Dear Girls

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Part of a series on Sign Holding. [View Related Entries]

About

Dear Girls is a photoshopped image featuring model Cole Mohr in space holding a sign instructing women to not be insecure. The photograph has been criticized for being pseudofeministic and even misogynistic, inspiring a number of parody images reenacting the photo.

Origin

On May 8th, 2011, the Latvian site Spoki^[10] published an image compilation including a photo of fashion model Cole Mohr^[9] edited with an outer space background and a sign which read "Dear Girls / don't be insecure / you don't need make-up & nice clothes / you're all fucking beautiful."

Spread

On August 8th, 2011, the Mohr photo was posted several times on the microblogging site Tumblr.^[11]^[12]^[13] On September 3rd, a Facebook^[1] page for "Dear Girls Don't Be Insecure U Don't Need Makeup & Nice Clothes" was created, which received over 1,250 likes within 10 months. On November 2nd, Tumblr user Unbroken Wave^[5]posted several webcam photos of a boy holding signs featuring the same message as the one displayed in Mohr photo (shown below).

On January 23rd, 2012, Tumblr user The Frogman^[8] posted a parody image of the Mohr photo in which he suffocates to death in space (shown below, left). On May 28th, Tumblr user einsteinonacid^[6] posted a response image to the Mohr photo holding a sign which read "Dear boy in outer space, don't tell me what to do" (shown below, right). Within two weeks, the post received over 150,000 notes.

On May 29th, einsteinonacid's photo was reposted on the Internet humor sites FunnyJunk^[15] and 9gag.^[7] The same day, Redditor wonderless2686 submitted the photo to the /r/funny^[3] subreddit in a post titled “Dear boy in outer space," receiving over 29,500 up votes and 1,000 comments within 15 days. On June 6th, 2012, Slacktory^[4] editor Nick Douglas published an article titled “Sassing Back Boys With Pseudofeminist Handwritten Signs)”, which featured several parody versions of the Mohr photo.