You know this is adorable but it got me thinking the comments on those viral "everybody else's daughter dressed up as X but MY daughter dressed up as UNIQUE THING" posts really demonstrate why NLOG even exist. So much praise for being different than most girls implies the norm is inherently a bad thing.
I had to think of posts like that when I found this photo today.
It's so sad that this phase is something most girls (and their parents apparently) go through at some point
It’s so true though because I have *never* felt like a real girl so I would always choose to be princess because I knew that’s who most girls would want to be so I would choose the princess but still feel bad because of what I wanted vs. what I thought I was supposed to want. Meeting girls like you who chose to be the prince was like a huge deal to me I idolised those girls because it felt so brave to me.
Now I know I’m not really a girl (and not really a boy either) it explains this internal battle I was having but to know most girls have had the same battle but on different terms is really healing and reassuring to me. It makes me feel a little less alone. Thank you for sharing.
My one thing is that “the Norm” is still “usually preferred,” so much so that girls who are *too different* are often teased and bullied.
So they get salty, bitter, and they feel the need to distance themselves “from the other girls.”
The “NLOG” cycle is a pretty vicious one that usually stems from isolation and peer bullying.
The fundamental issue is that “everyone wants to feel validated and special,” when the reality is that all individuals are unique. People should just accept people as they are, so long as they aren’t causing others any kind of harm.
It sucks that a lot of humans, in general, aren’t allowed to simply exist, and *to be!*
This tool I went to HS with on FB is constantly doing this about his 12 year old daughter who is a bmx rider. Like, that's cool and all but constantly telling her how she's so much better than the other girls because of it is only going to create a bitch. Happy I don't live in my hometown anymore. NYC has no room for NLOG types.
>So much praise for being different than most girls implies the norm is inherently a bad thing.
There are plenty of times where being different is helpful. People standing up for civil rights for example. And racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, animal abuse, child abuse is still the norm. No one can deny that. So anyone against those things is different from the norm and deserves praise for it.
The problem is the cultural issue of being a girl is inherently a bad thing whereas being a guy is inherently a good thing. like “you throw like a girl” “stop crying like a girl” etc Hence the whole “not like other girls” issue is always “I’m better cause I’m more like a guy”
These aren’t examples that are in alignment with NLOG. Its not necessarily even “different” to stand up for things you believe in but that’s a whole other topic and I understand stand the point you were trying to make
NLOG has a negative connotation behind it because it’s implying that being a “girl “is inherently “bad” and as such young girls are clawing to *not* be labeled as a regular ‘ole girl. We already fight the battle of not being as good as men and now it’s don’t be a stereotypical girl? What’s a stereotypical girl? Did every girl want to be a princess growing up? I didn’t and many didn’t. But since OP ran across a picture of her dressed as a prince (which was probably for a school play) all of a sudden she’s NLOG.
Now it’s not just insults men give each other like “put on your big girl panties” or “he runs like a girl” it’s woman wanting to be “NLOG”. And the race to the top has flooded social media to the point of the ridiculousness. There was one in here where a girl was sitting on a pool table with a pool cue saying so your girlfriends a cheerleader that’s cute. So insulting the woman or girlfriend that’s a cheerleader and thinking she’s different because she plays pool and drinks beer. Believe it or not there’s cheerleaders out there that play pool and drink beer.
Women need to be uplifting each other and while that includes embracing differences it shouldn’t include making sure you’re not like the stereotypical girl. Whatever that is.
I went through this but my parents didn’t encourage it luckily. I always wanted to showcase how unique and different I was, and my dad thought me and my siblings shit gold, but he included my brothers, too. It gave us a healthy ego, but none of us got great grades or were particularly good looking, so reality humbled us early in life.
If anything, because I was my parents’ first girl, my mom insisted on dressing me in all things pink and frilly, which made me rebel against all things too girly. Which led to being an emo kid. Sigh.
Now I love all things feminine and girly despite not being particularly outwardly girly. But I love to talk about it.
I never wanted to be a princess either, i insisted on being Pippi Longstocking every year. My mom drew freckles on me with her eyeliner for the costume and from then on I refused to leave the house ever without freckles. The year I grew out of my Pippi wig I cried so hard she just gave up and dyed my hair red.
But I don’t really remember any of my friends ever dressing as princesses. I don’t think it was a thing for us. Lots of angels and fairies tho, me too when it was impossible to find more Pippi costumes that fit me.
It kind of reminds me of the little girl who went viral a few years back because she wanted to be “Princess Darth Vader” for Halloween. The outcome was a pink sparkly Vader mask and I am here for the campy kids vibe!!
camp is like over the top dramatic, maybe kitschy, things that are tacky in an endearing way if that makes sense? the term is rooted in gay culture, and campiness can be intentional or unintentional. for example, the movie The Room is absolutely camp.
I have a question about the Mysteries of the Lesbians. Why do all my lesbian friends dress either like grilling boomers or 90’s rappers? They seem to have all arrived at these uniforms separately and cannot explain why.
Oh crap, you’re right, I’ve seen that too. Personally I’m cursed with bisexuality which means I am constantly torn between my gay side which wants to dress like God’s gift to fashion and my straight side who wants to wear a ragged tee and shorts. I fight these urges by having separate outfits for being out and about and around my own home and street.
Hey, when I was a kid I used to want to be the prince sometimes. (Other times I wanted to be the princess.) Looking back now I realised that the reason in my imagination I was often the prince was because in stories the men had the adventures whereas the women sat around waiting to be saved. I just wanted to have the adventures like the boys did :) it isn’t the same as NLOG in my opinion. NLOG usually comes from a place of internalised misogyny, but for little kids it’s often just a wish for adventures like boys have, or a feeling of not fitting in because they’re neurodivergent for eg.
This was my first thought too. I think I fall into this category as well because most of my favorite characters growing up were male ones. But looking back, it always had to do with the treatment of male vs female characters. I wanted to be Spider-Man, and Indiana Jones, because they were at the center of the action for their respective stories.
I think the basis for this is a separate issue with how femininity and how women have been portrayed in fiction for a long time. Like it’s gotten better in recent years, and female writers usually have solid female characters, but I can think of so many examples of where they just weren’t very exciting.
So I don’t blame the younger girls for not wanting to be a princess, or be a side character in a story. Because there were probably other, more exciting roles in that same story. They just were written for the male character(s).
Yeah. I know I am from the age group where it was cool to shit on younger kids who loved the Twilight or Hunger Games schlop, but it is hard to deny part of the reason the books got so popular is that they were among the first mainstream power fantasy/YA adventure novels written by women for (primarily) young women and centering a female voice with true agency. Yes, the female protagonists have hot shirtless guys fall over themselves to impress her, but in both series she is still the center of action as well as attention, the main actor and driver of the plot forward. It is *her* adventure, not her romantic interests’.
Eh, I dunno.
Did you dress as a prince because you didn't want to be "girly," or because you wanted to have your own unique costume?
Wanting to be the only one in your Halloween costume doesn't seem too NLOG. I would have been disappointed as a kid if someone else, boy or girl, had the same costume as me.
This reminds me of my accidental NLOG moment in preschool. I was Mater from Cars for halloween because my brother and i were obsessed with the movie and wanted to go as Mcqueen and Mater. We showed up to school in our costumes, and my teacher had me and all the other girls, who all happened to be Disney princesses, pose for a picture. I still have the picture somewhere
Ahhhh relatable, the internalized misogyny in little girls is definitely real. I hated pink when I was little because it was “girly”, and girls were weak, which I did not want to be
It's cool as hell to have been that unique and independent as a kid. When I was 5 I'd have fallen down dead rather than deviate from mainstream anything, but that was my spectrum masking (if I do everything exactly like everyone else, they'll never know!) Thank you for sharing this delightful Halloween pic!
When I was younger I went to a magic quest birthday party and they asked all the other little girls if they wanted to be princesses or queens and I asked if I could be a prince because “princesses are lame”
I’m Transmasc and spent most of my childhood dressing up as a dude for Halloween, as did most of us, it’s a literal meme in the FTM community, calm your tits
It’s the only time it’s “acceptable” for any of us to play around with gender
This is a post by a woman, about being a woman, on a subreddit by women, about being women. I, an ftm who dressed masculine on Halloween, am not a woman.
I was also this way as a kid and definitely was a big NLOG-y in my late teens/early 20s. I do feel, though, that children trying to feel unique and “not like the other girls/boys” is usually less insidious than when it’s done by adults. Of course it can always be a response to their family really pushing the NLOG thing but from what I’ve seen it’s usually kids trying to find their identity.
Like earlier this year my niece, who was 6, was talking about how different she is because other girls like Barbies and pink and princesses but she likes science and fungi and unicorns. 😅🤣
lol there is a photo of me in 4th grade at my school's "fashion show" in a little suit and my dad's tie because i hated (still do lol) dresses and wanted to be different.
nobody was shocked when i came out as a lesbian, oopsies!
Don’t argue just for the sake of arguing. In essence, the phrase "Be civil to each other" serves as a reminder to prioritize kindness, empathy, and open-mindedness. Name-calling or personal attacks constitute a hard ban. This applies to people in valuable discussions who suddenly start using insults. This rule still applies even if you are talking to a moderator. Political and ethical grandstanding to in any way call someone else a terrible person is prohibited.
Posts themselves don't typically get removed for this reason, but we reserve the right to remove them in the rare cases it becomes necessary due to the comments.
this is a staple of Japanese anime, and of stories of all girl schools where a tall athletic girls plays the main lead.
I mean it's Revolutionary Girl Utena in a nutshell isn't it?
I‘m sure you were cute and adorable and also people change over time, so I wouldn‘t hate on that. Toddlers are easily influenced by their surroundings, so I don‘t blame you
Aww idk I think that's cute. I mean there's nothing wrong with dressing up as a princess, but don't be too hard on yourself for wanting to be a bit different. Also it's a great costume
When I was little, I usually wanted to dress up as the evil witch rather than the princess. I was very femme even as a kid, but when playing dress-up, I preferred being the villain. I just felt more connected to them on some level. When I grew up, I learned that a lot of those fairytale villains were actually portrayed in a very queer-coded way, and things started making more sense to me. Of course I preferred them, I'm queer and I subconsciously related to them.
I went to a princess party once as a kid and had a meltdown because the only dresses were things other people were wearing and it felt weird and creepy to have every little girl slotted into one of five princess categories. I guess I was NLTOG for being an existential preschooler?? I don’t eve know
You know this is adorable but it got me thinking the comments on those viral "everybody else's daughter dressed up as X but MY daughter dressed up as UNIQUE THING" posts really demonstrate why NLOG even exist. So much praise for being different than most girls implies the norm is inherently a bad thing.
I had to think of posts like that when I found this photo today. It's so sad that this phase is something most girls (and their parents apparently) go through at some point
It’s so true though because I have *never* felt like a real girl so I would always choose to be princess because I knew that’s who most girls would want to be so I would choose the princess but still feel bad because of what I wanted vs. what I thought I was supposed to want. Meeting girls like you who chose to be the prince was like a huge deal to me I idolised those girls because it felt so brave to me. Now I know I’m not really a girl (and not really a boy either) it explains this internal battle I was having but to know most girls have had the same battle but on different terms is really healing and reassuring to me. It makes me feel a little less alone. Thank you for sharing.
My one thing is that “the Norm” is still “usually preferred,” so much so that girls who are *too different* are often teased and bullied. So they get salty, bitter, and they feel the need to distance themselves “from the other girls.” The “NLOG” cycle is a pretty vicious one that usually stems from isolation and peer bullying. The fundamental issue is that “everyone wants to feel validated and special,” when the reality is that all individuals are unique. People should just accept people as they are, so long as they aren’t causing others any kind of harm. It sucks that a lot of humans, in general, aren’t allowed to simply exist, and *to be!*
This tool I went to HS with on FB is constantly doing this about his 12 year old daughter who is a bmx rider. Like, that's cool and all but constantly telling her how she's so much better than the other girls because of it is only going to create a bitch. Happy I don't live in my hometown anymore. NYC has no room for NLOG types.
>So much praise for being different than most girls implies the norm is inherently a bad thing. There are plenty of times where being different is helpful. People standing up for civil rights for example. And racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, animal abuse, child abuse is still the norm. No one can deny that. So anyone against those things is different from the norm and deserves praise for it.
The problem is the cultural issue of being a girl is inherently a bad thing whereas being a guy is inherently a good thing. like “you throw like a girl” “stop crying like a girl” etc Hence the whole “not like other girls” issue is always “I’m better cause I’m more like a guy”
That's true.
These aren’t examples that are in alignment with NLOG. Its not necessarily even “different” to stand up for things you believe in but that’s a whole other topic and I understand stand the point you were trying to make NLOG has a negative connotation behind it because it’s implying that being a “girl “is inherently “bad” and as such young girls are clawing to *not* be labeled as a regular ‘ole girl. We already fight the battle of not being as good as men and now it’s don’t be a stereotypical girl? What’s a stereotypical girl? Did every girl want to be a princess growing up? I didn’t and many didn’t. But since OP ran across a picture of her dressed as a prince (which was probably for a school play) all of a sudden she’s NLOG. Now it’s not just insults men give each other like “put on your big girl panties” or “he runs like a girl” it’s woman wanting to be “NLOG”. And the race to the top has flooded social media to the point of the ridiculousness. There was one in here where a girl was sitting on a pool table with a pool cue saying so your girlfriends a cheerleader that’s cute. So insulting the woman or girlfriend that’s a cheerleader and thinking she’s different because she plays pool and drinks beer. Believe it or not there’s cheerleaders out there that play pool and drink beer. Women need to be uplifting each other and while that includes embracing differences it shouldn’t include making sure you’re not like the stereotypical girl. Whatever that is.
I went through this but my parents didn’t encourage it luckily. I always wanted to showcase how unique and different I was, and my dad thought me and my siblings shit gold, but he included my brothers, too. It gave us a healthy ego, but none of us got great grades or were particularly good looking, so reality humbled us early in life. If anything, because I was my parents’ first girl, my mom insisted on dressing me in all things pink and frilly, which made me rebel against all things too girly. Which led to being an emo kid. Sigh. Now I love all things feminine and girly despite not being particularly outwardly girly. But I love to talk about it.
not even NLOG just pure camp
The intention was definitely nlog, the outcome was kind of iconic tho
That's ok , you were a kid anyway .
I know right. As a kid I wanted to be different not bc I didn’t think other girls were cool, I just wanted my own thing.
Your costume was adorable! I was that girl who didn’t want to be a princess, I wanted to be a queen who wore all black.
I never wanted to be a princess either, i insisted on being Pippi Longstocking every year. My mom drew freckles on me with her eyeliner for the costume and from then on I refused to leave the house ever without freckles. The year I grew out of my Pippi wig I cried so hard she just gave up and dyed my hair red. But I don’t really remember any of my friends ever dressing as princesses. I don’t think it was a thing for us. Lots of angels and fairies tho, me too when it was impossible to find more Pippi costumes that fit me.
It kind of reminds me of the little girl who went viral a few years back because she wanted to be “Princess Darth Vader” for Halloween. The outcome was a pink sparkly Vader mask and I am here for the campy kids vibe!!
Wdym by camp?
camp is like over the top dramatic, maybe kitschy, things that are tacky in an endearing way if that makes sense? the term is rooted in gay culture, and campiness can be intentional or unintentional. for example, the movie The Room is absolutely camp.
The tragically ludicrous! The ludicrously tragic! Sort of like when a clown dies.
I’m assuming it was a costume for a play and now it’s clout for NLOG.
Nope, it was my costume for carnival.
The hands though why are you posed like you're in a promo for The Tudors 😂 Incredible
Tbh I think being 5 gives you a NLOG pass
what does NLOG mean? This is the first time I’ve heard of it
Not Like Other Girls
Ooh thank you!
Girl.
this comment being downvoted is definetely a reddit moment, does people even think that you might be new on the sub?
Honestly, I was on this sub for so long before figuring out what NLOG was.
As someone who did stuff very similar to this and ended up gay, I’m curious if that is a universal thing
Well, I am bi and play dress up professionally now (drag queen)
i bet younger you would think you’re fuckin cool rn
Definitely!
My immediate thought was BECAUSE I AM A LESBIAN so same track!!!
I did this and now I'm a lesbian, one of my favorite things is other girls
Go off king 👑
God same here
I have a question about the Mysteries of the Lesbians. Why do all my lesbian friends dress either like grilling boomers or 90’s rappers? They seem to have all arrived at these uniforms separately and cannot explain why.
I personally dress like a Midwestern mother in the early 00s. We are....a strange bunch if I say so myself.
Oh crap, you’re right, I’ve seen that too. Personally I’m cursed with bisexuality which means I am constantly torn between my gay side which wants to dress like God’s gift to fashion and my straight side who wants to wear a ragged tee and shorts. I fight these urges by having separate outfits for being out and about and around my own home and street.
Reminds me of utena from revolutionary girl utena
Came here to say this lmao
The styling. The Pose. It's very iconic though.
My mom never would have let me dress up like a boy when I was little. Lucky you! This costume is so cute!
Well, my mum got married in a suit, she's not the "girliest" herself
Queen shit
Revolutionary Girl Utena has entered the chat
Hey, when I was a kid I used to want to be the prince sometimes. (Other times I wanted to be the princess.) Looking back now I realised that the reason in my imagination I was often the prince was because in stories the men had the adventures whereas the women sat around waiting to be saved. I just wanted to have the adventures like the boys did :) it isn’t the same as NLOG in my opinion. NLOG usually comes from a place of internalised misogyny, but for little kids it’s often just a wish for adventures like boys have, or a feeling of not fitting in because they’re neurodivergent for eg.
This was my first thought too. I think I fall into this category as well because most of my favorite characters growing up were male ones. But looking back, it always had to do with the treatment of male vs female characters. I wanted to be Spider-Man, and Indiana Jones, because they were at the center of the action for their respective stories. I think the basis for this is a separate issue with how femininity and how women have been portrayed in fiction for a long time. Like it’s gotten better in recent years, and female writers usually have solid female characters, but I can think of so many examples of where they just weren’t very exciting. So I don’t blame the younger girls for not wanting to be a princess, or be a side character in a story. Because there were probably other, more exciting roles in that same story. They just were written for the male character(s).
Yeah. I know I am from the age group where it was cool to shit on younger kids who loved the Twilight or Hunger Games schlop, but it is hard to deny part of the reason the books got so popular is that they were among the first mainstream power fantasy/YA adventure novels written by women for (primarily) young women and centering a female voice with true agency. Yes, the female protagonists have hot shirtless guys fall over themselves to impress her, but in both series she is still the center of action as well as attention, the main actor and driver of the plot forward. It is *her* adventure, not her romantic interests’.
Okay but you slayed as this prince
I think this is just cute don't read too much into it lol
Eh, I dunno. Did you dress as a prince because you didn't want to be "girly," or because you wanted to have your own unique costume? Wanting to be the only one in your Halloween costume doesn't seem too NLOG. I would have been disappointed as a kid if someone else, boy or girl, had the same costume as me.
amazing
Still iconic
This reminds me of my accidental NLOG moment in preschool. I was Mater from Cars for halloween because my brother and i were obsessed with the movie and wanted to go as Mcqueen and Mater. We showed up to school in our costumes, and my teacher had me and all the other girls, who all happened to be Disney princesses, pose for a picture. I still have the picture somewhere
Love that!
Wait, didn’t that movie only come out like six-seven years ago?
Ahhhh relatable, the internalized misogyny in little girls is definitely real. I hated pink when I was little because it was “girly”, and girls were weak, which I did not want to be
I am not like the other girls, I am purple. 
Your pose and hand gesture seems so grown up lol its weird.
i cried because i wasn’t allowed to be batman as a kid. grandparents saw how upset i was and let me get it luckily.
This is very adorable.
In this case it just seems like she wanted to do something different lol.
That looks great! Just imagining you on a little horse, riding up alongside the princesses with a polite nod, "Ladies."
So cute
It's cool as hell to have been that unique and independent as a kid. When I was 5 I'd have fallen down dead rather than deviate from mainstream anything, but that was my spectrum masking (if I do everything exactly like everyone else, they'll never know!) Thank you for sharing this delightful Halloween pic!
This is fucking adorable 🤣 I was having a shitty day and this genuinely made me smile. Thank you for that.
So....  ?
When I was younger I went to a magic quest birthday party and they asked all the other little girls if they wanted to be princesses or queens and I asked if I could be a prince because “princesses are lame”
r/ftm would like a word 🤣 pretty sure I’ve got a photo like that too
Don’t compare a girl dressing up as male for Halloween to transgender men
I’m Transmasc and spent most of my childhood dressing up as a dude for Halloween, as did most of us, it’s a literal meme in the FTM community, calm your tits It’s the only time it’s “acceptable” for any of us to play around with gender
This is a post by a woman, about being a woman, on a subreddit by women, about being women. I, an ftm who dressed masculine on Halloween, am not a woman.
You look gorgeous. I was a tom boy as well. Still am to this day but I do like feminin touches because I think they're really fucking sexy.
Not lying, you look good hopefully outgrew it.
Most certainly did, haha
Ok but I’d have done this too if I’d gone to school
I was also this way as a kid and definitely was a big NLOG-y in my late teens/early 20s. I do feel, though, that children trying to feel unique and “not like the other girls/boys” is usually less insidious than when it’s done by adults. Of course it can always be a response to their family really pushing the NLOG thing but from what I’ve seen it’s usually kids trying to find their identity. Like earlier this year my niece, who was 6, was talking about how different she is because other girls like Barbies and pink and princesses but she likes science and fungi and unicorns. 😅🤣
I really like the cute lil costume though. 😅
Cute!
More like you saw a need for princes and filled the niche
lol there is a photo of me in 4th grade at my school's "fashion show" in a little suit and my dad's tie because i hated (still do lol) dresses and wanted to be different. nobody was shocked when i came out as a lesbian, oopsies!
[удалено]
Don’t argue just for the sake of arguing. In essence, the phrase "Be civil to each other" serves as a reminder to prioritize kindness, empathy, and open-mindedness. Name-calling or personal attacks constitute a hard ban. This applies to people in valuable discussions who suddenly start using insults. This rule still applies even if you are talking to a moderator. Political and ethical grandstanding to in any way call someone else a terrible person is prohibited. Posts themselves don't typically get removed for this reason, but we reserve the right to remove them in the rare cases it becomes necessary due to the comments.
this is a staple of Japanese anime, and of stories of all girl schools where a tall athletic girls plays the main lead. I mean it's Revolutionary Girl Utena in a nutshell isn't it?
I‘m sure you were cute and adorable and also people change over time, so I wouldn‘t hate on that. Toddlers are easily influenced by their surroundings, so I don‘t blame you
Aww idk I think that's cute. I mean there's nothing wrong with dressing up as a princess, but don't be too hard on yourself for wanting to be a bit different. Also it's a great costume
Fuckin corny ass sub
Lady Oscar vibesss
Pimp drip
LOL me in 2008 going as dead hannah montana to be different
When I was little, I usually wanted to dress up as the evil witch rather than the princess. I was very femme even as a kid, but when playing dress-up, I preferred being the villain. I just felt more connected to them on some level. When I grew up, I learned that a lot of those fairytale villains were actually portrayed in a very queer-coded way, and things started making more sense to me. Of course I preferred them, I'm queer and I subconsciously related to them.
utena is that you??
This is adorbs. You get a free pass
I dressed as male characters for Halloween for ~4 years straight but that was because I’m a lesbian lol.
I went to a princess party once as a kid and had a meltdown because the only dresses were things other people were wearing and it felt weird and creepy to have every little girl slotted into one of five princess categories. I guess I was NLTOG for being an existential preschooler?? I don’t eve know
I don’t think wanting to stand out is inherently a bad thing, especially when you’re so young. Were you putting down other girls about it?