What Happened to Gyaru?

It feels almost quaint, in 2025, to talk about gyaru as a "living" subculture. Sure, there once was a time when gyaru was something alive and complex: a youth culture driven by aesthetics and fun-seeking, informed by popular Tokyo trends as much as by any urge to push back against Japan's social and beauty norms. It wasn’t a political rebellion (most gyaru abandoned the style by their mid-twenties, slipping back into conventional respectability), but for a brief moment, it offered an unruly, fashion-based alternative to what was expected of young women. 

Somewhere along the way, though, what was once a loud, oftentimes gaudy playground for young women (more about chasing trends and nightlife than any radical feminist agenda) was flattened into a marketable costume. Today’s mainstream gyaru is polished, influencer-friendly, and far removed from the chaotic scenes of girls who once embraced the style simply because they loved how it looked, spending hours and paychecks to go out with their friends, rather than building an online cult of personality.

It’s an inflammatory claim, but I’ll make it: gyaru, as we knew it, is dead. Not in the literal sense; there are still girls who bleach their hair, tan their skin, and pile on lashes. But culturally, gyaru functions more like Heisei cosplay, a retro aesthetic Japan (and Western devotees of Japanese fashion) resurrect to sell nostalgia, divorced from the nuanced realities that once surrounded it. The most visible faces of gyaru now are influencers, “talents,” and models who perform an algorithm-friendly version of the style.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in Japan itself, the birthplace of gyaru. Shibuya (once the heart of gyaru) is now home to a so-called “gyaru school,” where teenagers pay to learn how to market themselves. They slip into kawaii seifuku, practice applying makeup, taking selfies from the best angles, and study the basics of social media strategy. It’s easy to be cynical about it, especially when the promise of becoming an “influencer” is packaged as an aspirational end goal. However, it’s not entirely bleak: the school also offers English and Korean conversation lessons. And in a world that increasingly runs on content, learning to edit and build a personal brand can open real doors. Still, there’s something disheartening in seeing gyaru (once a style worn out in public for the sheer joy of it) reshaped into a formal training ground for influencer culture.

I have to ask: is this all that gyaru is now? A gimmick to set you apart on social media? A training ground for future influencers? The short answer is yes, at least in the mainstream and at least online. Gyaru has largely been reduced to a set of visual signifiers, optimized for TikTok’s discover page and Instagram’s explore algorithm. It’s a look you can buy, a persona you can take on and off. The reckless energy that once defined it, the cliques that loitered around Shibuya 109, the at-home bleach jobs that left hair feeling like straw, the money spent on sunbeds and tanning lotions, the cheap plastic accessories stacked high because more was always more, has been replaced by a commercial pipeline that prioritizes online attention over everything else.

Subcultures have always risked this fate. Dick Hebdige (a near fixture around here, given how often I bring him up) wrote decades ago about how subversive style inevitably gets stripped of meaning and repackaged for mass consumption. Fashion is an industry, after all. Someone always profits from outsider aesthetics. But there’s something uniquely hollow about the current incarnation of gyaru. It’s become content. Its chaotic vitality now competes (and loses) with the cold logic of platform capitalism.

You can see it everywhere: from thoughtful YouTubers trying to maintain integrity to someone like MrBeast, who’s turned the platform into a hyper-optimized spectacle machine. I don’t doubt he genuinely loves making videos. That doesn’t make his content any less soulless. It’s just how these systems work: they reward whatever keeps people watching, clicking, and sharing. So, of course, the edges of whatever you’re doing start to smooth out or exaggerate in ways that fit the platform’s demands. It’s simply the tradeoff when you build a version of yourself meant to be consumed.

This is something I’ve written about before: how platforms like TikTok and Instagram are structurally hostile to real subculture. They reward trends that are easy to replicate and sell. They flatten complexity, favoring reproducibility over authenticity. A true subculture doesn’t fit neatly into short-form video or a Twitter (X) thread. If anything, it resists being packaged at all.

Does that mean gyaru is gone completely? Not exactly. It exists now in much the same way it always truly did: within the people who really fucking love it. That might sound crass, but it’s true. And to be clear, I’m not pretending that even the most devoted gyaru (past or present) weren’t also hungry for attention or validation. They absolutely were. But there’s a fundamental difference between chasing that attention on the streets, risking confusion or ridicule from people who don’t get it, and performing for an online audience that’s already primed to approve. The gyaru who are still out there today might be seeking eyes, just like their predecessors, but now, your look doesn’t have to stand up to strangers on the sidewalk. You can craft it for a curated niche, post it, and never have to step outside at all.

Real gyaru (the kind that still has teeth) doesn’t live in curated feeds. It survives in the personal thrill of putting it all on because it looks cool and you love it, in wanting to be gyaru for the sake of gyaru itself. 

So few gals these days are gal purely for the love of it, which is exactly why gyaru feels so watered down. Not because making money off it is inherently unethical, but because it comes at a cost. The moment you monetize your gyaru identity, it divides in two: one that’s personal, and one that exists to meet financial and platform demands. And once you start garnering a bit of money or attention, the commercial side almost always takes precedence. That’s simply the nature of turning something into a job: it stops being driven purely by personal passion and becomes accountable to metrics, audiences, and algorithms. Your decisions start to hinge on what generates income or visibility, not just what you genuinely want to do. It doesn’t mean you stop caring about gyaru, but it does mean your relationship to it fundamentally changes.

Of course, not everyone who monetizes or chases attention is some cartoon sellout. Plenty just adapt because it’s what keeps them visible, relevant, or rewarded by the platforms they’re on. But it’s still a shift worth recognizing: once your identity as a gyaru becomes tied to online validation (whether through likes, followers, or brand deals), the way you engage with it inevitably changes. That’s the real tragedy, not that people want to be seen, but that this is what being seen demands.

Since gyaru is, for all practical purposes, dead as a street culture, most people now learn about it online. Historically, gyaru was transmitted through embodied, co-present interactions. The subcultural codes were largely cultivated on-site, learned through immersion in spaces where social meaning was constructed collectively and reinforced through direct, in-person experiences. 

The rise of what sociologist Frank Furedi calls “bedroom culture” has only accelerated this shift. Where gyaru was once inherently public, it can now be performed entirely within the confines of a private room. Media technology has enabled a hyper-personalized practice of gyaru, one that doesn’t require stepping outside or risking the judgment of strangers. On the surface, this might seem empowering: everyone is free to interpret the style however they wish. But pushed to its logical extreme, this relentless personalization fosters a kind of hostile individualism. Any suggestion of shared standards or communal aesthetics is treated as an imposition. You see it clearly in the unwillingness of some to learn the technical foundations of gyaru makeup. They’d rather “do it their way,” and expect the broader community to simply accept it. That might be harmless if it stayed private, but of course, it doesn’t. It’s broadcast online, framed as gyaru, and defended fiercely against critique. In this way, bedroom culture hasn’t just privatized the practice of gyaru; it’s fragmented its collective meaning, turning a once socially negotiated style into a series of solitary declarations, each demanding recognition on its own uncompromising terms.

These solitary declarations don’t exist in a vacuum; they circulate through digital channels. Tutorials, coordinates, even the social rules of gyaru are mediated by platforms that favor clear, replicable content. This has produced an entirely new vocabulary for what it means to be gyaru, one shaped by the influencer economy. It’s almost as if today’s gyaru and the gyaru of the past aren’t even speaking the same language anymore. Perhaps that’s why so many veterans have quietly stepped back. Even if they still consider themselves gyaru, they no longer engage with the community in the same way, because the community they knew has effectively vanished. And how can you participate fully when the very terms of belonging (the cultural codes, references, shared understandings) have been rewritten into something almost unintelligible? 

“Reading” as Gyaru: Identity, Interpretation, and the Semiotics of Style in the Gyaru Community

“What does it mean to read as gyaru... and who gets to decide?”

What does it mean to “read” as gyaru?

In fashion and subcultural theory, to “read” a style is to recognize its signs and symbols. The visual shorthand that signals membership in a particular group. Gyaru, with its roots in 1990s Shibuya, is a style that has always shouted: dramatic tans, exaggerated makeup, bleached hair, towering platforms. It's not a whisper. 

However, when a visual language so closely tied to a specific cultural and racial context is taken beyond its origin, particularly into the hands of non-Japanese participants, the rules of recognition shift. And in that shift, something interesting happens. 

Within the gaijin gyaru community, a noticeable pattern has emerged: to “read” as gyaru, non-Japanese participants often adopt a relatively uniform appearance. This is not a critique. Instead, it’s a reflection of how subcultural belonging relies on being legible and how, for many of us, legibility comes through certain aesthetic choices that are more likely to “translate” across cultural boundaries.

The Semiotics of Style and the Quest for Legibility

Japanese gyaru exists within a specific visual and cultural ecosystem. Within this space, aesthetic cues (such as bleached or dyed hair, deeply tanned skin, and dramatic eye makeup) are read against a shared backdrop of Japanese fashion history, beauty standards, and media tropes. As Dick Hebdige argued in his seminal work, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, subcultural dress functions as a form of visual resistance, but it is always contextual. The meaning of the “sign” depends on who is reading it and where (Hebdige, 1979). 

Within Japan, gyaru emerged as both a visual and cultural response to the rigid norms of femininity, modesty, and conformity. As Yuniya Kawamura notes in Fashioning Japanese Subcultures, Japanese youth subcultures are often driven by consumption and style, but they also express subtle acts of rebellion through aesthetic distinction (Kawamura, 2012). Gyaru’s exaggerated beauty (tans, falsies, nails, and attitude) positioned it as a challenge to conservative standards of appearance and behavior, particularly for young women. 

When these same gyaru markers are interpreted outside of their original ecosystem, particularly on non-Japanese bodies, their meanings can shift, become flattened, or even disappear. A non-Japanese person attempting a softer or more refined gyaru style may not be “read” as gyaru at all, simply because the cultural framework necessary to recognize the look isn’t assumed. In this way, legibility becomes a kind of gatekeeper. If you're not "read" as gyaru, you're often not seen as gyaru, even within the community.

“Legibility becomes a kind of gatekeeper.”

As a result, gaijin gyaru often lean into the most exaggerated, hyper-visible iterations of the style: deep droops, exaggerated bottom lashes, stark contouring, and extreme nose stripes. These have become the visual shorthand for gyaru, especially online. They serve as immediate signals, an almost urgent declaration: this is gyaru. I am gyaru.

Importantly, this isn’t about mimicry or caricature. It’s about the semiotics of belonging. In many ways, this pattern is a response to the pressures of visibility, particularly on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or Twitter/X, where attention spans are measured in seconds, and subtlety and nuance often fail to register.

Post-2008: The Evolution of Gyaru and the Rise of Shiro Gyaru

This tendency toward visual extremity is particularly interesting given how gyaru itself evolved post-2008. According to Yuka Kubo in The Last Moments of the Ganguro Tribe: A Study of Gyaru Culture, the ganguro subculture, as a visible presence on the streets of Shibuya, largely disappeared after 2008. 

In their wake, gyaru diversified and softened. By the early 2010s, the style had changed considerably. Shiro gyaru (gyaru who did not tan and embraced paler skin) became increasingly common, especially within softer substyles like himekaji and onee. Makeup began to borrow heavily from mainstream kawaii aesthetics, with pink tones, gradient lips, and more dolly eye shapes gaining popularity (Kubo, 2023). 

Yet within the gaijin gyaru community, the most legible archetypes often fall into two ends of the spectrum: the hyper-exaggerated yamanba/early ganguro-inspired look, or the kawaii-fied, 2010s Liz Lisa-esque interpretation of gyaru. Both offer clear, digestible visual codes. The former leans into the cartoonish, rebellious extremes of gyaru’s early history (though with important limits, such as avoiding the racial implications of blackface that occasionally surfaced in old-school yamanba), while the latter aligns with a more universally palatable version of Japanese femininity, often idealized in export-friendly kawaii culture.

“What’s rewarded is clarity.”

In both cases, what’s rewarded is clarity. The look must be legible not just in photos, but through the filters of global beauty standards, platform algorithms, and the aesthetic expectations of non-Japanese audiences. As Laura Miller writes in Beauty Up, Japanese body aesthetics are deeply tied to sociocultural ideals and performance, and when exported, they are often misread or recontextualized in ways that reshape their original intent (Miller, 2006).

Features, Filters, and the Limits of Translation

Racialized beauty standards also play a significant role in how gyaru aesthetics are interpreted across cultural contexts. Because gyaru was developed by Japanese teenagers and young women in direct response to the expectations of Japanese society, its visual codes (from extreme tans to dyed hair to exaggerated eye makeup) were read within that specific sociocultural framework. These style choices operated as acts of subversion within Japanese norms, often deliberately pushing back against ideals of natural beauty, modesty, or demureness.

As such, the same stylistic markers can carry very different meanings when placed on non-Japanese bodies, especially outside of Japan. A style that once read as rebellious or fashion-forward within Shibuya’s youth culture might be interpreted as cosplay, parody, or aesthetic confusion in a Western context. This is not because non-Japanese participants lack authenticity or effort, but because the “grammar” of visual style is culturally specific. As Roland Barthes noted in Mythologies, signs are not static; they derive their meaning from their social context, and when that context shifts, so too does the meaning (Barthes, 1957).

"The result isn’t a failure of styling, but a failure of legibility within a different visual and cultural system."

In particular, features that align with Japanese beauty standards, such as smaller facial structures, specific eye shapes, or paler skin (in the case of post-ganguro substyles), often shape how successfully a gyaru look is read within Japan. When those same substyles are worn by people with drastically different features, they may not produce the same semiotic effect. The result isn’t a failure of styling, but a failure of legibility within a different visual and cultural system.

This dynamic creates a tension between personal expression and subcultural recognition. For many gaijin gyaru, especially those still developing their style, achieving a look that “reads” as gyaru is an important milestone. It can feel like a form of visual fluency, proof that they understand the codes and can participate authentically. However, over time, this dynamic can unintentionally create an ecosystem in which only certain styles are validated or spotlighted, not because they’re inherently better, but because they’re easier to recognize through the dominant lens of what gyaru is supposed to look like.

Not a Hot Take

It’s tempting to frame this as a criticism and to say that gaijin gyaru have become too uniform, or that creativity has been lost. But that’s not the argument I want to make. 

Instead, I think it’s more useful to look at this phenomenon as a product of cultural translation. When a subculture crosses borders, especially visually dense ones like gyaru, it’s natural for certain elements to rise to the top: the ones that “read” the clearest. This doesn’t mean other interpretations are less valid, but it does mean they may require more cultural fluency from the viewer to be understood. 

And that’s okay. In fact, it’s expected. 

However, recognizing this dynamic allows us to be more intentional, more open to a broader range of gyaru expressions, even if they don’t immediately “read” the way we’re used to. It invites us to question our own biases about what gyaru should look like, and to remember that subcultures, even visually-driven ones, are ultimately about community, not conformity. 

Conclusion

If we can hold space for both legibility and experimentation, for both the clearly coded and the softly subversive, then the gaijin gyaru community can continue to grow in richness and diversity. Reading as gyaru may still matter, but perhaps we can also learn to read more carefully and more generously.

Gyaru has always been a subculture shaped by context: born from a specific moment in Japanese youth culture, it evolved in conversation with beauty norms, gender roles, and social rebellion. When that subculture crosses borders, its signs don’t vanish; they transform. For gaijin gyaru, navigating that transformation is part of the challenge and part of the beauty. What emerges is not a perfect reproduction of Japanese gyaru, but a translation. And like all translations, it involves negotiation, creativity, and the occasional loss or shift in meaning.

“What emerges is not a perfect reproduction of Japanese gyaru, but a translation.”

Recognizing this doesn't diminish the value of clarity or tradition. There is still something powerful in mastering the visual codes that make gyaru legible, especially for those of us who have studied, practiced, and immersed ourselves in the culture out of deep admiration. However, holding space for other kinds of participation (for those who experiment, adapt, and interpret) means acknowledging that gyaru is not a static costume but a living, evolving style vocabulary.

It enables greater access, greater expression, and ultimately, greater longevity. Gyaru has survived because it has always been a little unruly, a little contradictory, and deeply personal.

Further Reading

• Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (1979)
• Kawamura, Fashioning Japanese Subcultures (2012)
• Kubo, The Last Moments of the Ganguro Tribe (2023)
• Miller, Beauty Up (2006)
• Barthes, Mythologies (1957)

why we love gyaru: a closer look at foreign participation in the subculture

This post endeavors to explore how and why non-Japanese (gaijin) individuals participate in the gyaru subculture within online spaces. Drawing on 37 survey responses from foreign gyaru participants (primarily aged 16–17) in the Tumblr-based community A Gyaru's Love, it examines the motivations, experiences, and identity formation among individuals who are relatively new to the subculture. Most respondents have been involved in gyaru for less than three years, with nearly half participating for under one year and a similar number identifying with the style for one to three years.

Through qualitative analysis of self-reported survey data, this post identifies the key factors that attract and sustain interest in gyaru among foreign participants, including the appeal of its fashion and makeup, the sense of community it fosters, and its potential as a tool for self-expression and confidence-building in digital environments.

These findings offer insight into how a distinctly Japanese street fashion subculture is reinterpreted and lived by non-Japanese youth online. This post is presented with curiosity and humility; it does not attempt to speak for the entire global gyaru community but instead offers a focused snapshot of one specific digital moment. I hope it serves as an early step toward a deeper understanding of foreign gyaru participation and identity-making within J-fashion subcultures.

Methodology

To gather insights for this study, I conducted an online survey within a Tumblr-based gyaru community called “A Gyaru’s Love.” The questionnaire was created with Google Forms and shared as a post in the community. In total, I collected 37 responses, providing a modest but meaningful sample of foreign participants in the gyaru subculture.

Survey Design

The survey consisted of 21 questions in a mix of formats: multiple-choice items, scale-based ratings, and open-ended prompts. This combination allowed respondents to both quantify their experiences and share personal stories in their own words. 

For example, some questions asked participants to rate aspects of their gyaru involvement on a scale, while others invited longer answers about what gyaru means to them. By including different types of questions, I aimed to capture both the breadth of common trends and the depth of individual perspectives.

Anonymity and Demographics

All responses were kept anonymous to encourage honest and candid feedback. I did not ask for names or any identifying usernames. However, the survey did collect a few basic details to contextualize the answers, such as the respondent’s age range, nationality, and years of experience with the gyaru style. These demographic questions help illustrate the diversity of the respondents without compromising their privacy.

Researcher Positionality

I want to acknowledge that I am not a neutral third party observing this community from the outside. I am a gyaru myself and an active participant in this scene. My personal connection to gyaru shaped the lens through which I approached this project, and it also influenced how I framed the questions, understood the responses, and interpreted the results. This is not a detached analysis but a community-driven one motivated by curiosity, love, and a desire to better understand the subculture I’m part of.

Scope and Limitations

It’s important to note that the data is self-reported and drawn from a single online community. Because the survey link was shared only through A Gyaru’s Love on Tumblr, the pool of participants is naturally limited to that community’s followers and those who happened to see the post. In other words, this study does not represent all foreign gyaru or the total online gyaru experience. Think of it as a snapshot of one digital community at a particular moment in time. The results capture the voices of a specific group of international gyaru fans, and there are many perspectives that are not reflected here.

Value of a Small Sample

While the sample size of 37 respondents is small and the group is niche, the insights are nonetheless valuable. Each response offers a personal window into how gyaru is interpreted and lived outside Japan, providing the qualitative richness that numbers alone can’t convey. The goal of this methodology was not to generalize all gyaru, but to listen closely to a few and learn from their experiences. Even with its limitations, this focused approach provides meaningful clues about why people around the world fall in love with the gyaru subculture and how they make it their own.

Chapter 1: Who Are the Gaijin Gyaru Today?

@1990gyaruo

When I first set out to do this study, I expected the age range to skew young. In my experience with online and public subcultural spaces, there’s usually a small group of veteran participants, but the overwhelming majority are often newcomers and minors (under 18).

Out of the 37 people who responded to the survey, the majority were between the ages of 16 and 17. This stood out to me immediately. Gyaru has often been seen as a youthful subculture, but it was still striking to see such a strong concentration in one specific age group. This suggests that many of today’s foreign gyaru are discovering the style during their high school years, often at a time when identity is still very much in formation.

In terms of experience, almost everyone who answered had been into gyaru for either less than a year (40.5%) or between one and three years (45.9%). Only a few people had been involved longer than that. This lines up with what I’ve seen in online communities: there’s a whole new generation of foreign gyaru who are just getting started, many of whom found the subculture recently through social media platforms like TikTok, Tumblr, or YouTube.

These stats paint a portrait of a young and newly-involved community, one that’s finding its footing and creating its own version of gyaru online. It’s not necessarily about reviving the past or mimicking Japanese gyaru exactly as it was in the 2000s. Instead, this generation is using gyaru as a kind of toolkit: a way to experiment with beauty, identity, and belonging in spaces where they may not have had those outlets before.

I think this matters. The fact that so many people are discovering gyaru now after it's supposedly “died out” in Japan says something about the subculture's staying power. It also speaks to how online spaces have made it possible for gyaru to continue evolving across borders, with entirely new groups of people taking it in directions that reflect their own lives, values, and aesthetics.

This generation of gaijin gyaru is not purely a nostalgic "throwback." It’s something old and new all at once.

Chapter 2: What Draws People to Gyaru?

Before I ran the survey, I had my guesses about what draws people to gyaru. What I found, though, was a much more layered mix of motivations, even across such a small group of participants.

When asked what first attracted them to gyaru, most respondents selected a combination of:

• The fashion

• The makeup

• The attitude

• Japanese pop culture (like anime, manga, and J-pop)

Many people checked multiple boxes, showing that the appeal of gyaru is rarely just one thing. 

Even from the short answers, a few themes emerged. For some, gyaru offered a kind of fantasy, something loud, feminine, and unapologetic in ways their own fashion cultures didn’t allow or that didn't interest them. Others mentioned how gyaru felt like an escape from minimalist or “natural” beauty expectations they felt boxed in by.

Here are a few standout quotes from participants:

⁀➴“I love how extreme the expression of femininity is. You are a version of yourself that doesn’t need permission.”

⋆˙⟡“I found gyaru through anime, but I stayed because I felt like it gave me permission to be loud and extra.”

There’s something important about that idea of permission. For many foreign participants, gyaru doesn’t just look cool. It offers an alternative way of being feminine, confident, rebellious, or playful with one's sense of style. 

Even for those who don’t feel like they “match” the Japanese standard often associated with gyaru’s iconic look, there’s still something deeply magnetic about the aesthetic. 

While many outside the community falsely assume that gyaru is just about Japanese women “trying to look white,” that couldn’t be further from the truth. Gyaru developed its own bold, rebellious beauty codes, ones that actively resisted the pale-skinned, black-haired, modest femininity dominant in Japanese media. But for foreign participants, especially those in the West, this can create a complicated dynamic. What was once considered rebellious in Japan (tanned skin, bleached hair, heavy makeup) may already be common or even expected in some Western contexts. 

At the same time, gaijin gyaru may feel like they fall outside the “gyaru look” precisely because they don’t share the same facial features or cultural reference points as the original Japanese participants. In that sense, foreign gyaru often walk a line between admiration and adaptation, figuring out how to express themselves through a style that was never designed with them in mind but still resonates deeply.

Chapter 3: Gyaru as Identity & Self-Expression

@paraparamedic

The deeper I went into the responses, the clearer it became: gyaru isn’t just a look for many of us; it’s a way of life. While it might start with makeup and coordinates, it often becomes a tool for transformation. For many of the people who responded to this survey, gyaru has had a real, personal impact on how they see themselves, how confident they feel, how they express femininity, and even how they navigate their own identities.

When asked whether gyaru has changed their self-confidence, the overwhelming majority said yes. Some shared that they feel “much more confident” when dressed gyaru, while others described feeling a little braver, more expressive, or simply more “themselves.”

Here are just a few of the responses:

⁀➴“Gyaru IS my identity, so yes.”

⋆˙⟡“Yes, it allows me to be more free with how I style my whole look and confidence.”

⁀➴“For me pesonally, as a woman who has always struggled with femininity, it really helps me express a very playful feminine side of myself but in my own terms, not as the more normal/expected male-gazy aspect.”

Another question asked whether participants felt that gyaru influences their identity or self-expression. Again, almost everyone said yes. For some, it was about finding their style; for others, it was about breaking free of expectations, whether cultural, gendered, or aesthetic. In several cases, participants described gyaru as a way to hold multiple versions of themselves at once: cute, powerful, loud, soft, chaotic, and curated.

One participant put it best:

⋆˙⟡“I have multiple styles, so gyaru helped me trust myself and my instincts when it comes to personal style. It’s like I don’t have to choose between versions of me.”

Others reflected on how gyaru helped them access sides of themselves that other subcultures didn’t quite make room for:

⁀➴“Gyaru allows me to follow my own path, both aesthetically and mentally. You have to be confident to wear this.”

⋆˙⟡“Gyaru feels most like me. It’s creative and inclusive, which I love.”

⁀➴“The mindset really changes everything for me. I have social anxiety and being in gal helps me combat that a little bit as I try to keep the mindset.”

⋆˙⟡“I have three styles: Vkei, goth, and gyaru. Gyaru is the only one that gives me that specific type of energy. I love eurobeat, so whenever I’m feeling gal, I listen to my eurobeat playlist. It’s the only style that brings pure brightness and high energy and happiness… I think it’s the only style that puts me into a strictly positive mindset.”

⁀➴“It’s so expressive and there are so many substyles, making it easy for people to enjoy and fit in. Most gyarus I know are super friendly!”  

In the question, "What does gyaru mean to you personally?", answers ranged from poetic to playful. Some described gyaru as a “persona,” others called it “a lifestyle,” and several said it was just “fun.” But even in the lighthearted answers, there was a deeper theme: gyaru allows people to be extreme in a world that constantly tells them to tone it down.

⋆˙⟡“I love how it reclaims a lot of things most people would consider ‘tacky,’ like excessive tan, animal prints, short skirts, and colorful accessories... It feels playful and joyful. I always want to party and dance around (even in my room) when I’m dressing gal!”

Whether it’s about confidence, rebellion, or creativity, gyaru clearly taps into something more meaningful than surface-level style. It’s about feeling bold in a world that doesn’t always want you to be. It’s about taking up space, not just physically but emotionally, aesthetically, and spiritually.

Chapter 4: Foreigners in a Japanese Subculture

@gxblinize

Gyaru is, undeniably, a Japanese subculture. Its origins are tied to specific moments in Japanese fashion history, youth rebellion, and beauty politics. So what does it mean to participate in gyaru as someone who isn’t Japanese? How do foreigners (myself included) navigate the line between loving something and living it in a way that might look different from its source?

I asked participants if they felt that being a foreigner impacted their experience with gyaru. The answers were varied. Some said it didn’t affect their experience at all. Others said it made them feel even more excited to be part of something outside of their home culture. A few mentioned feeling excluded, misunderstood, or doubted, especially when it came to being seen as “real” gyaru by Japanese participants or by others in the online space.

One person noted:

⁀➴“I feel more pressure to prove that I understand the style. Like I’m always being watched to see if I’m ‘doing it right.’”

Another said:

⋆˙⟡“Being a foreigner doesn’t change how I love gyaru, but it definitely affects how I’m perceived.”

When asked whether they had ever interacted with Japanese gyaru, many said no, but those who had shared mixed experiences. Some described positive, supportive interactions. Others felt a cultural distance they didn’t quite know how to bridge. This is where the global nature of gyaru becomes clear: it’s no longer just a Japanese subculture but a transcultural one shaped by different contexts, aesthetics, and social experiences.

There’s a delicate balance between honoring the roots of gyaru and allowing it to evolve. Many foreign gyaru walk this line with care, researching the history, crediting their sources, and actively resisting flattening or disrespecting the culture. At the same time, they are not Japanese, and that difference inherently affects how they engage with the style and how they are perceived.

But what came through most clearly in the responses was this: love for gyaru doesn’t require proximity to Tokyo, perfect fluency in Japanese, or flawless mimicry of the 2000s-era styles. What matters most is sincerity, curiosity, and community. For foreign participants, gyaru often becomes a bridge, not only to Japan but to other people like them, scattered around the world and linked by a shared sense of expression.

One participant noted something that I found particularly insightful:

⁀➴"...I feel as though Japanese gyaru is more ‘modern’ and adapts to current trends, while foreign gals tend to stick to the rules of the original era.”

This speaks to a fascinating divergence in the way gyaru is lived and preserved today. In Japan, gyaru has become increasingly hybridized or even folded into more mainstream aesthetics over time. Styles like onee gyaru or gyaru kei in recent years often blend elements of contemporary fashion (soft colors, modest silhouettes, brand-name luxury) into something that’s more socially adaptable. While the core spirit of gyaru may remain, the look has evolved alongside Japan’s changing beauty culture.

Foreign gyaru, however (especially those newer to the style), often encounter gyaru first as an archived history. Many find it through old Egg magazine scans, 2000s-era purikura, or early 2010s Shibuya street fashion photographs. They fall in love with the aesthetic as it was and try to emulate it as faithfully as possible. For this reason, foreign gyaru communities sometimes function as preservationist spaces, keeping alive styles like ganguro, yamanba, hime, and agejo that have largely faded or evolved in Japan.

This tension is not a bad thing. In fact, it might be part of what makes global gyaru culture so rich. You could think of it as a kind of time capsule effect: the moment gyaru left Japan and entered online spaces, it froze. Not forever, but long enough to become a cultural reference point for international participants.

And because the subculture entered most of their lives through archived content, many foreign gyaru treat those early rules (tan, white shadow, deco nails, platform boots, strict substyles) as canon. In contrast, many Japanese gyaru today treat those same elements as nostalgic or even outdated.

This split also mirrors what cultural theorist Sarah Thornton called the “mainstreaming” of subcultures, where the original scene may evolve or fade, but smaller international groups hold onto its “original” form as a badge of subcultural capital. For foreign gals, mastering the look as it was can be a way of expressing devotion, knowledge, and belonging.

Rather than seeing this as a failure to keep up, I see it as a reflection of different relationships to the style: Japanese gyaru adapt the style from within a culture they helped build, while foreign gyaru often build a relationship with that culture from the outside in. 

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4.1 Fitting the Frame: Visibility and Legitimacy in Foreign Gyaru

One of the most interesting tensions that came up while writing this post wasn’t explicitly named by every participant, but I believe it lingers under the surface of many responses: What does it take to be seen as gyaru, especially as a foreigner?

Japanese gyaru today aren’t necessarily innovating the subculture in a radical way, but many are adapting and softening its elements (especially its 2010s makeup aesthetics) into modern, mainstream fashion contexts. Their looks often feature heavy lashes, shaded "droop" make-up, and oversized circle lenses, but without the bold tan or colorful layering that once defined gyaru in the '90s and early 2000s. These girls are still part of the culture they helped build, but the style they represent has shifted into something more aligned with popular fashions and luxury streetwear than with the rebellious chaos of early gyaru.

By contrast, foreign gyaru didn’t grow up with gyaru as part of their local youth culture; they found it online through scans, videos, and early 2000s blog posts. Their relationship to the style is one of preservation, not reinvention. One group is adapting. The other is studying. And both approaches serve a purpose.

But even the most preservation-minded foreign gyaru (those who try to get every detail “right”) still engage with the style through a different cultural lens, a different body, and a different set of aesthetic assumptions. That difference doesn’t go away, even with ideal eyeliner placement or the perfect sujimori hair. And that’s where it gets tricky.

It seems that within the foreign gyaru community, the most visible or celebrated participants are often those who manage to recreate a particular kind of "Japanese" gyaru look. I put "Japanese" in quotes here because it’s not about racial mimicry or yellowface. It’s more about chasing a kind of post-ethnic aesthetic ideal: huge contact lenses, stark shading, narrow brows, gradient lips, and doll-like proportions. It’s a look that flattens identity into something ambiguous, stylized, and culturally unmoored.

Of course, we don’t exist in a vacuum. This “ethnically ambiguous” look still carries baggage. It isn’t truly neutral. It reflects global beauty trends rooted in East Asian pop culture, filtered through the lens of anime, manga, and Japan's own unique history. Crucially, not all foreign gyaru can (or want to) achieve that look.

Some features can’t be masked by makeup. Some bodies won’t match the ideal proportions. Some people don’t want to go that far and shouldn’t have to. And yet, there’s no denying that foreign gyaru who manage to emulate the classic Japanese gyaru face and body tend to receive more recognition, especially online. This isn’t necessarily out of malice. It might even be subconscious. But it reflects a broader issue: foreign gyaru are often held to a stricter visual standard than their Japanese counterparts.

A Japanese gyaru doesn’t need to "look Japanese." She already is. Her features are read through a cultural context that does the visual work for her. Tan skin and blonde hair register as gyaru on an East Asian face because they contrast with cultural expectations of modest femininity. But on a non-Japanese person (especially someone whose ethnicity already includes tan skin or naturally lighter hair) those same signifiers may not immediately read as gyaru at all. Instead of being seen as bold, they’re mistaken as basic. Instead of being read as rebellious, they’re misread as neutral.

This creates an extra hurdle. In order to "read" as gyaru, foreign participants often have to exaggerate the look even further (adding more lashes, more shading, more deco, more styling) to signal that they are participating in a Japanese subculture and not just doing an alt-glam look.

And yet, even with all that effort, legitimacy is still fragile. The idea of being "gyaru enough" hovers like a quiet judgment, especially when you're not Japanese.

This tension doesn’t negate the love foreign gals have for the subculture. But it does shape the way they move through it, how they are received, and what kinds of bodies and faces become most celebrated within it. It’s not just about how you look; it’s about how readable your look is through a Japanese-coded lens. That’s a complicated place to be. But it’s also a testament to how deeply these gals care: they’re not just wearing a style. They’re translating it across cultures, reimagining what it can mean on new skin.

Chapter 5: The Future of Gyaru

@glittergurrrl2002

One of the last questions I asked in the survey was: Do you think you’ll still be doing gyaru in five years? I expected some hesitation, maybe a few “not sures” or “probably nots,” but I was surprised to see how many people answered with a strong, hopeful yes. Even among those who were relatively new to the subculture, there was a feeling that gyaru wasn’t just a fleeting interest or aesthetic phase. It was something they could see growing with them.

That sense of long-term connection also showed up in the answers to “What do you think the future of gyaru looks like?” Some predicted a slow resurgence. Others saw gyaru becoming more niche and underground. A few believed that foreigners might become the ones to carry it forward, adapting it and keeping it alive in new ways, especially online.

⋆˙⟡“I think it'll still be a popular style among with other fashion styles.”

⁀➴“More active among foreigners. Japan may be done with it, but we’re just getting started.”

⋆˙⟡“I can definitely see more fast fashion brands becoming popular, and maybe gyaru related media of the scene, since we do have some magazines like Soul Sister coming back soon. I hope to see more tsuyome makeup and more kuro gyaru in the future.”

It’s hard to know exactly where gyaru is headed. In Japan, many say it's already over. But outside Japan (and especially in the digital world), there’s this very real, very active energy around it. And that’s what makes this moment so interesting. Gyaru is no longer just a fashion archive to admire in a magazine or on Pinterest. It’s something alive and moving, shaped by the people who continue to engage with it, reinterpret it, and love it in their own ways.

If the answers in this survey are any indication, the future of gyaru may not be one massive revival but a collection of small, deeply personal evolutions. A Tumblr post here. A TikTok tutorial there. A blog entry. A gyarusa meetup. A bedroom mirror selfie in full agejo or hime glam. That’s how gyaru lives now: not as a singular thing, but as a shared language between people who might otherwise never have met.

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5.1 Aesthetic Without Culture?

One quote stuck with me: “Japan may be done with [gyaru], but we’re just getting started.” It’s a bold claim, maybe even a bit of poetic hyperbole, but there’s truth to it.

Of course, gyaru isn’t “over” in Japan. But it has changed. Where once it was a youth-led rebellion (against school rules and the rigid expectations of womanhood), today, it has taken on a different role in the Japanese cultural imagination. In many ways, gyaru has become a costume in Japan: a kind of nostalgic shorthand for a specific time period, specific attitude, and specific style. It shows up in advertisements and variety shows as a symbol of a bygone era. It functions, in some contexts, the way hippies or punk does in the West: iconic, evocative, and immediately recognizable, but no longer necessarily alive as a movement of resistance.

What’s left is often the aesthetic, not the intent.

That transformation isn’t unique to gyaru. A New York Times article published in early 2024 explores how subcultures have become flattened into aesthetics in the age of TikTok, reduced to “moods” or “vibes” that are performed briefly, often in isolation, and discarded just as quickly. The piece explains that many teens today engage with styles not through community or shared ideology, but as a way to cycle through identities algorithmically.

One Reddit user, quoted in a discussion of the article, took the sentiment further:

“Subcultures are now just aesthetics to be consumed online, usually alone, almost like porn.”
— r/decadeology

This is what happens when subcultures go through the Internet Machine. Their visual language survives, but the context, community, and rebellion often do not. Once gyaru made its way into the global trough, it was bound to be broken down into parts. You can collect all the signifiers without ever participating in the culture.

Of course, that’s not to say all modern Japanese gyaru are “performing” or “putting on a costume.” But broadly speaking, the way many Reiwa-era gals engage with the style is different. The cultural friction that once made gyaru so electric (tan skin, blonde hair, extreme nails, and thick lashes on East Asian faces and bodies in a conformist society) no longer sparks the same controversy. What was once rebellion is now remembered, referenced, and recirculated as nostalgia.

Meanwhile, something different is happening in the foreign gyaru community.

When I look at the answers in this survey, I see people relating to gyaru much like they did at its emergence and peak, not as a costume, but as a lifestyle. Or, at the very least, I see a deep desire for that kind of meaningful experience. 

Conclusion

This post began with a simple question: Why are so many foreigners drawn to gyaru? What I found wasn’t a single answer but a chorus of voices, each pointing to something bold, beautiful, or defiant in the subculture that personally called to them.

From 37 participants (mostly young, mostly new to gyaru) a pattern emerged: people are coming to this style for more than just the fashion. They’re finding confidence, community, and a way to express themselves in a world that often asks them to be smaller, quieter, or more conventional. Gyaru, in all its boldness, gives them space to be something else.

This project doesn’t pretend to capture the full picture of foreign gyaru, or even gyaru online. It’s just a snapshot, a moment in time in one small, vibrant corner of the internet. But even in that limited scope, there’s something powerful. There’s meaning in the way people talk about gyaru, not just as a style but as a way to try on new selves, to rebel softly or loudly, and to find others who feel the same.

As someone who is part of this community, this project meant a lot to me. It made me feel more connected to something I already love, and it reminded me that I’m not alone in loving it. Gyaru isn’t dead. It isn't frozen in time. It’s growing, shifting, and finding new life in all the people who keep showing up, styling their hair, sticking on their lashes, and saying, this is who I am. 

So maybe the question isn’t why we love gyaru but how we love it and how we’ll keep doing it for years to come.

Acknowledgments

To everyone who took the time to respond to my survey: thank you so much. Your words, your honesty, and your experiences made this project what it is. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the chance to read and reflect on your stories, and I hope you feel seen in some small way through this post.

And to the wider gyaru community: thank you for existing. For being loud, soft, chaotic, sweet, rebellious, extra, and everything in between. You inspire me every day.

If you’re reading this and you’re even a little interested in gyaru (or if you’re already part of the community), I hope this post inspires you to think more deeply about what gyaru means to you. Talk to your friends in the community. Ask them what drew them in, what keeps them going, and what they hope gyaru becomes in the future. These conversations matter. They help us reflect, connect, and keep the subculture alive, not just in style but in spirit.

Gyaru has always been bold, emotional, and community-driven. Let’s keep that energy alive by showing up for each other, listening to each other, and continuing to grow together, even if it’s just one conversation at a time.

Credits & Attributions ☆彡

– Gyaru dividers by @animatedglittergraphics-n-more on Tumblr

– Gingham hibiscus background by @Rungphailin Sreehom on Vecteezy

– Community photos generously submitted by:

• ✧ Akeem (Tumblr: @1990gyaruo)

• ✧ paraparamedic (Tumblr: @paraparamedic)

• ✧ Mar (Tumblr: @gxblinize / Instagram: @goblinize)

• ✧ glittergurrrl2002 (Tumblr: @glittergurrrl2002)

– Graphs & data visualizations created using Google Forms.

– All written content and analysis by me.

– Sarah Thornton, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital (1995) — cited in reference to the idea of “subcultural capital” and how knowledge of original gyaru eras can be a source of identity and belonging in foreign communities.

– The New York Times, “Aesthetics, -Cores and the Rise of TikTok Fashion Identity,” February 2024 — cited in discussion of how subcultures are increasingly consumed as aesthetic trends in digital spaces

– Quote from user u/drunkdunc on Reddit’s r/decadeology thread — referenced in connection to the decontextualization of subcultures in the age of social media

– Special thanks to everyone in A Gyaru’s Love for sharing your thoughts and helping bring this project to life (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

Gyaru and Hyperreality: The Blurred Line Between Authenticity and Performance

The Gyaru Illusion: A Rebellion Without a Cause?

Gyaru reached its peak at the turn of the 21st century. It was a bold cultural movement that offered young girls a means of self-expression beyond the narrow confines of Japan’s expectations of womanhood. Shibuya was their meeting ground. Sun-kissed and teetering on platform boots, they moved in packs, their limbs dusted in glitter and fruity-smelling lotions, their laughter cutting through the din of Center-Gai.

Gyaru was a rejection of a long-held beauty standard. But subversion (no matter how sincere) has a short shelf life. What was once shocking becomes marketable, and what was marketable becomes mainstream. Countercultural movements, once vilified and dismissed as fringe, eventually find their way onto runways and marketing campaigns. 

The punk subculture, synonymous with a DIY ethos and sartorial anarchy, has been elevated by designers like Malcolm Mclaren and Vivienne Westwood, who incorporated bondage trousers, safety pins, studs, chains, and tartan into their collections. Similarly, grunge, once defined by thrift store finds and a disaffected, anti-corporate attitude, was famously reinterpreted by Marc Jacobs in his 1993 Perry Ellis collection, bringing ripped jeans and flannel to the world of luxury fashion. 

In Japan, gyaru followed a similar trajectory. It was pioneered by high school girls who embraced radical self-expression, only for corporations to commodify their defiance and sell it right back to them through fashion magazines and mainstream branding, creating a self-perpetuating ouroboros of rebellion and consumption.

Gyaru is often described as a rebellion against traditional Japanese beauty norms. However, unlike a grassroots political movement, the gyaru’s protest was not an ideological one but aesthetic. Gyaru were not advocating for systemic change or engaging in overt political activism; rather, they were constructing identity through consumer choices. Their rejection of Japanese beauty norms was not framed through the lens of feminist discourse but was instead an aesthetic assertion of selfhood within a consumer-driven society.

This intersection of rebellion and consumerism made gyaru uniquely susceptible to commodification. Jean Baudrillard, in Simulacra and Simulation (1981), theorized that when media endlessly reproduces an image, it replaces reality itself, creating a self-contained system of meaning that no longer references an original. This happened to gyaru even at the height of its popularity: fashion magazines, clothing brands, and nightlife industries dictated the parameters of the subculture, ensuring that market forces had a hand in shaping its resistance. The question is not whether gyaru was "authentic" or "commercialized;” instead, it was always both. The more gyaru attempted to define itself through aesthetic resistance, the more it played into the logic of consumer spectacle, becoming a mediated construct that existed as much in advertising as it did in practice.

Gyaru became trapped in a loop of reinvention, forever cycling between rebellion and commodification.

Gyaru as a Rebellion Against Japanese Beauty Norms

From its inception, gyaru functioned as a rejection of Japan’s dominant feminine ideal: pale skin, natural beauty, and a reserved demeanor. Drawing inspiration from Californian beach culture, hostess aesthetics, and Japanese idols like Namie Amuro, gyarus cultivated an aesthetic that contrasted sharply with mainstream expectations of understated femininity. However, this emulation of Western beauty standards was not an attempt at authenticity but rather an exercise in hyperreality.

Baudrillard’s concept of the precession of simulacra posits that a representation can detach from its original referent and take on a life of its own. Gyaru did not simply borrow from Western fashion; it created a stylized, media-driven version of Western beauty that had no true reference point in reality. This manufactured aesthetic, endlessly reproduced in magazines and advertisements, became its own hyperreal construct. One that girls performed and embodied, often without any conscious reference to its supposed origins.

In this way, gyaru’s rejection of Japanese femininity was paradoxically a performance of another highly constructed femininity. The boldness, excess, and flamboyance of gyaru were not always natural expressions but mediated choices dictated by the ever-evolving standards of the subculture’s own imagery. This aligns with Baudrillard’s assertion that in a hyperreal society, authenticity is no longer a matter of referencing an original but rather maintaining the illusion of originality within a closed system of subcultural signs.

from narita-akihabara.jp

Media, Magazines, and Commodification

Fashion media played a crucial role in shaping the gyaru subculture. Publications like Egg, Popteen, and Ranzuki did not merely document gyaru fashion; they dictated its evolution. These magazines constructed gyaru as a self-referential aesthetic, feeding an endless cycle in which readers emulated the images they consumed, which in turn reinforced those images as authentic. Baudrillard describes this phenomenon as "the map preceding the territory," where the representation of culture becomes more real than the lived experience itself.

Additionally, Baudrillard’s The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (1970) outlines how consumption operates as a system of signification, wherein cultural products serve not just functional purposes but communicate identity, status, and belonging. Gyaru exemplified this principle; fashion choices, tanning salons, colored contacts, and elaborate nails were not simply matters of personal style but signifiers of subcultural participation. Yet, this emphasis on visual markers of identity made gyaru highly susceptible to commercialization. Even the body itself became a curated, modifiable product, reinforcing the notion that selfhood could be purchased, produced, and perfected.

The role of consumerism in gyaru’s evolution cannot be overstated. While many subcultures formed around shared ideologies or musical preferences, gyaru was fundamentally rooted in aesthetic consumption. It was through the accumulation of specific cosmetic products, clothing brands, and accessories that one could fully embody the gyaru identity. 

While gyaru, as a designation, can also describe an outspoken attitude or social behavior, it is near impossible to separate the attitude from the aestheticism and maintain recognizability. This further supports Baudrillard’s argument that modern consumer societies function through an endless cycle of signifiers, where meaning is derived not from substance but from participation in a system of appearances.

The Spectacle of Gyaru: When Image Becomes Reality

In The Society of the Spectacle (1967), Guy Debord argues that subcultures, once authentic expressions of resistance, are eventually transformed into commodified images that obscure their original meaning. This phenomenon was clearly visible in the evolution of gyaru. By the late 2000s, gyaru had become a spectacle, its representation in media eclipsing its lived reality. Fashion magazines amplified gyaru’s visibility, transforming it from a youth-driven subculture into a fully commercialized lifestyle brand.

The advent of social media in the 2000s accelerated this process, further detaching gyaru from its origins. As smartphones and platforms like Instagram and gyaru-focused blogs became ubiquitous in the late 2000s and early 2010s, gyaru culture was increasingly mediated through digital performances. The more gyaru was represented in these curated, visual-heavy spaces, the more its authenticity became defined by (and confined to) the act of being seen. By the 2010s, the subculture had reached a point where the spectacle of gyaru had overtaken its lived practice. It became a marketable image, a hyperreal fantasy that could be performed and consumed in fragments rather than lived as a cohesive experience.

Furthermore, the cyclical nature of gyaru’s popularity (its peak in the early 2000s, its decline in the mid-2010s, and its nostalgic revival in the Reiwa era) reinforces Debord’s assertion that the spectacle is self-perpetuating. Even as the original gyaru generation aged out of the subculture, its aesthetic continued circulating in media, repackaged for new consumers who engaged with gyaru as an image rather than an identity.

from grinnell.edu

Gyaru as Postfeminist Hyperreality: Empowerment or Performance?

The transformation scene is a well-worn trope. One that makeover shows, reality TV, and fashion media have milked dry since the early 2000s. A woman, dissatisfied with her appearance, undergoes a dramatic reinvention. The narrative is always the same: empowerment, but only through aesthetic transformation. Look better, live better… or so they say.

Gyaru, in many ways, was framed through this same logic. The subculture was often positioned as a rejection of traditional Japanese beauty norms, a rebellion against pale skin, dark hair, and soft-spoken femininity. But it wasn’t about dismantling those norms; it was about subverting them, amplifying hyper-feminine aesthetics until they became unrecognizable. Instead of natural beauty, gyaru chose extreme artifice: bleached hair, exaggerated eyes, deep tans, impossibly elaborate nails.

This ties directly into Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality. In Simulacra and Simulation, he argues that in a world where simulations endlessly reproduce themselves, the distinction between the real and the artificial collapses. The simulation becomes the reality. 

Gyaru embodied this perfectly: it wasn’t just a rejection of mainstream beauty. It was the creation of an entirely new, self-contained system of aesthetic meaning, one dictated by magazines, clothing stores, and nightlife industries. To be gyaru was to perform an identity that was both radical and carefully curated, rebellious and yet profoundly entrenched in consumerism.

The Paradox of Gyaru Empowerment

At its core, gyaru presented a challenge to Japan’s rigid expectations of femininity. It allowed young women to take control of their image, and to express themselves on their own terms. And yet, the subculture never truly escaped the trap of aesthetic labor. Gyaru may have rejected the natural, modest ideal but replaced it with a standard that (for some) was just as unattainable, just as expensive, time-consuming, and socially constructed. The hours spent tanning, the elaborate hairstyles, the endless cycle of subcultural fashion trends. Was this liberation, or was it another form of self-surveillance?

The paradox becomes even more pronounced when considering the overlap between gyaru and Japan’s hostess culture. Many gyaru worked in kyabakura (hostess clubs), where their exaggerated femininity was not just a personal choice but a marketable asset. In this context, gyaru’s rebellion was directly commodified for male consumption. It was a form of resistance, but one that operated within structures designed to sell beauty as a product.

Baudrillard’s concept of personalization as a consumer trap applies here. In The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures, he argues that consumer capitalism thrives on the illusion of individuality, that we are sold pre-defined versions of self-expression, packaged as personal choice. Gyaru weren’t following mainstream beauty norms, but they were still adhering to a carefully curated aesthetic, one reinforced by magazines, brands, and those in their community. 

Egg, 2021

Gyaru in the Reiwa Era: Nostalgia and the Hyperreal Resurrection

Subcultures never die. They just become TikTok aesthetics.

Gyaru, once a living community, has largely faded from Japan’s streets. The para-para clubbers, the sun-tanned legs peeking beneath the curtain of a purikura booth, the vibrant chaos of a culture that once thrived in physical spaces. All of it has been largely displaced, archived in fashion magazines, old Egg scans, and digital reuploads. Yet, gyaru’s image remains, repackaged as a Heisei-era fantasy, sold through Instagram reels and Shibuya 109 marketing campaigns.

It’s a tale as old as time: what was once radical becomes retro, and what was once subversive becomes quaint.

Baudrillard (1981) argued that Disneyland exists not merely as a form of entertainment but to convince us that America itself is real. It is a simulation that validates its own mythology. In the same way, modern gyaru nostalgia functions not as a revival of the subculture but as a reminder of a time that, in many ways, never truly existed. The gyaru revival isn’t about bringing back the movement in its rawest form; it’s about recreating a hyperreal fantasy of gyaru. One that has been softened, rebranded, and repackaged for mass consumption. The neon-lit chaos of Shibuya in the 2000s has been edited down into a clean, nostalgic mood board, an aesthetic to be scrolled past and filtered through social media algorithms.

The Shibuya 109 of today capitalizes on its nostalgic past. Retro-styled campaigns use the iconography of old-school gyaru: platform boots, slouchy socks, and early 2000s aesthetics. But the raw, rebellious energy is gone. The grit, the controversy, and the social opposition that once defined gyaru are more or less absent. In its place is curation and commercialization. Where gyaru once developed organically, shaped by high school girls testing the boundaries of fashion and femininity, today’s version is pre-packaged, flattened into an aesthetic that can be picked up and discarded at will.

This shift isn’t unique to gyaru. Subcultures, especially those rooted in fashion, are cyclical. Dick Hebdige (Subculture: The Meaning of Style, 1979) argued that subcultures begin as expressions of resistance, only to be sanitized, stripped for parts, and absorbed by the mainstream. But Baudrillard takes it a step further: in the age of hyperreality, the original event (the subculture as a living, breathing identity) becomes irrelevant. What matters is the representation, the curated aesthetic that lives on long after the movement itself has faded.

In this sense, gyaru now functions more as aesthetic currency than as an active subculture. In an era where nostalgia itself is an industry, gyaru is sold in fragments: a blurred, overly saturated edit set to an Ayumi Hamasaki song, an Instagram post of neatly arranged vintage Alba Rosa pieces, a limited-edition Shibuya 109 shopping bag that nods at the past without carrying any of its cultural weight. The hyperreal version of gyaru (one constructed through media images rather than lived experience) becomes more tangible than the real thing.

And yet, gyaru is not entirely dead. It continues to evolve in digital spaces, existing in a tension between revival and reinvention. But is this a true resurgence or simply another aesthetic trend detached from its original movement? The answer, like everything in hyperreality, is ambiguous. Gyaru today is not the subculture it once was, but it is also not entirely gone. It has become something else. 

DIGITAL BEAUTIES by Julius Wiedemann

The Digital Gyaru and the Heisei Hyperreal Fantasy

For today’s gyaru revivalists, social media is the new Shibuya.

Where once the movement existed in physical spaces, gyaru now thrives in a curated, ephemeral digital landscape. TikTok and Instagram have replaced the old haunts in Shibuya and Ikebukuro, offering new platforms where gyaru can perform their aesthetic, not just for themselves but for an ever-scrolling audience. The streets of Tokyo are no longer the stage; social media is.

Yet this shift has made gyaru more hyperreal than ever.

At its peak, gyaru was at least something tangible. You could step onto Center-Gai and see it in action, feel its presence in the crush of bodies at 109, hear it in the chatter of gyaru-go, and witness its evolution in real-time as trends flared up and burned out within months. It was a lifestyle that required active participation, not just aesthetic adherence. But today, gyaru’s primary existence is mediated through the lens of social media, where filtered, edited, and algorithm-driven imagery dictates how the subculture is consumed and understood.

Baudrillard (1981) argues that hyperreality occurs when the distinction between the real and the representation collapses. When the simulation of a thing becomes more real than the thing itself, this is the paradox of the digital gyaru. The hyperreality of social media has flattened the subculture into a performance of itself, one that often exists independently from lived experience. The highly curated nature of Instagram feeds, the exaggerated edits of TikTok tutorials, and the nostalgia-drenched Y2K revival aesthetics all serve to reinforce a stylized version of gyaru rather than its organic and contradictory reality.

This is not to say that gyaru cannot exist authentically in digital spaces. Rather, the very nature of social media alters its framework. In previous decades, a girl became gyaru through participation. Through how she dressed, where she spent her time, and who she surrounded herself with. Now, one can become gyaru through self-documentation, through the accumulation of highly specific digital signifiers: a cleverly edited TikTok transition, a haul video of Liz Lisa dresses, a perfectly staged Instagram photo bathed in Heisei-era filters. This echoes Baudrillard’s concept of the precession of simulacra, where representation precedes and determines reality, where the performance of gyaru in media becomes more real than the lived subculture itself.

Gyaru is not dead, but it has transmuted. It has become something less real, yet more persistent. Unlike its predecessors, this version of gyaru does not require physical spaces to sustain itself. It does not need a Shibuya 109, a bustling crossing, or a shared community. It thrives in pixels and data, hashtags and explore pages.

Perhaps this is the inevitable fate of all subcultures in the digital age. Not death, but permanent circulation. A subculture does not need to be physically present to be experienced; it only needs to be seen. And in that sense, gyaru may be more alive than ever, even as it exists primarily as an image of itself.

A Rebellion Reframed

Roland Barthes’ Mythologies (1957) suggests that cultural movements, when stripped of their historical contexts, are transformed into myths, presented as natural, timeless phenomena rather than socially constructed practices. This has been the fate of gyaru: its history of social defiance, rejection from mainstream society, and eventual commodification have been largely diluted in favor of a media-friendly fantasy of carefree youth culture.

Yet, this does not mean that modern gyaru are merely engaging in performance. Both things can be true at once: one can participate in gyaru sincerely while also being complicit in its commodification. Even at its height, gyaru was both rebellion and spectacle, self-expression and consumerism. To be gyaru today means navigating this paradox, to embody the aesthetic while also recognizing that it exists within a hyperreal framework.

Perhaps authenticity and performance are no longer opposites but interwoven realities, especially in an era where identity is curated, aestheticized, and mediated through screens. 

Maybe the question isn’t whether gyaru was real but whether, in a postmodern age of endless reinvention, realness matters much at all.