5 things I learned thanks to being Gyaru for many years

21 de agosto de 2021

Hi, gals! ♡ The last months have been pretty overwhelming in social media, the gal community (j-fashion comm in general let me say), me organizing the Gyaru 109 Month and personal / work life don't help at all, so I decided to have a moment of reflexion to rest my mind and take a break before keep going on. That's why today I want to share with you:

5 things I learned thanks to being Gyaru for many years



I've been Gyaru since 8 years ago, however I discovered the style 13 years ago and since then I decided that's what I wanted for me. However at that moment I wasn't in the ideal moment of my life to start in the style, so the firsts years I did my best researching, practicing my makeup and learning more about j-fashion communities, so I could start 100% once I could afford it and I was independent enough to freely take my own decisions. And looking back, waiting for the right moment to actually be gal was a great decision I made.

Since then I've been learning and growing a lot. Specially having now Gyaru as my lifestyle. That's why I want to share with you a few things I've learned during this journey so maybe you can have a smoother one.

1. Your mental health should always go first.

I know this is SUPER obvious, yet one of the most difficult things to achieve and I still work on that every day of my life.


Do not compare yourself to other gals.
We all have different journeys and starting points. We have cultures, countries and by default, economies. I've seen gals with hard feelings (mostly towards their own selves) because they want to be like the gals they admire the most or because they don't understand why if they're putting so much effort, they haven't achieved "as much as" other gals. So in those cases I remind myself, no nobody is going to live my Gyaru life the way I do and I have no reason to compare myself to others.

You don't need to have all SNS.
This goes to gals like me who are also content creators. We don’t have to be everywhere. Creating content actively takes a lot of time and there’s a point where there’s so many things we want to do that our hobby becomes a whole responsibility. This gets worse when we see gals on all platforms and we want to be there! But we don’t need to. We only need platforms that makes us truly happy.

Blogging can help you to channel your feelings.
And that's why I'm writing this blog post. I think I write better than how I speak because I can take the time to think, organize my ideas and do it the best way possible. And that also helps me to think deeper about what I feel and what I want to exteriorize. I really hope I can keep writing more personal blog posts in the future.

Numbers don't define your value (and the opinion from others either).
I really wish this was more talked about in the community. I've seen so many gals overwhelmed and down because of their numbers and the opinions of others. Gyaru is all about being unapologetically ourselves, don’t giving a f*ck about what others have to say about us. So we need to remind ourselves that social media is there for us to use it and have fun, otherwise social media will end up playing games in our heads.

I can definitely say after working on all those things above, my anxiety has gone considerably down and I'm happier and more positive in the gal comm. I honestly don't like to point at others saying all the bad things they do on Twitter, but learning from that. Don't take it personal, but take it as an opportunity to learn and share those learnings with others.


2. Gyaru can be a way to be yourself or to escape from it

This is something I didn't notice until not so long ago. I started Gyaru as a way to connect better with myself. As a way to love myself and feel confident in my skin. For me Gyaru was a process of acceptance but it's also a process of deconstruction and breaking with all those social constructs I never noticed I got and lived with.

However, recently I understood it could be the complete opposite for other gals. Gal is also a escape for people who can't handle their lives and/or themselves.

Today I was talking with a friend about how lucky I've been to have the freedom to be myself everywhere I go. I can just be Gyaru 24/7 because everything in my life is related to it. But there are gals who need to separate things. So saying "live the Gyaru life" is not as easy for everyone.

3. You don't owe anything to the community and the community doesn't owe anything to you

This is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I truly believe this. I constantly see gal vets mad a baby gals for not trying hard enough, for having an slow progress, for simply not being good enough. But honestly, I don't understand why someone would take that personally and get mad. They’re not there trying to be Gyaru to please us.

Same the way around, we do our best to share relevant and reliable information to help, because we love the style and we love to share all the things we learned. But it’s not our responsibility to educate them. And if we’re going to share all that should be with kindness because nobody asked us to do that. We create educational content because we want to. And that 's it.


4. The way I do and live Gyaru is not THE right one.

This is another thing we all need to humble down. There’s not one specific correct way to live a Gyaru life. Gyaru includes a lot of different things that can impact in different aspects of our lives, and we all decide which ones we enjoy the most, which ones match our lifestyles or which ones we are good at. Some gals don’t dance Para Para because that’s not their cup of tea, just like I don’t like Gyaru music. Ok, I said it. I don’t like Gyaru music. Aaaah. I love dancing Para Para but I don’t enjoy listening to Eurobeat. It gives me headaches. Lol.


5. Race and class consciousness are basic to have a healthy community

And the last point, which is really important to me is educating ourselves and being empathetic is basic to have a healthy community and connect with others. I made a video about things that can fall into classism in Gyaru (and any other subculture or alternative style) because it’s important to help others understand other people’s struggles instead of doing it from our privilege. Just like it’s really important to not idealize Gyaru as if that was perfect and every single gal in Japan was an idol. No. Japan just like any other country has tons of flaws and we can see many of them in Gyaru, so we should be conscious enough to not replicate those behaviours.

And also understand that now we have way more education and knowledge than gals in the 90s - 00s, so if we have the opportunity to do it better, that’s what we should be doing. (And this goes especially with the heavy tans discussion).

Same with the fact that Gyaru goes against traditional standards for women, but I’m not sure if most gals have made the exercise of thinking if they’re actually breaking the standards of their own cultures or in fact they’re just following their current trends and beauty standards. Because we don’t live in Japan, the fights of Japanese gals are not ours to fight, but to support.


What do you think?

I know this blog post has been more intense than others, but I really wanted to talk about these topics and I plan to go deeper on them little by little, now and then. I had all this on my chest, stuck here so I wanted to organize my ideas. I’m also educating myself a lot and I have the blessing of talking to many gals so I’m learning a lot about them.

See you on the next blog post! (´。• ω •。`) 

REILA LESS


10 comentarios

  1. I think vets don't get mad at baby gals for not trying hard enough, they don't "try" at all sometimes...I think the problem is more that they claim they do everything right and miss gyaru basics and this is frustrating considering this is supposed to be the development of gaijin gyaru. We all started somewhere, yes....but many of them don't want to "improve" or anything....they think they do everything correctly and sadly are only 1% gal...That's what makes vets mad. They are also extremely lazy to research. Most of these "educational posts" from us are getting missed, cuz they don't bother. It is completely ok to be interested in gal, and NOT BE ONE. However, I do agree with everything else you said. Especially the gyaru life thing. Even tho I have to say, you can be gal 24/7 even without wearing the clothes and the makeup.

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. Yeah, I get what you say and super agree with you on that. And honestly, I don't usually pay attention to people who clearly is not even trying or don't want to educate themselves because I would be only wasting my time. It doesn't make sense to lose energy on people who is not worthy in the first place.

      On the other hand, sadly I've had the opportunity to meet a many of gals (specially Latinxs) who have come at me asking if they should give up because when they see those posts / comments they feel they're not good enough. And that hurts A LOT. It's really sad to see those kinds of comments being given so easily without thinking they could also be hurting people who are literally giving the best they can.

      Borrar
    2. I understand what you mean. I think it's important to self-evaluate. I mean yea they are baby gals, but can't get offended of smth that isn't abot you? I mean, at least I hope we are making it clear that it's not against all baby gals...that we are only mad about those who don't really want to be gyaru and just like the term or whatever...

      Borrar
    3. I agree here in that I don't think we're mad that they're not gal to our standards. The infuriating thing is that they have access to so many resources (far more than many of us back in 2008), talk directly to us, participate in all of our spaces, but instead choose to ignore our advice and put minimal effort into their gyaru look. Then throw a fit on tiktok or post us on 4chan/lolcow when they get crit instead of praise. It's the entitlement and pride that gets a lot of vets upset.

      If they can't stomach the culture of getting crit, etc then that's fine. They can be "gyaru" on their own without the community but they will most definitely take longer to find their way, especially if they don't know what they're doing. Which, is also fine, but I think that part plays into the vet frustration in the sense of: "I worked so hard to establish myself, it's not fair to be lumped in with baby gals who don't put any effort into the style but want to use all our hashtags and be in all our spaces" because when people look at those tags and places, we are all seen as one to the unsuspecting.

      Borrar
    4. I super get that and I understand your frustration. That's why I said I don't waste my time in people who is not worthy the energy or the effort anymore. I prefer to help baby gals who are truly trying, rather to fill myself with that negativity that is not going to take us anywhere.

      Borrar
  2. I feel a lot of these. Especially the first one. But after not caring and realizing I'm just a nobody in the comm, I feel more loose in what I post about on anything lol. It's part of the reason why I kinda' don't use Insta anymore. I still blog cause I love to write and take fun photos. I hope I never stop blogging.
    2. Yeah. I have said for a long time that gal was what helped me finally like myself. I used to hate how I looked and everything. Gal changed so much for me.
    3. I have seen this a lot too. And this is not the first time that this has happened. Some newbies actually do the work and be on their way to actual gal. And there are some that really don't care and want to do their own thing and call it what they want. Annnnddd...there's of course the group that just wants clout. I just wish that the group that actually try was bigger than the other two...
    4. I def don't live the ideal gal life. But I make gal a part of my life as much as possible. Whether someone else says that makes me not gal or whatever, I really don't care lol. There is no one way to have the "gal life".
    5. We as the whole human race just need to do better. This goes way beyond gal but it can def start with gal.
    ~Kieli♥
    bunnycraftydreamblog.com

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. Sending you many many hugs cutie! Everytime I can I read your blog because your posts are always super interesting. I also hope I don't stop blogging ever, I really enjoy writing and I'm better expressing myself like this.

      About #2, me too. I learned to love and connect with myself through Gyaru. And even now I still feel and discovering more and more about myself. That's the nice thing about Gyaru, there's so much to learn about it!

      And as I mentioned to Rin, honestly I don't waste my time on people who is not going to try, learn or bring a positive vibe to the comm anymore. If there are baby gals who want to learn and improve I will always support them with open arms because I've lived myself how hard it is to be gal, specially here in Latinoamerica where we feel every single day the world is just about to end. And honestly Gyaru is one of the few things that brings us a lot of joy, I wouldn't want it to be otherwise.

      Borrar
  3. im new but ive been seriously researching gyaru for three years. not to sound creepy but ive probably seen most of the vet gals blogs at least once. so ive seen all the comments and frustrations towards newbies and it honestly does create a really unwelcome feeling environment. it feels like if you arent already established in the community or arent perfect on your first try then theres no room for you. i do understand where theyre coming from ive seen some of the low effort attempts and im sure it is really frustrating to constantly have to say "dont put white in the droop" "you need lashes" "theres no contour" etc. i try not to take the comments personally because i am someone who has done the research but im terrified to post my first try because what if it isnt as good as i think it is and i get lumped in with the low effort newbies? would that kill my entire chance of being in the community? it kind of feels like it sometimes. id really like crit and feedback so i can create a personalized style thats still undeniably gyaru but im too scared to post anything. sorry this comment ended up being longer than i meant for it to i just wanted to share how it looks from a different perspective.

    ResponderBorrar
    Respuestas
    1. Anónimo9/2/22 09:00

      I also think gyaru should be allowed to evolve. All those "rules" do make it gyaru but also hinder it from evolving. Yes ofc you cant call everything gyaru just because you can, but why shouldnt someone be allowed to color their drop with white and so on, it still loks gal

      Borrar
  4. I really loved this article you made <3 Totally appreciate it as I also feel the same way <3

    ResponderBorrar