Event | GIRL ONLINE – Symposium

Event | GIRL ONLINE – Symposium
Date: Friday 16 May 2025
Time: 14.00 – 21.30
Location: SPUI25, Spui 25-27, Amsterdam, and online
Registration: https://forms.gle/LP2E2mJnkZrep6Ja7*
Credits: 1 ECTS

* The program is free for students attending for credits.

For better or worse, performing as a girl online can be a powerful way to subvert the algorithm. And thanks to the whiplash of the girlboss epidemic, a meeker and cute self-image is taking hold. Trends like girl math, babygirl, and girl dinner reflect a tendency across genders to self-infantilize, with a growing resistance to industrialized understandings of adulthood, often tied to economic strains and shifting life expectations, particularly amongst younger generations.

At the same time, the notion of girlhood itself is being questioned, reframed, and adopted in online spaces. As AI isolates our feeds even more by sorting us into predetermined categories, labels influence how we’re seen—and how we see ourselves. With machine learning gradually influencing more of our daily lives, how will our online actions and self-understandings change as a whole?

Join The Hmm on their first ever Symposium! Girl Online, a full day programme on girl trends, self-infantilization, girl as a strategy in digital spaces, and the future of girlhood. 

Thanks to NICA, RMA students and PhD candidates can join the afternoon program free of charge and earn 1 ECT. You can choose between attending the workshop “Ink Your Online Identity” or the collective reading group “Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl,” followed by attendance to the afternoon panel.

Please use this form to register: https://forms.gle/LP2E2mJnkZrep6Ja7

If you have any questions you can write to Natalia Sánchez Querubín at nsanche1@uva.nl, New Media and Digital Culture MA, UvA.

We have limited spaces, so don’t miss out! 

If you want to join the evening program too, The Hmm is offering special student tickets on their website

Afternoon programme — 14:00 – 17:30

Today, we often shrink ourselves online. Where the girlboss of yesteryear was on her grind to “have it all”, we now see a pushing off or deflection of our responsibilities: we’re just girls, don’t expect us to cook a full meal every night (girl dinner) or be financially literate (girl math). This trend of self-infantilisation is being embraced by men as well, who are posting about their boy apartments instead of man caves, well into their thirties. In a series of short talks and a panel discussion, we’ll explore why we tend to infantilise ourselves online. What is at the root of this phenomenon? And what are the advantages of this tactic?

14.00 – 15.30, Workshop — Ink your Online Identity

14.00 – 15.30, Reading group — A collective reading session where we’ll delve into selected passages from Tiqqun’s text Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl

16.00 – 17.30, Panel — Self-infantilization with Maya B. Kronic, Mela Miekus and Mita Medri, and more…

Evening programme — 19.00 – 21.30 

Online, ‘girl’ is less a gender than a strategy—playful, ironic, and vulnerable behavior performs well under the algorithm. For this part of the program, we’ll explore ‘girl’ as a marketing tool, a power move, a form of desire, and a proven formula for online success. But is this strictly a product of today’s media environment, or does it echo earlier representations of girlhood? And what does the future of the girl look like in a world shaped by neural media? 

Expect a keynote lecture by K Allado-McDowell, an interview with Martine Neddam, a performance by Mireille Tap, and more…