You may remember its successors – Main Character Energy, Hot Girl Summer, Lucky Girl Syndrome… But this year, I’ll see your Barbiecore and It Girl Aesthetic and raise you an unfiltered form of self-preservation: your Villain Era.
Spoiler alert: this doesn’t involve actually committing crimes, the name isn’t really as insidious as it sounds, and we’re not asking you to trade in basic human decency for immorality. But so many of us – myself heavily included – become terrified of setting certain boundaries in our lives because we’re used to being people-pleasing doormats.
Of course, being nice can be positive, and kindness never goes amiss, but where it becomes a problem is when you’re made to feel bad for exercising any type of autonomy over your decisions. Well, this is a call to arms to step into your self-worth.
In order to gain entry into the “Villain Era,” you must reclaim the time and energy that you devote to everyone and everything else, and give it back to yourself. Feeling b*tchy is a natural side effect of entering your villain era. You’re finding that new balance between authenticity and self-protection after years of succumbing to societal pressures to always play nice.
A concept attributed to a quote from Sydney Sweeney‘s Euphoria character, Cassie Howard (“Well if that makes me a villain, then so f*cking be it.”), this is, at its very core, a viral mental health trend that has become synonymous with asserting boundaries: it is the antithesis of people-pleasing.
Getty Images
I am in full favour of this me-first behaviour. Last year I began feeling like I was giving too much in certain relationships, and I stopped asking for what I really wanted. Turns out, you can actually speak up for yourself without feeling like a mean or a terrible person. The key thing to remember is that you’re breaking an old habit, and as they say, old habits die hard.
With over 80 million hashtags on social media (of which I attribute approx. half to myself), platforms like TikTok are acting as an instructional forum — as it so often does – to encourage people like me to reimagine a world where they don’t need to be liked by everyone at all times. To-do lists are now called ‘kill lists’, and there’s a celebrated shift from clean, green, and motivated, to chaotic, wildly fun, and ever so slightly unhinged. The majority of users using the #VillainEra hashtag are pushing against gender-based stereotypes – not surprising, considering that it is historically women who have shouldered societal pressures to be “nice”.
@lauren_bulloch Welcome to your Villain Era… time to ruthlessly edit our lives. ⛓ Thank you for the inspiration @Payton Sartain , check her podcast for the episode!! 🖤 #villainera #villainera2022 #selfgrowthjourney #noexcuses#greenscreen ♬ Super Freaky Girl – Nicki Minaj
This is not a green light to abandon your friends, stop showing up to work, or just generally be an a**hole. This era is about choosing yourself, setting boundaries, and living life like you’re the main character. And that’s definitely something I can do.