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? 

Why is everything so fucking boring now?

Once upon a time in Internet land, the World Wide Web felt like a space for discovery: unrefined, unpredictable, and uniquely personal. Subculture thrived in weird little corners of the web, often difficult to access unless you knew precisely where to look. These spaces mimicked the spirit of real-world underground movements, imperfect and often resistant to mainstream assimilation. But that dynamic has shifted, not simply because of the prominence of algorithmic platforms, but because those platforms are designed with purpose: to extract profit from predictability. 

The problem isn’t algorithms in the abstract. It’s the fact that they are engineered to benefit advertisers and tech billionaires, certainly not artists, users, and cultural innovators. The architecture of these platforms optimizes for engagement, and engagement favors the extreme, the statistically safe, and the easily categorized. What we widely see online is not a mirror of creativity or desire, but a reflection of what is most easily digested and monetized. The result is a cultural landscape that feels increasingly flat, overproduced, and boring. 

This is coming from someone neck-deep in it. Today, as I scroll through Instagram, I’m met with a monotonous parade of hyper-curated content that masquerades as alternative (or “alt”) culture. Aesthetic diversity has been sanded down into a commodified spectacle, optimized for mass consumption. I keep scrolling as if I’ll stumble upon something radical or cool, strange or arresting, even though I know better than that. It’s not happening. It’s all more or less the same. 

This phenomenon is especially evident in the rise of what might, for convenience, be called “Instagram Alt”–– a version of alternative fashion that prioritizes palatability over expressive honesty. Despite the apparent celebration of non-mainstream styles, the same facial features and body types dominate the Discover page. This homogeneity is not incidental. It is the product of a larger system that rewards aesthetic legibility and conformity under the guise of diversity. 

To be clear, this is not a critique of individual creators, nor a moral indictment of those who participate in these spaces. I am one. Rather, it is a structural critique of the platforms that mediate our aesthetic experiences. The question is not what people choose to create, but what gets seen and rewarded. In the age of platform capitalism, visibility is shaped less by personal expression and more by algorithmic design. 

Social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are not neutral stages; they are commercial infrastructures governed by engagement metrics and machine learning algorithms. As Zuboff (2019) outlines in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, these platforms commodify human attention, shaping user behavior in ways that prioritize predictability and, thus, profitability. The algorithm’s preference for specific facial geometries, editing styles, and visual tropes means that even “subversive” content must be aesthetically palatable to achieve visibility. 

Take, for instance, the case of yabi gyaru, a contemporary Chinese interpretation of the Japanese gyaru subculture. The term “yabi” is a compound word that translates to “subcultural cunt,” and refers to a bold and indulgently maximalist aestheitc. At first glance, yabi gyaru appears to celebrate the audacity and expressiveness of its predecessor. However, upon closer inspection, the aesthetic variance collapses: the same homogenized facial features, skinny bodies, and styling choices result in content that feels not like a revival or a continuation, but more like an Instagram performance. This isn’t a jab at yabi itself, which contains a rich visual language, but at the narrow and Instagram-approved version of yabi gyaru that dominates the digital zeitgeist. What we are seeing is not the full spectrum of the style; it’s the part most aligned with dominant beauty standards and therefore most likely to be shared. 

Even traditional Japanese gyaru substyles, such as tsuyome (kuro), are being retrofitted to suit contemporary digital tastes. I recently came across an image of a 2010s-era tsuyome gyaru whose face had been digitally Frankensteined to resemble the Western “Instagram baddie” archetype: smooth, symmetrical, and stripped of the very roughness that once defined the style. The edit was widely shared, reinforcing a feedback loop wherein deviation must still conform to dominant beauty standards to gain traction. Even those doing subculture “correctly” are evidently not doing it correctly enough, according to social media. 

What happens to counterculture when its dissemination is governed by systems designed to eliminate unpredictability? What we’re witnessing is not the organic rise of new movements or the honest continuation of pre-established ones, but the mass production of simulated difference. Content engineered to appear edgy while remaining within cushy and comfortable boundaries. Genuine subversion cannot survive in environments that flatten expression into what Sarah Thornton (1995) termed “subcultural capital,” a form of stylized distinction that ultimately relies on the dominant order rather than resisting it. Hebdige (1979) similarly warned of the recuperation of subcultural signs, whereby resistance is absorbed into the mainstream and stripped of its political charge. 

There is a deep disappointment in realizing that while boundary-pushing creators still exist (and will exist forever), their work remains largely invisible beneath layers of algorithmically preferred sameness. If they’re even posted to these platforms at all because, of course, why should they rely on spaces that do not serve them? On platforms like Instagram, fashion and subculture become content, and every image becomes a catalog. Novelty, speed, and conventional beauty reign supreme. There is little room for experimentation or eccentricity because those things are not the goal and never were.

In this context, platforms themselves become architects of culture, privileging the familiar over the experimental. As Baudrillard (1981) might suggest, we inhabit a “hyperreality” in which representations of subculture replace their original referents. We consume simulations of alternative aesthetics that are easier to digest, share, and monetize, while the disruptive potential of subculture is neutralized or hidden behind a metaphorical curtain.

It’s what's in our digital diet. We are fed the same things over and over again, sometimes seasoned with a veneer of something “new,” but not really. It doesn’t shock, challenge, or upset. It simply performs difference while reinforcing the same aesthetic values that have always been socially acceptable and encouraged. After a while, our ability to imagine something beyond the machine starts to fade.

We spend so much time living online that the borders between digital life and embodied reality are blurred. The internet used to be a destination we visited and returned from. Now, it is the space in which we live. Our phones are not just tools; they are extensions of our hands, our eyes, our identities. And the more time we spend there, the more likely we are to internalize the aesthetic logic of these platforms as a reflection of the world itself. We begin to see algorithmic beauty as objective beauty. What gets liked becomes what gets desired.

Coined by writer Jia Tolentino, “Instagram Face” describes a specific, surgically achievable aesthetic that dominates social media: smooth skin, symmetrical features, plump lips, catlike eyes, and a racially ambiguous yet predominantly Eurocentric look. As more and more people filter themselves through this aesthetic, digitally or physically, we begin to see real-world beauty standards mutate in its image. This is not just imitation; it’s transformation. We begin to desire the face we are constantly shown, and in turn, we produce content that reflects it. We feed it; we become it. This is the algorithm’s most insidious effect: not just flattening expression, but reshaping desire itself. 

Subculture and alt aesthetics in the Internet Age are less about subversiveness and more about identity. They function like a character selection screen: pick your appearance, assign your traits, and join the fray. It’s not about pushing boundaries, but signaling belonging. The purpose isn’t to rebel. It’s to fit in with the right kind (or your preferred kind) of different. In a world where your online presence is your resume, your brand, and your social capital, subcultural style becomes a skin you can wear to stand out just enough, while still keeping one foot planted safely in the zone of acceptability. 

And so we arrive at a central tension: can true innovation and true alternative expression exist on platforms that demand sameness in exchange for visibility? Can formally subversive subcultures survive in spaces owned and designed by capital, where every interaction is mined for data, and every expression is either monetizable or invisible? I would argue it cannot, not in any lasting or radical form. Because the internet we occupy is not neutral ground; it is a commercial infrastructure designed to promote what sells, what spreads, and what sustains the system. 

True alternative culture requires friction. It requires resistance. But friction slows engagement, and resistance threatens stability; two things the algorithm cannot allow. So even our “rebellion” becomes optimized: a miming of chaos, but not truly disruptive; interesting, but not unsettling; different, but not too different. What we’re left with is a pantomime of innovation, alternative in style, but not in substance. 

As Caroline Busta writes in her piece The internet didn’t kill counterculture—you just won’t find it on Instagram: “To be truly countercultural today, in a time of tech hegemony, one has to, above all, betray the platform.” This betrayal doesn’t just mean abandoning social media; it means divesting from the performative self that exists to feed the beast. Subculture that survives the algorithm must do so outside its reach, perhaps pseudonymously, perhaps in encrypted corners, or perhaps not online at all. 

If true subversiveness is to exist, it is not going to be found on Instagram. The dark forest theory of the internet, as adapted from Liu Cixin’s science fiction of the same name and expanded upon by Busta, imagines a digital world in which users retreat from constant visibility in favor of partial obscurity, where community and creativity are cultivated in shadows. In these dim corners, culture is not flattened. It grows like mushrooms in the dark. 

The flattening we’re experiencing isn’t just aesthetic. It's mental. It erodes the muscle memory of rebellion, of eccentricity, of the ugly, the beautiful, and the strange. And maybe that’s the real disappointment of it all: not that it changes what we see, but that it changes what we want to see. And eventually, what we can even fathom at all.

I wrote this because I was bored to the point of despair. It made me want to scream. Not just at the content, but at myself for looking. I found myself craving disruption: something strange, or ugly, or alive enough to cut through the haze. Instead, I now sit with a more personal fear: not just that I have nothing of value to offer, but that whatever I do have (whatever I create or express) is neither subversive enough to matter nor conventional enough to be popular. What does it mean to create under these conditions? I long to be free of this fear entirely: free from optimization, from the attention economy, from the hollow logic of platform performance. I simply want to feel new things. 

Like many others, I’m searching for a medium of expression that resists extraction, for something meaningful that isn’t quietly angling to sell you something. And I have to believe it’s out there. Perhaps it’s just not in the places we’re taught to look.