What is a Granola Girl, and How Can I Become One?
Granola girl: we’ve all heard the term. Whether they be male or female, a granola girl is a person who likes hiking, visiting national parks, and participating in other outdoors-y activities. Don’t be surprised if you see them sporting tie-dye, wearing Chacos, drinking out of a Camelbak, or even eating trail mix. Earth tones are an absolute necessity to this style, especially in corduroy, denim, linen, and fleece. Plus, they always have their fingers stacked with rings found at the local flea market (2). Granola girls also tend to be sustainability-oriented. Whether it be making a trip to the thrift store, cooking a new *in* Vegan meals, or practicing capitalist counterculture, granola girls are proud environmental advocates.
In her Youtube video offering styling advice to wanna-be granola girls, “A History of the Granola Girl Aesthetic and How to Style It,” Em’s Wild World ironically claims that granola culture is different from many consumer-oriented fashion aesthetics (3). But is the granola aesthetic really a counterculture to “capitalism’s dark underbelly,” as she states?
The idea of granola girl or granola culture is actually just a new term for hippies. According to slang.net, the term granola, as describing hippie culture, comes from the granola that many hippies consumed and supported as a trail snack in the 1960s. A huge ideology still recognized by those who created the granola culture aesthetic is keeping Earth clean, thereby representing their political beliefs in an outward expression of style. Although it first started as a hippie movement, the trend of environmentalism and “clean” living that can be associated with granola culture soon diluted on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Reddit. Many social media influencers who advocate for organic food consumption, the importance of spending time outdoors, healthy and athletic lifestyles, such as @quingable or @miss.rover, have taken to the granola girl culture (5). This has pushed granola culture into a different direction entirely; a direction more oriented towards capitalism than ever before.
We can see many granola heads in stereotypically ‘outdoors-y’ states such as Colorado and California. Many of the people living in these states are often described as “crunchy” by outsiders; according to etymonline.com, crunchy is a word that also describes people who don’t subscribe to modern medicine, who engage intensely with hippie culture, and who are frustratingly intense about healthy living and environmental issues (6). Thus, trends such as the ‘almond moms’ and health and wellness self-help gurus have expanded from this crunchy definition, turning granola girl, granola head, and/or granola culture into a fab-inspired, capitalism-driven trend.
In addition to familiar claims that anyone who enjoys going outdoors and Patagonia is considered “so granola,” the Jetset Times discusses the van lifestyle stereotype that follows closely behind granola. Van lifestyle can be described as people leaving behind their regular homes and jobs to go across the country from national park to national park (7). Oftentimes, an influencer lifestyle goes along with van life, and people will document their experiences as they go. This leads to more granola content entering the media, thus expanding its market.
There are many steps one must take to successfully fit the granola girl style, and the biggest part of the trend is clothing. One search on Pinterest, according to Youtuber Em’s Wild World, describes the essential items to be purchased to achieve this style. Much like reminiscing over the 70s chic hippie style, granola girls should attempt to remix clothes they already own, thrifting new clothes, and sticking to natural materials (8). Purchases can also be made on Etsy or Depop for anything reflective of natural beauty. Despite this goal, granola girls have started dipping their toes into different trends, such as cafe culture and the cozy aesthetic, both of which are also going viral on many social media platforms. In this sense, the style has expanded from the original goal of re-use or thrifting to mass produced items reflecting this “natural” style. People are increasingly encouraged to accessorize and purchase items to achieve this style goal, causing the capitalistic counterculture of the initial movement to turn on itself.
A Shift in the ‘Granola Head’ Culture
It seems what started as a hippie movement is now fueled by large clothing corporations, who also work with popular social media influencers, to encourage people to participate in trends. In addition to fueling hyperconsumption which leads to terrible environmental impacts (which is the exact opposite of the goals of original granola heads and hippies), the trend encourages people to treat the environment like it is only there for our enjoyment (9). It ironically expands the increasing belief that land is only property split up, bought, and sold by humans for our pleasure.
This shift within this granola culture is being felt all over the internet as well. In the Reddit forum r/simpleliving, many O.G. granola heads claim that granola culture now only consists of conversations about career and branding for granola influencers. Although people will make claims that they are “totally not materialistic,” they will purchase (or tell people to purchase) anything that achieves the aesthetic (10). The environmental movement, due to the influence of social media and consumption culture, has become even more privileged than it always has been. There is this cultural dilemma that you cannot be sustainable without being wealthy. Not only is it very expensive to be green in this day and age, but some people have to worry about keeping a roof over their head, putting food on the table, or just getting to and from work. It is difficult to live sustainably if it is hard to live normally. Even the van dweller trend we see in the media has become exclusively for wealthy individuals working in entertainment rather than the original (poor) hippies that began the movement.
According to The Spectator, “granola” has flooded social media platforms and become a convenient hashtag for people projecting highly curated images of themselves to the world in their constructed, “perfect” granola environment (11). In this world, the food is healthy and organic, they are traveling across the country (or the world) from one beautiful place to another, and they appear perfectly happy and content recommending different products in order to be exactly like them.
This product push exacerbates the fast fashion industry. For example, a quick search on Google for “shop granola aesthetic” brings up websites such as Shein, which mass-produces in-trend clothes in dangerous working environments, with sections on its website for “in” trends. Granola is one of those listed trends. This allows people to (cheaply) purchase all they need for a certain aesthetic only to change their mind to explore another aesthetic. Another example of hyperconsumerism and fast fashion, pushed by granola influencers, is Amazon storefront (12). Influencers will list all of the products or clothing they use and wear on an easily accessible list where you can just click a button and the product will be there the next day.
In addition to fast fashion, the perfectly curated influencer image in granola culture tends to be the same type of “granola girl”. According to The Spectator, all people popular in granola influencer circles are slim-figured, white, and typically blonde or brunette (13). This ideology creates incredibly toxic undertones, as many of the influencers also advocate for healthy living and eating. Many granola influencers stray into the territory of “almond moms,” which is a term to describe people, specifically young moms, who are obsessed with healthy nutrition, and yet, they encourage their children (or their social media following) to eat as little as possible and nothing sugar-y (14). These curated images also seem to coach women on how to behave, dress, and express themselves in their everyday life.
Granola Culture and Land Ethics
In addition to hyperconsumerism, the ideology behind obsessive hiking and camping within granola culture hints at humans only using land for our own pleasure, even when trying to protect it. Since the beginning of colonization in the Americas, land has been considered property to be claimed. We put a flag or a demarcation on an area of land and claim it as our own. We pushed out indigenous and Native Americans, who saw the land as another member of their tribe, to dehumanize the land and all of the living things on it. This can be seen in all spaces, both public and private.
In Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac, he describes a land ethic to be “an ethic [that] presupposes the mental image of the land as a biotic mechanism.” In other words, land isn’t just something we can use to make ourselves feel happier, even if it’s a fun trip to a beautiful national park (15). Land is not just proprietary in terms of buying and developing land, or cordoned-off zones where humans cannot develop like national parks as decreed in the Wilderness Act of 1964. As Leopold states, “A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of the land” (16). Every demarcation we make in nature, the further we separate ourselves from it.
In fact, there is no mention of land or nature in the United States Constitution. The land we exist on has never been given any rights equal to our own (17). Any sort of environmental protection act must be done under the Commerce Clause, which ironically is related to economics and the exchange of goods.
Interestingly enough, the word “wilderness” to define serene nature was completely created by humans. According to William Cronon in his essay The Trouble with Wilderness, “for many Americans wilderness stands as the last remaining place where civilization, that all too human disease, has not fully infected the earth…seen in this way, wilderness presents itself as the best antidote to our human selves, a refuge we must somehow recover if we hope to save the planet.” The creation of national protected areas created this ideology that humans must be separate from nature for nature to exist at all, and our decisions on which land deserves protection vs. which land does not show we think ourselves ‘above’ nature (18). Our desire to ‘escape to nature’ only shows we consider it as another product waiting for consumption in order to generate pleasure.
Ethical Environmentalism
Due to capitalism, corporations, and the granola movement, environmentalism is filled with privilege. There is a cost to being sustainable, and it is only highlighted further by granola girl influencers telling people all the things they need to buy to be ‘green,’ while never truly being green themselves. Access to nature and national parks even comes with privilege, as many people in marginalized communities and lower socioeconomic groups don’t have the luxury of regular access to nature. Society has allowed granola and other environmental resources to become only available to a certain group. The commercialization of granola culture ruins its environmentalism.
To end with a different cultural perspective, Robin Wall Kimmerer, a Native American botanist, describes the historical treatment of land in the language of her ancestors, Potawatomi. She claims that Western “science can be a language of distance which reduces a being to its working parts; it is a language of objects” (19). Unlike English, Potawatomi contains “grammar of animacy,” or extending life and personhood beyond humans to animals, plants, rocks, or water. In this sense, Potawatomi directly connects humans to the nature surrounding them, thus encouraging a mutual respect. This was lost in American culture upon colonization. Humans now automatically assume nature is beneath them, and a reflection on past indigenous culture just shows how much our society has changed. The hyper commercialization of a supposed “environmental” movement like granola culture shows just how consumptive we have become.
Endnotes
(1) “Granola Girl.” Urban Dictionary, 2013.
(2) Em’s Wild World. “A History of the Granola Girl Aesthetic | How to Style It.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Sept. 2023.
(3) “Granola.” Slang.Net, 2023.
(4) Nalle, Katie. “Granola Girl Aesthetic.” New Face Magazine, 4 Oct. 2022. (5) Spagna, Alyssa, et al. “Decoding the Granola Lifestyle.” Jetset Times, 7 Dec. 2021.
(6) Em’s Wild World. “A History of the Granola Girl Aesthetic | How to Style It.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Sept. 2023.
(7) Spagna, Alyssa, et al. “Decoding the Granola Lifestyle.” Jetset Times, 7 Dec. 2021.
(8) “Is It Just Me, or Is the ‘Outdoorsy’, Granola, Crunchy, Whatever Culture Getting Hyperconsumerist the Last Few Years?” Reddit, 2022.
(9) Piccoli, Sydney. “Conformity and Consumerism: The Problems with Following Aesthetics.” Medium, The Spectator, 17 Nov. 2022.
(10) Bourne, Lily. “Granola Girls and the Ethics of Aesthetics.” The Shield, 6 Dec. 2022.
(11) Piccoli, Sydney. “Conformity and Consumerism: The Problems with Following Aesthetics.” Medium, The Spectator, 17 Nov. 2022.
(12) Piccoli, Sydney. “Conformity and Consumerism: The Problems with Following Aesthetics.” Medium, The Spectator, 17 Nov. 2022.
(13) Leopold, Aldo. The Land Ethic. 1933.
(14) Leopold, Aldo. The Land Ethic. 1933.
(15) “What Are the Rights of Nature?” Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature (GARN), 23 Sept. 2022.
(16) Cronon, William. The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature. Norton, 1995.
(17) Bourne, Lily. “Granola Girls and the Ethics of Aesthetics.” The Shield, 6 Dec. 2022
(18) Kimmerer, Robin Wall. “Planting Sweetgrass.” Braiding Sweetgrass, Milkweed Editions, 2013.
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