this OG girlboss sold all her stuff and is leaving the country
the wunderkind to burnout pipeline that millennial women know so well
I have always paid attention to Sophia Amoruso. As someone who had a very rebellious youth, I was practically summoned to the altar of the Church of Nasty Gal Saints. Always the internet explorer, I have no idea how I first came to find the e-tailer Nasty Gal (then still dubbed as Nasty Gal Vintage), but once I found it I was hooked. As a ‘bad gyal’ from Brooklyn I wasn’t interested in urbanwear, nor sickly sweet feminine clothing, nor the wave of mall brands that became the unofficial uniform of most American youth…..and even though I was a fashion devotee, I didn’t have the funds to buy straight off the rack from the brands I salivated over (2000s Miu Miu, DSQUARED2, and Luella to name a few.)
So when I found Nasty Gal Vintage, it was like my fashion prayers had been answered. There was a treasure trove of cut-out dresses, platform heels and fringed jackets that were perfect for a girl like me, who wanted to convey that I was equal parts sexy AND dangerous (ah, youth). Knowing Sophia’s backstory, I felt like she was a kindred spirit- she was free-spirited and was one of the first waves of women in the 2000s/2010s who was winning at life and playing by her own rules without looking like a Stepford wife. And as someone who was getting tattooed in basements before I was of legal age (sorry mom), I was craving more examples of cool, successful women who decided to do away with convention. (Kat von D was another example who I admired at that time, who of course also went on to create a lucrative business without having to soften her inked edges.)
When Nasty Gal became wildly successful, I was excited for Sophia and excited for the idea that edgy women could still win at the game of life. If you’re younger than me, just know that it was not common to see people with unconventional aesthetics be accepted by the larger society. It certainly wasn’t easy to find an example of a woman with a successful business in those days who wasn’t relatively ‘normal’, bordering on conservative as far as aesthetics are concerned. It was refreshing to see someone with raccoon eyeliner and Betty Paige bangs be interviewed about her successful and legitimate business.
Sophia would then go on to start a movement that eclipsed Nasty Gal when she coined the term #girlboss. It was a wildly successful phrase, that got swept up by people who would never deign to be part of the Nasty Galaxy. Girlboss ended up being a cautionary tale of sorts about what happens once we put ideas out into the universe that we have no control over. The phrase ended up being attributed to quite a few bad actors of its day, like Rachel Hollis and Elizabeth Holmes. This also coincided with Nasty Gal going bankrupt after it became a corporate engine when it took outside investor money. (I would later go on to learn a lot more about venture capital and how it’s usually not a good idea for creative businesses.) But despite all of that, Sophia always had something new up her sleeve and is now a full fledged venture capitalist.
So imagine my surprise when this venture capitalist (not said with malice btw) informed the internet that she is offloading all her material possessions that denote success to move to an apartment in the U.K. For one, I think that’s cool af. I admire anyone who could choose to live a life of the rich and famous and simply just….doesn’t want to. (Andre 3000 comes to mind.) Sophia could continue the wave of Fast Company covers, L.A. McMansions and luxury car leases that her peers lean into and Lord knows she’s earned it. (Say what you want but a solopreneur whose company was $1M cash positive only by bootstrapping is a true rags to riches story.) Choosing adventure when you could lean into the very cushy life you’ve built for yourself is no small feat. I also think it speaks to the millennial woman’s condition.
To be clear- I don’t know Sophia’s motivations but I can’t help but notice that she’s part of a wave of millennial women who leaned in a la Sheryl Sandberg and now they’re just….over it. Millennials are in a really particular wave of human history here in the U.S.- they’re the last wave of people who believed in ‘go to college and get a good job’ advice, the last wave of people to believe that accomplishments are akin to happiness. Add to that the hurdles that come with being a woman in the workplace and a lot of women in business are just tired. Don’t believe that corporate life is tiresome? Look no further than Gen Z who (generally speaking) are quitting at record rates and leaning into tradwifery.
I can’t help but notice the irony of the ‘lean in’ advice women were given, only for the very same woman who gave that advice to stand alongside Mark Zuckerberg’s comments that the office is suffering from a lack of masculine energy. And be clear- Sheryl Sandberg’s situation is best case scenario. So imagine reality for everyone else. Sophia was a founder but has openly admitted that she often deferred to the people in the room who had more white collar job experience than her, which tanked the business she built at Nasty Gal. It is a plague that many women suffer from- thinking that there’s someone in the room who knows better, or at least pretending to think that. Corporate work is not physically demanding but it demands a level of performance that is mentally draining. And by performance I mean, actual theatrics. Using a voice one or two octaves higher than your own, smiling when you’re tired, and so on. You need to kill that presentation on Thursday but also somehow always have something vaguely funny to say to everyone you pass by in the hall.
In short- a lot of women are tired. Or at least…a lot of women are pivoting. I love this for us. We are in the process of writing history so things will be messy, they will morph over time as we perfect the systems. We may shudder businesses, we may choose to be demoted at work to focus on other things, we may sell our worldly possessions on FB Marketplace Offerup to make room for new adventures. We are actively experimenting with a life without work as our anchor and for many women (including Sophia) a life without a partner and/or kids as anchors too. There have always been rogue women in our lives who never married or never had kids but nothing like the wave we’re experiencing today. Sophia is hyper-visible but by no means is she alone. I look forward to learning about her adventures and about yours too, should you choose to take them. <3
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