Tomboy GF Analysis
Why do people on the internet want a tomboy gf?
The ideal GF meme spawned countless forms, some were clearly jokes, but others, like the Mommy GF, and the subject of this video, the Tomboy GF had popular success, they spoke to a real desire in the memer.
The Tomboy is tough, physically active, confident, she embraces the desirer, challenges them physically, doesn’t engage in the usual feminine rites like makeup, but is ultimately loving. She is often depicted as the “girl next door”.
In my video on the Ideal GF, I explained how the internet becomes a vessel for Anima projections. The projected Tomboy GF is an important counterpart to the Mommy- anima, she is the embodiment of the masculine side in women, what Jung called the Animus. While the mommy GF is a product of early childhood family dynamics, the desire for the tomboy is a product of later socialization.
But Tomboy GF memes are framed a bit differently than other desired forms, the tomboy is almost unattainable, thus the “need tomboy” meme. It's not just that this form is desired, but that it is difficult to attain. Why is this? There were plenty of tomboys around when the desirers were children. The problem is that the "Tomboy GF” is antithetical to the internet, an active sporty woman isn’t spending their time online. This ideal GF is a compensation for a striving for the outside and for physicality. While the desiring poster or weeb imagines a tomboy, in reality they themselves are stuck in a contorted illusion, while their anima, their soul, is outside playing.
The nonexistence of the digital tomboy is significant, it means we need to distinguish between the childhoods of those who made media depicting tomboys, and that of the guys online who want a tomboy gf. Many will recall playing with a group of boys and a girl, a friends sister, or just a neighbor who wants to join in among the boys game. A girl who wished to be “one of the boys” and often did end up being included as one of the boys. This is a universal phenomena. As the anima is formed by our childhood experiences, it’s no surprise that many were depicted in media.
The problem comes with the increasingly common tragic modern childhood, that of protective, overbearing parents who do not allow their child freedom to play outside and socialize naturally. They are all too happy to let their children remain inside, online, or playing video games. Preventing them from ever forming the necessary, all important early childhood friendships that define our character. Rather, the internal world of this child is built up of media and fictions.
One of the oldest archetypal romances is that of the “girl next door”. For the young fellow who grew up isolated, there is no real girl next door, only the internalized female characters from his media, who as soon as he matures take on a sexuality that would have been reserved for real people in the past. In this way the tomboy GF meme is the ultimate slap in the face for young men who were deprived of socialization by devouring parents.
Many of you commented on the last video knowing the Mommy GF would be related back to the Digital Anima, but this one is a twist! The real life devouring mother caused this particular projection, and while it of course occurs within the Digi-mom’s chtonic realm, it really is a remnant of childhood issues.
Let’s take a look at the psychology of the Tomboy herself for a bit.
Jung explains Tomboys with the idea of the Electra complex. I explained in the Mommy GF video how males exist within the Oedipus Complex, of a comforting mother and threatening father, and opposite is true for women, they reside in the Electra complex, where they are comforted by their father, who provides a heroic image, while they compete with their mother for his affection. Depending on the outcome, the girl will either accept her being feminine, and work to find a man of her own, or will become a “daddy’s girl”, who happily takes on masculine characteristics and indeed becomes one of the boys.
While the daddy’s girl and momma’s boy are both forms that result from complexes, they present legitimate paths toward individuation. By being separated from their sex, and living androgynously, if the individual is strong enough, they will have overcome the childish gender wars nonsense that pervades culture today. It’s ironic that a girl who is close to her father would be inoculated against larger and more threatening devouring fathers, but it is the case. The same goes for boys who having been close to their mother, overcame it, and were protected from the cultural devouring mothers. When you are blind to a complex, you are Infinitely more susceptible to it.
We can examine the maturation of the collective anima through the transformation of religious forms over time, as many of the earliest cultures held maternal goddesses highest, fertility idols who were themselves large, when cultures began to mature and become agricultural and faustian, new goddesses arrived, especially less maternal goddesses. Goddesses that were huntresses, or full of arcane wisdom, who represented love itself, witchraft, etc. Each of these is a differentiation and individuation, a progress from the base mother goddess, therefore the Tomboy is necessarily a matured form of the anima.
No video on Tomboys would be complete without reference to Freud’s penis envy. So let’s take a look at penis envy. The idea is that Electral girls, who witness a penis, and realize they are lacking, out of a desire for individuality seek out a symbolic phallus. This is why tomboys would enjoy playing sports and fighting among the boys, as it allows them to express their symbolic phallus. This idea is highly criticized as sexist or dated, but there is clearly a degree of truth to it, especially when one consider the existence of womb envy in boys, a desire for the woman’s ability to create life.
So girls with penis envy want to be seen as strong individuals, and boys with womb envy want to produce and create beyond themselves. I won’t get into it here, but childhood toys and games provide ample support for these interesting ideas.
A tangential meme that relates to this divide between daddy’s girls and girls who get along with their mothers is the “Bruh girl” vs the “Hiii girl”. The bruh girl is characterized as more vulgar and masculine, not necessarily one of the boys, but someone far more comfortable with them. As well as someone generally more low effort, not dressing up. The hit girl is generally more refined, feminine, and “girly”. Sometimes even a “mean girl”. This is humorously compared to girls who are stoners, vs those who do coke, a generally ‘higher class party drug.
I’ll close the video with a look at a figure, Blair recently tweeted at me regarding a post Justin Murphy had made about guys with feminine traits doing well with women, a commenter noted Gabriele D’Annunzio as a good example of this. Those of you who have seen my reading list know who he is! This is a very accurate assessment, as D’Annunzio provides the perfect character I described earlier, one who is a “momma’s boy” who overcomes it, but has still formed a good relationship with his anima. He was adored by his mother and father, thought of as angelic, and after moving, held onto the confidence imparted on him, while not remaining at all sentimental to his family, indeed, he went on to bed over a thousand women. He was slight and relatively effeminate. A true romantic! He often sought women who were taller and stronger than him, and had no trouble doing so, because, as I have said many times, he was a man who danced with his anima! This can also be seen in the exploits of Casanova, who was known to crossdress in pursuit of ladies, and who was more a mercurial fox than a rough and masculine character.
In this concept of dancing with your anima, or in a woman’s case, dancing with her animus, we find the ideal natural androgynous equilibrium. Where men embrace their innate feminine characteristics, and women embrace their innate masculine characteristics. Not in a performative way, but in an effortless individuality, one unaffected by societal notions of gender.
All desire is compensatory. The isolated boy wants the free girl. The free person wants to be oppressed. We naturally project our opposites into alien forms, that we either want to fuck or fuck up. Individuation is the process of consolidating these projected contents into our self. Everything that we have cast into the world, and into other people and ideas, is fought for as a treasure. And when we are whole again, we are free from the angels and demons that these unrecognized parts of ourselves became. Memes are clear snapshots of what we collectively project into others. Every form produced out of collective hatred, is ultimately a product of self loathing. Every desire, a product of something we lack. It’s important to recognize the function of memes, and to remember, memes matter.