Candid Girl

About

Candid Girl is a slang term for an archetypical character theorized by comedian Stef Dag on the Subway Takes show on TikTok, which features New Yorkers offering cultural commentary while riding the subway. Dag's description of Candid Girl frames her as a form of pick-me girl and was controversial after appearing online in early April 2024, with many pushing back against her description or ironically embracing it.

Origin

On Episode 104 of the TikTok show Subway Takes, host Kareem Graham interviewed comedian Stef Dag (seen below) in an April 1st, 2024, post that received over 2.1 million likes and 12.3 million views in the course of two days.^[1]

During the interview, Dag describes the "Candid Girl" in this way:

All guys think that they wanna date the cool, hot, artsy, baddie girl with like baby bangs and a bad father but that’s actually not the case at all. What all guys in New York want to date is the “candid girlfriend.” You can trademark that. The Candid Girlfriend is a girl who's like 5' 5" and a half, naturally thin, has mousy brown hair no longer than shoulder length. She's like, from New Hampshite and maybe studied art history. And I would say, the biggest part of her personality is that she "loves pomegranate" and her boyfriend thinks that's so quirky and adorable. She's never like the overt center of attention… the Candid Girl is the Patient Zero of the Pick-Me-Girl, she's not even trying to be Pick-Me, there's just authentically nothing going on in her brain.

Spread

References to the "Candid Girl" term popped up elsewhere on TikTok following the Subway Takes video. For example, on April 1st, 2024, TikToker @Eggmcmuffinofficial earned over 500,000 views and 27,000 likes in two days for posting the video (seen below, left) in which she identified herself as meeting many of the "Candid Girl" criteria.^[2]

That same day, TikToker @katieneto pushed against the idea (seen below, right) of insulting "Candid Girls" for not being interesting and objected to how "our culture pushes self-awareness as a form of social capital," concluding that "pomegranate girl, she would save your seat" in a TikTok video that earned over 27,000 likes and 250,000 views in two days.^[3]

Also on April 1st, 2024, TikToker @2percentcowboy predicted that "Candid Girlfriendcore" would become a trending aesthetic on TikTok, saying, "we have very little time before this is fundamentally misunderstood and run off with," receiving over 100,000 likes and 568,000 views in two days.^[4]

On X / Twitter, users also posted about the Candid Girl as the video went viral and the term continued spreading. For example, on April 2nd, X user @punishedgarage made a post critical of Dag, arguing that she must personally know a "Candid Girl" named Emily and feel jealous of her, while also recognizing the Candid Girl as a real archetype.^[5] The post (seen below) from earned over 20,000 likes in a day.^[5]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References