TikToker @NikitaDumpTruck's Video 'Girlsplaining' Israel-Palestine Sparks Backlash Against The 'Anti-Intellectualism' Trend Of Girl Content

Nikita Redkar has grown a large following on her TikTok @NikitaDumpTruck by posting videos in which she "girlsplains" topics like the U.S. economic downturn, stocks, Oppenheimer and even the Russia-Ukraine war. These videos typically depict Redkar using "girly" concerns like fashion, iced lattes or shopping as metaphors for wider cultural and political issues.

But a recent video posted and since deleted by Redkar has caused a backlash, sparking conversations about whether Redkar's style is actually detrimental to feminist efforts against anti-intellectualism.

This month, TikToker @NikitaDumpTruck posted a video responding to a request from a follower that read, "Bestie can you girlsplain the Israeli war pls," to which Redkar responded with a video containing a text overlay that read, "Buckle up girlypop" and "Israel & Palestine Explained: for the girls✨"

Redkar then began to deliver an abbreviated history of Israel and Palestinian relations using the analogy of a squabble between two crudely drawn stick figure girls named "Izzy" and "Patty." The video also features "Brittany" as Britain and a blocky-looking club bouncer as the United Nations.

While Redkar's video has since been deleted from TikTok, people used X user @WrittenByHanna's reupload to weigh in on what they believe is a growing trend of "anti-intellectual" content directed towards women, where the discussion of serious and perhaps complicated topics are repacked using of slang and pop culture references.

X user @queersocialism reacted to the video as well, calling the "dumbing-down phenomenon" emblematic of thinly veiled sexism toward women given the vast introductory resources available to adults willing to learn about an issue.

Some internet users talked about how they had warned against warming up to trends like Girl Math and Girl Dinner, seeing @NikitaDumpTruck's video as a natural evolution of such "girlfication."

But other internet users had their own theories about how we got to the point where someone feels the need to summarize global issues and present them wrapped in hyperfeminine lingo.

X user @freshhel points to the misogynistic redpill movement and how it drove several women to create insular and hyperspecific feminine content that would never reach the algorithms of men who could potentially harass them.