Sandy toes, tan lines, hibiscus flowers, and tie dyed maxi skirts against toned stomachs — no, we aren’t talking about Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush (2002), we’re talking about the newest fashion trend to come out of Tiktok: The Coconut Girl, who, if I’m being honest, is the last thing we need right now.
So, what is a Coconut Girl anyway?
According to Twitter user @GOTMAIDZ, a Coconut Girl is “a Tiktok trend where girls wanna look like 2000s beach photoshoots etc.” The main inspiration comes from our favorite puka shell-wearing on-screen characters growing up mixed with y2k “island holiday” culture, and that’s where the harmless facade falls. The Coconut Girl trend brings a new wave of people romanticizing aspects of going to the tropics for vacation, completely bypassing what life is truly like for people who actually live in the tropics, especially in the midst of the pandemic.
Living on an island isn’t all coconuts and strawberry scented shampoo. It’s not about tan white girls donning maxi skirts and bright bikinis, and it doesn’t always look like a scene from Aquamarine (2007). Let me paint you a picture: In 2021, we are struggling to keep our way of life. You see brown skinned children from Hawaii and the Pacific Islands asking people — westerners — not to travel, because our medical facilities simply do not have the capacity to treat such a large influx of COVID-stricken patients. In my home country, the Philippines, islanders from Southern Luzon are being shot down by the government for being staunch environmental defenders. Our indigenous peoples, the pioneers of our environmental knowledge, are being bombed and tagged as terrorists, while governments sequester their land and pay no heed to the welfare of the wildlife native to our islands. So, no, it’s not just a harmless Tiktok trend, it’s building up a false notion of how life in the tropics is always a tranquil paradise that was made to cater to your personal tastes on Instagram. And worst of all, it perpetuates an idea that white women and their lifestyles on holiday are the epitome of what it’s like to live on an island in the tropics, when actual natives of the island are subjected to far lower standards of living.
White women are so quick to romanticize island living, when their own ancestors made it their life’s mission to erase our islands of our culture. In the Philippines, people are struggling to bring back Baybayin, a writing system phased out by European colonizers who introduced Latin characters. The Maori language native to New Zealand is one of the world’s most endangered languages. Island nations don’t always have much in common, but something we all share is our struggle to preserve elements of our culture due to how effective westerners were at colonizing us. To put white people at the forefront of a trend centered on island living is akin to making a colonizer the face of native culture. Do feel free to call me a sensitive gate-keeper, but as a Filipino, the name Coconut Girl itself seems off to me. We’ve been called “Jungle Asians” for years by westerners, and now these people call themselves Coconut Girls. It’s as if being an islander is only okay when it’s a tan white person the label applies to. Imagine a tanned Elsa being the star of Lilo & Stitch instead of actual Hawaiians.
Trust me, I love the idea of paradise as much as the next girl does. But the thing is, paradise doesn’t exist. Not when a virus is taking out thousands of islanders daily, not when our indigenous peoples and endemic species are being slaughtered by our own governments, not while tourists continue to be irresponsible by trashing our so-called paradise and by gentrifying our islands, and especially not while westerners romanticize our way of life when our people are suffering more than they ever have before. So, if you ask me, no, we don’t need another tanned white girl making aspects of our culture a part of her monthly SHEIN phase change. We don’t need you to come here and romanticize our lives while you endanger our people.
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