Let Girls Be Girls! Exposing the Baddie Culture
How the Baddie Culture Corrupts the Beauty and Innocence of Youths
Protect your precious daughters from the toxic baddie culture. It does nothing good but robs them of their innocence, pressures them to adopt adult-like behaviors far too soon, and fosters a shallow and superficial mindset in youths.
In this article:
📝Definition of the “baddie” + its unhealthy aesthetic revealed
📍How it all started
👧🏽 How it corrupts the beauty and innocence of children.
🙅🏾♀️ How I’m taking a stance as a future mother
📝Definition of the “baddie” + its unhealthy aesthetic revealed
According to Wiktionary, a baddie or bad-bitch is an “independent, confident and attractive woman, especially one that is also highly sought-after or irresistible.” Please keep that definition in mind as we discuss the culture’s harmful influence on teens.
The baddie culture, as some of you may have observed on social media and around you, summons women to emphasize an empowered, unapologetic, don’t give a f*, lewd, and glamorized appearance.
There’s absolutely nowhere you can scroll on IG or TikTok without seeing a baddie or wannabe.
See below the baddie culture aesthetic that our Gen Zers (teens and young adults ages 12-27) and Gen Alphas (kids age 11 and under) are being compelled to follow:
💄 The appearance: full-blown makeup (including contoured cheekbones and a perfectly defined nose), long lashes, bust-down wigs, perfectly laid wedges, long and extravagant nails, hourly glass shape (slim waist, wide hips, big booty, prominent busts), tightly fitted and revealing attire, designer brand, sultry (erotic) pose (what am I missing?)
💁🏽♀️The attitude & personality: unapologetic, sexually empowered, confident, bold, in-control, assertive, loud, spouting expletives, proud, self-exalting.
💨 The lifestyle: often associated with drinking, partying, hookups, a strong social media presence, fast life, luxury, fame, and material success.
That’s the baddie culture aesthetic, in a nutshell, that millions of modern girls run after. It’s undisputedly toxic for teens. I’ll tell you why, so keep reading.
📍How it all started
The baddie culture claims to have originated in the late 1990s and early 2000s within hip-hop culture, where artists like Lil' Kim and Foxy Brown, through their expletive lyrics and exposing fashion, unapologetically embraced their sexuality, body, and talent. They began challenging the soft and graceful elements associated with traditional femininity.
By the mid-2010s, the term “baddie” became popularised by former adult entertainers.
Soon after, social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok became the perfect visual spaces for tweens, teens, and young adults to watch their favorite baddies showing off their lavish and often exaggerated lifestyles.
Some of the current top celebrated baddies in the industry include Amber Rose, Black Chyna, Nicki Minaj, Cardi B, Megan The Stallion, and the Kardashians, to name a few.
In the past 5 years, over 50 million results have appeared on Google associated with “the baddie” archetype, and the search is growing. So apparently, an increasing number of women are interested in becoming a baddie.
👧🏽 How the Baddie Culture Corrupts the Beauty and Innocence of Children + Teens
This is where things get serious!
A woman receives free will from God to live her life as she chooses—bearing the positive or negative consequences of her decisions.
I’m not here to condemn women who embrace the baddie lifestyle and aesthetic (though I personally don’t like it). Instead, my aim is to highlight its harmful influence on younger generations and assert how we, as older adults, can take a stance in advocating for and protecting the playfulness, innocence, and beauty of children.
The baddie culture is a dangerously corrosive influence on youths.
I don’t want to turn this post into a book, so for now, I’ll share 3 reasons why:
❌ Teens are Being Pressured to “Glow Up”.
‼️ Teens are Exposed to Over-sexualized Content. The Baddie Culture Cheapens Sex.
🤯Teens are Adopting a Hollow, Superficial Mindset.
1. Teens are Being Pressured to “Glow Up”
Kids don’t want to be kids anymore. They all want to grow up. 🤔 Or do they genuinely want to enjoy their playful childhood years, but can’t comfortably do so, because culture, schools, and many of our homes have become so anti-child?
In the baddie culture, there’s this relentless obsession with looking perfect and flawless, and kids are often compelled to measure up to these unrealistic beauty standards set by celebrity baddies.
Thousands of young girls, whether at school or hanging out on the streets, feel the need to wear bust-down wigs, long false lashes, revealing outfits, and designer brands to feel seen, beautiful, and desirable.
Some even go to extreme lengths by permanently altering their bodies through costly cosmetic surgeries because they badly want to fit into the baddie mold.
The overwhelming pressure to "glow up" by adopting age-inappropriate aesthetics and behaviors often leaves girls feeling inadequate and depressed.
The reality is that when teens start comparing themselves to filtered, curated images online and forget that these ‘perfect looks’ are often just illusions, it can erode their self-esteem and lead to serious mental health issues like anxiety and body dysmorphia.
Again, the baddie lifestyle offers nothing positive for your daughters. But it’s not the baddies to blame. I’ll tell you who should take a stance against its harmful influence. But first, let’s dive into how the baddie culture cheapens sex and has likely contributed to the rise of hookup culture and meaningless relationships among teens.
2. Teens are Exposed to Over-sexualized Content. The Baddie Culture Cheapens Sex
The very fabric of the baddie lifestyle is rooted in hypersexuality.
From provocative clothing styles and lewd messages uttered by top baddies to their loose behaviors endorsed on the internet—this culture forcefully exposes youths to mature content disguised as harmless.
We have kids barely passing adolescence twerking to sexually inappropriate songs while their mothers or whoever finds it so cool to record and post these videos on social media.
Worse, girls and young women who wear the baddie aesthetic are potentially exposing themselves to pedophiles and other predators both online and offline.
When our daughters or sisters dress or behave in ways they don’t fully understand, it does attract unwanted attention and may put them in dangerous situations.
Furthermore, there seems to be an increasing number of teens engaging in casual sexual relationships, often with older men who clearly do not have these young girls' best interests at heart.
I strongly believe that the rise of baddie culture, along with the 'my body, my choice,' empowerment movement have contributed to a concerning normalization of promiscuity among teen girls and young adults.
What I dislike the most about the baddie culture is that it cheapens sex.
It reduces complex, beautiful women to sexual objects.
It distorts the beauty and sacredness of sexual intimacy that God establishes for a husband and His wife within a safe and healthy union.
This unrecommended lifestyle, which originated with adult entertainers, may have contributed to the rise of OnlyFans (marketed as a safe space for individuals to monetize their sexuality online.)
poetry written by me 2 years ago.
Yes! Our bodies are beautiful women. Baddies would agree. But our bodies are temples from God, and what we do with what He has given us matters.
My hope is to encourage young women to reflect on whether the lifestyle choices that they’re making today truly serve their long-term well-being; and I also want to remind you to see yourself as God sees you—worthy, valued, and deeply loved.
🤯Teens are Adopting a Hollow, Superficial Mindset.
Finally, baddie culture promotes a hollow and superficial mindset in youths.
Everything is about appearance, clout, and material success. It’s all about the designer bags, the fancy trips, and looking like a million bucks – even if you’re broke.
We have teens start believing that their worth is tied to how they look or what they own. Sadly, when they buy into this unhealthy belief system, they start losing focus on what truly matters: character, kindness, and substance.
Instead of enjoying their fleeting youthful days, focusing on their studies, and cultivating their gifts, teens are stuck chasing likes, follows, and validation from strangers.
The baddie culture is all about exalting and worshipping the self and material success.
It pushes girls to take on this mean-girl and prideful spirit, instead of cultivating a heart of love, grace, and service.
If you’re a mother or father with a teen who excessively uses social media, you need to check her phone to know what’s out there that could potentially be leading her astray.
Do you want her to turn out to be selfish, haughty, and shallow, or kind, smart, and whole?
You have a role to play, and I too, if God blesses me with the task of motherhood.
🙅🏾♀️ How I’m taking a stance as a future mother
Childhood ought to be a fun, stress-free, and beautiful experience. It’s for creative imagination, adventure, games, and laughter.
There’s a natural radiance that comes with a child’s or youth's loosely kept natural hair, unpolished nails, age-appropriate clothing, and their energetic, yet determined attitude to take on this brutal yet beautiful world, and that phase should be protected at all costs.
That short span of teenage years before female adulthood should also be carefully tended and supported by parents.
This is the time when daughters become increasingly aware of their bodies and beauty.
This is the time when daughters are easy to be misled by the culture.
It’s also the time they may grapple with insecurities and low self-esteem as they try to measure up to the “baddie” aesthetic heavily promoted online.
While they might act self-assured and appear to have all the answers, they still need the wisdom and guidance of strong parents.
So, what can we do about the toxic influence of the baddie culture on children? Who should take a stance to ensure their innocence is protected, and that they're being steered in the right direction?
If you guess Mom and Dad, you’re right.
Parents bear a sacred and significant responsibility ordained by God to teach their children what is good, and what is bad—guiding them properly so they don’t fall into worldly traps.
Even if they do stumble, they would have had the existing foundational knowledge instilled by their parents to get them back on their feet.
As long as the hip-hop culture and social media remain, the baddie culture, which is deeply rooted in hip-hop culture, will also persist.
As a future mother, I am committed to standing against the toxic infiltration of the baddie aesthetic into my daughters’ lives, and even if they become exposed, here are 3 key strategies I’m willing to take in agreement with my husband so that they don’t choose this lifestyle as their ultimate victory.
✅ First, I will teach my daughters to find their true worth in God. Together, we will redefine what it means to be a beautiful and empowered young woman guided by God’s truth.
✅ Second, I won’t allow them to have social media accounts. I see no beneficial or substantial need for children or teens to be on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where harmful trends and unrealistic beauty standards often prevail.
✅ Lastly, I will cultivate a close, open relationship with them, so they feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, desires, opinions, and experiences with me.
I strongly believe that a healthy mother-daughter or father-daughter relationship creates room for meaningful conversations, such as how the baddie culture corrupts the beauty and innocence of youths.
Two questions for you:
What are your thoughts on the baddie culture?
If you’re a mother, what tips do you have?
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This article is inspired by this YouTube video.
This article is excellent! I'm so thankful that my parents have been viligant in keeping me grounded in biblical truth rather than the lies about beauty that the world promotes.
This is wonderful. Thank you for putting this out here! I know as a teen girl I have struggled with wanting to fit into the baddie aesthetic, but thankfully God and others in my life have opened my eyes to many wrong things about it (much of their advice was very similarly to this article actually). I can see the superficiality of it now, but it makes me legitimately sad to see my friends falling into this “aesthetic”. Teen girls desperately need to hear this message, thank you.