a welcome release (soundtracked to Fiona Apple’s “Paper Bag,” of course).  

Also like these TikTok cool girls, I really enjoy the art they relate to. I’ve watched both seasons of “Fleabag” at least four times, loved “My Year of Rest and Relaxation” and, yeah, sometimes I will listen to the podcast “Red Scare.” I’m writing this to the sounds of Lana Del Rey instrumental covers: “I’m a sad girl / I’m a bad girl / I’m a bad girl.”

I also can’t help but notice the racialized element of the trend: Its participants (at least many of those I’ve seen) appear to be mostly white. Like Moshfegh’s narrator, like Fleabag, these women are young and conventionally attractive; they are slim and wear almost-messy slivers of eyeliner. Why is this the way so many white girls have responded to their environment? This is just another branch of white feminism, ultimately vapid, unproductive, self-serving and willfully apathetic in the truest sense of the phrase. They are rewarded for their downward spiral, while those identifying as Black, Indigenous and people of color, poor people, and those beyond the prescribed standard of TikTok beauty cannot afford apathy and non-participation. It reminds me of “weaponized incompetence” — a buzzword for TikTok feminists — where a man might feign a lack of skill to get out of doing a task, like housework. These white, “dissociating” feminists are holding up their hands and saying, “There is nothing I can do about it; the world is just too fucked up for me to help. I’m going to have a lie-down.”

While acknowledging dissociation as a symptom of mental illness and trauma, separate from TikTok, I really worry about the dangers of this trend in the name of feminism or coolness. It might even be likened to the surge in eating disorders brought about during mid-2010s Tumblr. To aestheticize and justify inaction associated with extremely poor mental health and to idolize characters who categorically treat family and friends with disdain and self-centeredness will only cause the spread of such damaging behavior and mentality. 

It would be far from an exaggeration to suggest that apathy and docility are built-in components not only of TikTok and the internet, but also of capitalism and patriarchy as a whole. To be so pacified that no horror phases us and made too tired to do anything about it if it did assures oppressors that they may comfortably remain empowered. The de-realized, disconnected ideology (if you can call it that) of dissociative feminism also satisfies the capitalist, neoliberal desire for individualism and itemization. I don’t think that for young women to welcome the embrace of the void, to withdraw themselves from society, is as much an act of resistance as they may conceive it to be. Dissociative feminism isn’t feminism at all: It is a collation of images and symbols that allow white women on the internet acceptance into a certain brand of cool and permits them to stay depressed and comfortably subdued. 

Dissociative feminism is a symptom of a culture that has replaced care, community and love with power, money and material gain. In her book “All About Love,” bell hooks quotes philosopher Cornel West: “Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses, it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquested by a turning of one’s soul. This turning is done through one’s own affirmation of one’s worth — an affirmation fueled by the concern of others.” 

Being a person is fucking hard, and it’s fucking horrible sometimes. But I’d like to give our daughters and sisters a world they want to be a part of, where they can laugh and love, as opposed to one so bitter they must whither themselves away in an effort to spare themselves from it. 

 The film adaptation of “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” produced by Margot Robbie’s film company and directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, will eventually be released. My wonder is where on the ideological pendulum contemporary feminism will reside when this day comes. I can only hope.