The birth of ‘girl’ as a denomination, obscurely pinned to 14th-century Germanic vernacular, has simultaneously plagued and pedestaled those attributed for centuries. Whether its negative connotations can ever be fully erased is peripheral; the attempt is paramount. Recent history has America reevaluating the profit possibilities of ‘girl’ as a demographic. When the country propelled into post-war prosperity, shift jobs and allowances became commonplace for young adults previously cashless. Providing disposable income to teenagers cultivated an unprecedented consumer category, one unburdened by utility bills or loan payments. The Reaganomic market of late-80s America found great prosperity in reusing scraps from the feminist second wave. Retailers began promoting a vacant ‘girlpower’ message, encouraging their female audience to purchase rather than pursue agency. Simultaneously, women were increasingly represented in an official political capacity. The so-called ‘Year of the Woman’ saw 27 women elected to congressional positions in 1992. Whilst a third wave of older feminists more aligned with systemic integration began brewing, younger women were being routinely suppressed.

Scholar Anita Harris cites ‘girlpower’ as an authoritarian weapon; teenage girls “have always contended with forms of regulatory surveillance that limit and appropriate their expression”, pseudo-feminist promotion being a primary late-millenium example. By limiting available information systems “through invitation to speech”, corporate entities accrued both economic benefit and cultural control (2003: 41). On the surface, encouraging open communication appears benign. But financial incentive eclipses actual progress: “the current enthusiasm…dovetails with forces that educe tales of pain without interrogating the social conditions that underpin them” (44). Products proliferated, ‘girlpower’ going so far as the Oxford English Dictionary. Reaching phenomena status only expedited its political flattening. Lacking independent modes of communication, attentions were monopolized by drugstore publications like Teen Vogue and Seventeen. ‘Girls’ magazines’, a subgenre of the more infamous ‘women’s magazines’, reduced their audience to banal fodder about celebrity culture. There was no room for critical conversation or self-discovery. Girls were dually represented and restricted by the mainstream at an unprecedented level. The Spice Girls are a ubiquitous example. Five women were packaged as a set of female archetypes and proceeded to mint $300 million off endorsement deals (1997: BBC).

Understandably, the superficiality was not appreciated. A disseminated collective of young women began organizing in opposition, eschewing restrictive ‘girl’ definitions imposed by authority and academics. The ‘riot grrrls’ were a “loose network of young women…attempting to forge new communities” (Harris 45) by distributing amateur publications with an “aim to share information and build and politicize a community” of otherwise disparate girls (46). They replaced i with rr and hijacked their genus with growls. Teenagers turned towards demolishing gender convention through an arsenal of art and anger. The rallying ‘GRRRL PoWeR’ cry operated in direct contrast to its consumer-friendly shadow self, declaring girls to be unmediated agents of their personal identities. Through radical reclamation, as highlighted by professor Michelle Comstock, riot grrrls acted not only as contrarians but also “....as rhetoricians engaged in the important political processes of re-envisioning and revising "feminism" and "girlhood" in the contemporary United States” (384). One manifesto - among many - proposes a definition:
GRRRL PoWeR iS:
feeling okay about being a girl: Be proud! We ROCK!

The grrrls were prolific zinesters. Zines - short for ‘magazine’ - are amateur publications “outside of dominant culture”, varied contexts related through a nucleus of “critical social commentary” and independent production (Harris 47). Writing was essential to reclaiming ‘girl’ as a site of self-determination. Riot grrrls adopted the anarchist spirit of previous alternative publishing spaces, creating and distributing through communal authorship. Grrrlzines existed beyond both ‘girls’ magazines’ and historically misogynist alternative writing spaces. An inclusive scaffolding was materially enacted using collaged images and collaborative prose, destabilizing mainstream distinctions of reader and writer. These tactics added a protective layer of illegibility to the project. The riot grrrls embodied a Frankenstein-ed feminism “founded on difference, individuality, and a continuing effort to define the loose cultural and political spaces of grrrl power and sisterhood” (Comstock 386), their grrrlzines facilitating “a new forum for grrrl solidarity” (391).

The first edition of Toronto-based Femzine includes a preface explicitly aligned with revolutionary dogma. Editor Melanya Aguila explains that she “asked each contributor to do a write-up about themselves…because they are representing themselves and not ALL wymyn” (1991: 5). She extends her self-possession ethos to interviews that were conducted with a variety of female-led bands, sending them drafts so “the interviewer (that’s me!) is put on a more equal level to those being interviewed…I’m trying to evoke fair representation and portrayal of wymyn” (6). Each girl actively participates in her presentation, contributing to a deliberately incoherent aesthetic that embraces - rather than eradicates - their individuality. Pushed to the margins by a dominant patriarchy, the riot grrrl solution was purposeful occupation “outside surveillance, silencing and appropriation” (Harris 46).

Despite being relatively short-lived, the riot grrrls reached a staggering scope of influence on cultural iconography and political reform. Their ‘GRRRL PoWeR’ mission statement was potent and adaptable. The previously referenced intentional incoherence gave grrrls a unique freedom. Their liminality enabled a variety of expression across a wide spectrum of geographic location and demographic identity. Unfortunately, disorganization also crippled potential for long-term stability. ‘Girls’ magazines’ quickly adapted their output to better suit their radicalized audience. Sassy, advertised as an alterative to teenybopper publications, began featuring a section titled ‘Zine Corner’, later ‘Zine of the Month’ (Aronsohon 2023). Punk-adjacent grrrl bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile fell out of popular favor in ramification for their broadband refusal to sanitize the music and messaging. Their calls for media protest were punished through mainstream exclusion and their reach demonstrably limited. Fallacies leftover from the feminist second wave were unconsciously perpetuated. When the ability to identify movement leadership is eliminated, even - especially - when done deliberately, authority defaults to women already in public-facing positions. Rather than guarantee equitable representation for all persons beneath the femme umbrella, grrrls lost out on lasting cultural authority to the exact market feminisms they had so vehemently rebuked (Freeman 1971).

The transition between in-person rioting to digital revolution was not a linear process. Although there is demonstrated overlap in vocabulary and visual aesthetic, the gURL movement curated a unique canon. By the latter half of the 1990s, nearly half of American households owned a computer. Widespread Internet access had managed to completely overhaul previously luddite cultural cornerstones in less than a decade: the encyclopedia, the yellow pages, the newspaper all transmuted denizens of an emergent Net. Activities outside the established media were equally impacted, and artistic production performed a mass migration onto the Web. Ordinary users could access incredible programming tools through a couple clicks. Among the approximate three million personal sites embarked on by 1999, many webmasters were young women. The open-source codeworks whirred with feminist potential. Techno-focused feminisms often appeared as ‘cyberfeminism’. The release of theorist Donna Haraway’s 1985 Cyborg Manifesto triggered an avalanche of older, academically trained femme computerists incorporating gender-curious code. The gURL movement was not cyberfeminist in name, but often in practice. As put by Dr. Pamela Takayoshi in her comprehensive study No Boys Allowed: The World Wide Web as a Clubhouse for Girls, “girls online…established a world-wide Grrrl Power club” (90).

While justification for the move is difficult to strictly define, gURL projects were broadly considered as a counterattack on burgeoning digital gender barriers. Women have been stereotyped with technophobic attitudes since Gutenberg. Surfergrrrls, a riot-enfused how-to guide by Laurel Gilbert and Crystal Kile, explicitly outlined its purpose “to demystify the Internet for women…to show the world once and for all that women are an ass-kicking, amazing, important part of Internet culture” (1996: 4). Esther Drill, one of three gURL.com founders, cited a similar motivation during a then-contemporary chat-based interview. Drill explains “there wasn’t much for teenage girls on the web” at the time, a deceivingly simple justification for a drastic gap in constructive media (1999: CNN LiveChat). The misogynistic exclusion of women from developing Internet spheres was the same structural obstacle which drove the riot grrrls to construct their independent communication pathways in material reality.

The World Wide Web enabled organic pathways of personal, communal expression. A self-coded ‘home page’ was subversive, not a practice explicitly encouraged by its providers. Net artist and academic Olia Lialina acknowledges the critical position of webmaster as hijacker, placing creators in an anarchist context. In other words, the medium is the message (2019: Lialina). Hypertext wove information in a “multivocal and nonlinear format”, further extending the interpersonal dynamism of physical zine production (Comstock 398). Taking personal stake through the World Wide Web was a method not yet compromised by institutional surveillance. Borders were easily manipulated “to manage expression without exploitation” by leveraging digital contradiction to manifest an open environment for personal/political negotiation (Harris 47). The medium was simultaneously familiar and foreign, adapting preexisting print structures - text 'documents', copying and pasting materials - whilst providing opportunity for novel interactivity - operating forums, rapid responsitivity. Computer programming proved useful as a active, feminist tool in a similar vein to the semi-contemporaneous riot grrrls or the 1970s Second Wave, all equally critical “publication tools for creating awareness and connectivity tools for bringing girls together” (Takayoshi 97).

We will be defiant, challenging, probing, non-conformists, and open minded to many different opinions. In other words, don’t bother submitting recipes or knitting tips – they won’t be printed. Controversy is not a dirty word. Hateful thoughts will, however, not be permitted. Humor and fun will be constants. Cyber-Grrlz Mission Statement, 1999

Although the topics covered by girl-centric websites were varied and often idiomatic, published writing roughly coalesced into two distinct categories: moderated articles and user-submitted forum posts. Both compositional structures are inherited from zine-making pedagogy, an ethos which compels projects to be “less an act of authorship…than an act of critical editorship" (Comstock 394). The familiar print dynamic was most directly recreated through email, where conversation could be exchanged separate from site eyes akin to a snail mailing list. As gURL ezines began acclimating to the ever-evolving ecosystem of static site creation, the standard models of mailed, time-delayed engagement were rendered obsolete. Internet forums gathered steam as the premiere system for user interactivity as the software required was basic and the barrier-to-entry nearly nonexistent. gURLs integrated forum structures with their websites, allowing readers to post responses seamlessly.

The permeable nature of producer and consumer was only amplified by an equally underdefined digital ecosystem. So early in its development, the World Wide Web was still a primarily open-source platform. Anyone could mold code to their image. As Harris explains, “the Internet is a liminal, that is, an 'inbetween' space that allows [girls] to negotiate…with a greater capacity for political efficacy than is achieved in a bedroom, but with less risk of surveillance and appropriation by adults than is afforded by more traditional and regulated public sites” (47). The malleable boundaries inherent to virtual reality emboldened the revolutionary ambitions of many gURL publications, who took advantage to push back against both gendered expectations and publication standards. Online forums allowed for near-instant connectivity and expression. In her master’s thesis, Krista Scott phrases the benefit plainly: “Self-publication lends itself to a perception of immediacy…” with girls feeling “that they can interact with ezine creators whose thoughts are laid bare”, ezines accessible “by anyone with a computer” (1998).

A clear example were the live chat-room sessions hosted by cybergrrlz.com. Based on a provided schedule, participants could discern the moderators and topics prepared for a given week. Embedded JavaScript (provided by a third-party host) opened a pop-up window for users every Monday and Thursday, with a secondary permanent chat room when not explicitly projecting a discussion. Audience and dialogue could not be predetermined. The userbase intermingled with zine contributors. An asterisk clarified “moderators make every effort to be here on the time posted”, although no moderators are listed in the offered week’s schedule. While it is impossible to fully know whether debates were fully-regulated more often than not, the lack of a regulatory body on the archived site is worth noting. There is only the implication of an actual moderator. Thus, chat attendees would debate uninhibited by parameter or punishment. Compared to its print relatives, limited by word-of-mouth and stamp cost, the World Wide Web projects to a much larger demographic. Said demographic was only lightly controlled by the online chat structure. A certain layer of anonymity was inherent. Thus, girls could communicate openly without necessarily creating a “public face” or leaving the “underground” (Harris 52). Chats were often chaotic and off-topic. They were also often a first introduction to political debate. Considering their audience maintained a female majority, the frank access to culturally ‘masculine’ spaces like politics - or, more broadly, expressed passion - was revolutionary. Highlighted in the footer was an explicit encouragement for audience participation, regardless of experience: “If you’re quiet for more than ten minutes, you’ll be thrown out of the room (and sent to bed without supper) -- in other words, participate!”

In some cases, the sites also utilized application forms for visitors to host a personal page beneath the parent web address. The new digital method gave “girls avenues for communicating with one another…bringing girls together” in an expressly political fashion (Takayoshi 102). gURL.com, a web-zine founded by NYU graduate students, frequently promoted their ‘gURL connection’ infrastructure as an option for further immersion into the site’s contents. The membership program allowed users to register their emails for access to free personal homepages hosted on the gURL.com domain. Joining ‘the gURL connection’ also allowed girls to publish their writings and visual pieces in a group-specific zine, another element of engagement otherwise inaccessible to unaffiliated visitors. If not a part of ‘the gURL connection’, one would be confronted with deadends, utilizing the Internet as a liminal space where “girls’ voices can appear and disappear at their own behest” (Harris 49). On the homepage of gURL.com, select members would be highlighted for their web prowess under a prominent side column. Though there existed a plethora of domain-hosting resources for girls to file with, common digital spaces were often unwelcoming. ‘The gURL connection’ provided built community and basic coding skills. Instead of questioning the quality of the girl, exclusive spaces such as these asked whether the viewer was worthy (Harris 53).

Teengrrl.com employed a more traditional framework. Peer-reviewed articles were published regularly by an experienced editorial board, siloing reader input to designated spaces. A masthead page titled ‘MEET THE TEENGRRLS’ identified nine 16-18-year-old girls by a headshot and brief description, all simultaneously programmer and publisher for the project. Three were denoted only by respective name and age. The remaining provided a short, authorial statement about their personal backgrounds and public affiliation with teengrrl.com. While two were explicitly Canadian, the rest were American. Their origins ranged as broadly as Southern California to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Nearly half the staff noted their involvement in a second writing project, whether that be a school newspaper or self-published zine. Superficially disparate, the girls had been brought together by their shared passions for writing and feminism. Internet connectivity allowed the nine to combine. Two subpages featured on the site menu titled ‘MESSAGES’ and ‘FORUMS’, unfortunately unarchived, hint that teengrrl.com applied a variety of original sources to their zine-making. The absence of regulatory bodies within the e-zine community encouraged girls to experiment with novel combinations of traditional and unconventional publishing structures.

A structural similarity to traditional mass media was the frequent inclusion of a ‘Dear Abby’-esque advice column. ‘Dear Abby’, originally syndicated across American newspapers, is an advice column primarily oriented to a female audience. Frequently published in ‘womens’ magazines’, ‘Dear Abby’ and its ilk have unprecedented access to the belief systems of a national readership. Punk-ified and digitalized, gURL advice columns toed the line between skeptic satire and genuine participation. Users were invited to submit problems through emails to an older member of the editorial board. gURL.com began featuring a “Help Me Heather” page in late 1999, identified by the same green-faced, panicking character previously used for their “Deal with It!” column. A descendant of that broader category, “Help Me Heather” focused on helping readers ‘deal’ with their various ilks and ideas. ‘Heather’ was a reference to site founder Heather McDonald. In a preface for the page, Heather admitted that while she is “a big fan of various advice columnists” she has no experience in professional advice-giving, “except for just living my own life and trying to think clearly about all the choices that I make” (2000). Questions were delegated into catchy categories like ‘Sucky Emotions’ and ‘Being Different’, weaving commonalities between users who might have otherwise felt isolated. Her friendly transparency subverted the typical detachment of an traditional advice columnist; by mimicking the institutional dynamic, “Help Me Heather” deconstructed the potential harms that emerge from alienated article-writing and reaffirmed the gURL ambition through an honest, open dialogue with her audience. Although an advice column - especially as prominently featured as ‘Help Me Heather’ - does support the critical observation that “the Net is a site that is not freed from old genres or conventions…”, as made by scholar Martina Ladendorf, there is promise. In developing “new and more subversive ways” of approaching traditional hierarchies, girls were able to affectionately tribute whilst staying above structural pitfalls (140). Heather wanted her advice column to be an equal environment, one where her readers are fully aware of the relationship. This was evident in how she phrased responses. When replying to a submission from a girl nervous about crying too frequently, Heather promised “crying doesn’t hurt anyone and it is a useful way to express yourself…” then revealed “I was and am a pretty big crier so I am not sure if I am being totally impartial, but I am pretty sure that I am” (2000). By clearly stating her comprised position, Heather acknowledged the inherent power imbalance and made clear how little she wants to engage with that dynamic. She did not pretend to be preternaturally mature. She distributed advice from an equalized position, her vulnerability encouraging other girls to do the same amongst themselves. Another example of a gURL-tinged advice columnist was Aunt Crabby. Unlike Heather, Crabby intentionally underlined the age difference between advice receiver and giver. Aunt Crabby, hosted by cybergrrlz.com, was a hyperbolic character who described herself as “a 99-year-old, seen-it-all, ‘don’t waste my time’ kinda woman” (1999). Evidently, she was portrayed by a gURL. Crabby provided succinct, satirical answers in an exaggerated dialect. Her lack of filter stood in direct contrast to ageist stereotypes against older women prizing decorum. When asked of her opinion on the phrase ‘ignorance is a voluntary misfortune’, Crabby replies that she “thinks 80 million poverty-beyond-belief stricken folks from Bangladesh never once volunteered to be ignorant” (1999). The hyperbolic language surrounding explicit political discussion is both a character trait and frequent gURL tactic.

Advice was not always distributed within the pretense of a column or character. Girls maintained an interpersonal dialogue across sites. Most discussed and dissected through gURL zines were articles bemoaning the perils of puberty. Self-esteem, body issues, boy troubles - all material previous decades of traditional ‘girls’ magazines’ had attempted to tackle. Written from the genuine perspective of teenage girls, with identities spanning demographic and geographic differences, gURL took on a completely different tone when discussing identical subjects. Their novel conversational approach set both writer and reader free to find comradery in the discomfort of aging. gURLs did not avoid emphasizing the abject and absurd nature of their life stage. By subverting standard talking points, girls upended “the culturally-defined image of girls and take charge of the act of defining” (Tayakoshi 97). They reveled in the body’s various grossities, from hormones to homecoming, resisting dominant narratives about girls' interior lives (Harris 49).

In a section labelled “The Boob Files”, gurl.com encouraged readers to submit personal, cleavage-centric stories. All essays were accessible via a cartoon drawing of breasts on a dinner plate, the attributes of each based specifically on its respective essay. “Basketboobs”, for example, is an essay about the awkwardness of trying to play team sports with a larger chest. The associated drawing featured two basketballs instead of ‘realistic’ breasts. Parody highlighted the “distance from the ideals of beauty and bodies”, “destabilizing identity politics” and encouraging readers to self-determine gender identity and visibility (Ladendorf 139). Girls felt comfortable to read material considered taboo within traditional media and commiserate over shared experience. After all, “for many adolescent girls the act of speaking out can be political” (Tayakoshi 100).

Rather than promote “perfect women that may foster feelings of inadequacy” gURL caricatured cultural beauty standards to send “the message that women are good enough as they are”, disabling “gender stereotypes” through satirization and “encoura[ing] self-confidence in their female readers” (Ladendorf 124). Breasts have been so culturally sexualized that their mere appearance induces discomfort for general readership. gURL pushed beyond awkward into abject, presenting breasts as plates of inedible food. Lisa Gerrard explains this tactic of battling digital objectification by describing it as an practiced “inversion” of "disparaging images”, where images with sensual connotations are undermined by unaesthetic reality (42). Candid conversations about navigating unfamiliar bodily changes were rare and at best ridiculed. Through compassionate confession, gURL encouraged a more accepting perspective of what a ‘girl’ means. Parody freed the publication from binary expectation.

Recognizing that physical experience is intrinsically connected with creative output, gURLs openly embraced an innate context “of the traumatized girl body. The grrrl body, the girl writer, like any other authorial position, is a site of gender, racial, and sexual struggle” (Comstock 389). Creators strived to reframe the body in a variety of contexts - disembodied boobs, recovery comradery. Online gURL spaces rebuked silence by constructing an infinite amount of cyberspace to speak without fear. Published in the same column as Help Me Heather, gURL featured a separate page entirely devoted to “gURL sexuality”. Offered projects ranged from an article about identifying vaginal discharge - “it may sound like a disease, but it’s just business as usual!” - to an interactive point-and-click game about dealing with sexual harassment from strangers on the street (2005). Out of every gURL project observed, a vast majority provided some amount of sexual education to their readership. Over on ChickClick, writer Mariel Garzia published an advice article about being pressured to have sex. She bravely began with a personal anecdote, admitting that “I finally just let him touch me, even though I didn’t like it…it didn’t occur to me until much later that I could have just said no - and meant it” (2001).

The article took on a distinctly academic tone. By citing various authors and educators throughout the essay, Garzia hosted space both for self-input and serious, peer-reviewed resource provision. Her assumed audience was primarily composed of young girls. Instead of simplifying her argument for palatability, Garzia respected her readers enough to walk them through difficult, critical analysis. The tact she exhibited in discussing such a serious subject is admirable. Garzia elaborated that “saying no to unwanted sexual advances gets tougher when you’re constantly hit with images of sex…you have to know exactly what you want - or don’t want - to do sexually” as opposed to pushing a generalized abstinence or ‘just say no’ message, then typical in conventional education on taboo topics (2001). According to Garzia, the masked villain of sexual assault is a culture that both restricts female sexuality and expects easy sex. Her gURL solution: “...tap into your power…your personal power. The power to say and mean yes or no, and to control your own body…most importantly, the power that girls would have if they would just band together and not accept sexual aggression from boys or slam on each other as sluts.” The article acted as an introduction to a broader discussion of the topic with further pages of user-based responses on their personal experiences following after. Readers built off Garzia’s nuanced base and were able to engage with oft-forbidden ideas. As Comstock observes, “school literacies rarely provide the tools and knowledges for constructing [a forum], especially as it relates to violence and sexuality” (390). The havens gURLs coded online filled a critical hole left open by mainstream sources.

The body politic extended heavily into the realm of disordered eating. GrrlzHealth, a subpage on cybergrrlz.com, called users to submit “health related” articles (2000). On April 7, 2000, a 14-year-old American girl named Tory published an essay titled ‘A look in the mirror’. The essay tracked the rapid progression of her restrictive diet inspired by “something as small as” looking in the mirror. Tory heavily reduced her caloric intake as a play for emotional control; in the end, “the ‘diet’ I was on made me so much sadder than before I started”. She ended with a call-to-action for her fellow readers, urging girls to not follow in her footsteps. “You think you are making yourself happy by starving yourself, but really you are just losing yourself”, an intuitive remark atypical from the expected stereotypical teenage girl.

The next week, another 14-year-old - Katie - responded. “I read this past week’s essay on anorexia and I wanted to share my story… I saw these ‘popular’ girls in 8th grade. They were all thin and gorgeous and dressed at Abercrombie…” As the article continued, Katie further dissected her intense bodily insecurities. Her constant comparing led her down a dark path, a path closely resembling Tory’s prior article. Katie concluded with a plea to not “get caught up in shallow expectations. Popularity only lasts for a breif [sic] time” (2000). Neither knew the other in-person. Nor did they actually engage in any public conversation; the two essays could be considered digital bathroom scrawl of one girl reaching out to another, the Net dimension allowing for conversation to be nonsequential and unending. Tory’s public ownership of her struggles with insecurity opened the door for Katie - and presumably many others - to air her own experiences in a similar manner. Their interaction is an example of “collective textual action”, a radical tactic Jaqueline Rhodes argues computers have a unique potential to promote. GrrlzHealth “demand[s] some action” by requesting reader-written articles as “a political imperative”, one where girls will commune on ideas and ruminate on gendered restrictions (129).

Sometimes, this political imperative was more explicit. Smileandactnice.com, a gURL zine with the motto ‘in girls we trust’, published a 2000 article titled “ELIZABETH DOLE FOR PRESIDENT: It’s a woman thing”. Louisa C. Brinsmade pled her case by arguing that despite her Democrat status she’s “converting for this one race…going to contribute to the cause…” of electing a female president regardless of her political affiliation. Brinsmade struck a balanced approach between satire and serious deliberation, honestly dissecting the puppet-theater display of early-millenium American politics. Her rage over gender restrictions led her to a personally impactful party shift in preparation for the 2000 election; Elizabeth Dole, contrasted by the much coyer Hillary Clinton, reflected that anger in her policy action. Brinsmade tributed Dole’s polarizing figure whilst parodying her, actively negotiating the inherent contradictions to gURL authorship. Said authorship “oozes over the boundaries” of appropriate political discourse and expected voter reasoning, instead appreciating “a contradictory body out of control” (Comstock 389). As Brinsmade closed out the essay, “I really, really love Liddy’s rise to the year 2000 challenge…all the bad people will be dragged before the public and tortured slowly one by delicious one. Now that’s what I call a good war” (2000). The “bobbing-and-weaving”, cutting from argument to rebuke to an in-person conversation, was an essential element to the “literacies made available by Web technology” - an “in-your-face attention to politics and textual form” uniquely digital (Rhodes 129).

On the left was an advertisement for the in-site chat forum, where readers could submit responses as to whether Brinsmade’s appeal worked. Listed directly below were the results from a ‘DOLE POLL’, where 58% of site visitors said they would vote for Dole. The collective was prioritized over singular positioning. The publication actively promoted a nuanced dialogue about American politics, their motivation being education rather than affirmation. The open-source dynamic is completely different from traditional publications, in which academic and experience barriers typically remove teenage girls from the debate stage. Smileandactnice understood that effective political education cannot take occur without audience investment. As Comstock writes, “…in their infiltration of a mostly male World Wide Web, grrrl writers and designers teach us that authorship is not a fixed or completely predetermined category but a site of collective struggle and interactivity” (388).

“Girls connecting across geographic boundaries to build coalitions” is a recurring theme, with “female political solitary" critical to accomplishing the gURL mission (Takayoshi 104). As with the live discussions hosted by cybergrrlz, gURL sites were often where a user first engaged with politics. For teengrrl.com, high school senior Jessica Bopp provided a hyperlink list of political resources. Their minimalist layout placed this routine political column at the top. Bopp advocated for “plain janes” to become “political activists” by way of self-directed, virtual research. The article covered a variety of sources, including government affiliated links to, for example, the U.S. House of Representatives. Bopp also highlighted personal favorites, coloring a listicle tone with internal preference. All were non-profit, bipartisan organizations. Like Brinsmade, Bopp used her positions as a peer to promote political intervention. She approached her audience amicably and refrained from putting down their potential anxieties through openly admitting that “many girls avoid political discussions…I know I often do”. Her friendly perspective made palatable a message that, as she self-identified, is otherwise avoided “like the plague”. The article functions similarly to a second-wave feminist document due to its relative “urgency - the feeling…because somebody [sic] had to do it” (Rhodes 129). This is accomplished by combining “a resource site…with the ever-changing association of hypertext links [and] visitors” (129). Bopp might have provided a list of predetermined resources, but the article was no way comprehensive. There remained an implication that users should search out political information on their own terms, urged on by Bopp’s affirmation that “it is OUR world, no matter how screwed up it seems sometimes.” (2000).

The content featured by these e-zines and their varied contributors manifested multidisciplinary feminist ideals. Taking their talk online, girls were able to subvert the male-dominated fields of industrialized technology and publication. The structure of a zine - self-made, self-moderated - allowed “...young women to have a space to themselves…” providing “...an excellent alternative to the artificial or external creation of a physical space for young people to 'get together', where they can in fact be watched and monitored” (Harris 48). Through the Internet, community was as accessible as ever. Girls began to generate personal sites off the backs of larger e-feminist URLs. Separatist spaces were easy to access and augment. Many gURL sites included a beginner guide to web-mastering. Simultaneously a manual and a “textual invocation of identity and purpose” (Rhodes 133), the basic HTML/CSS enabled wholly independent self-production. “A gURL Guide to HTML” took users step-by-step through the craft and customization of a personal site. After taking a tour through font styles, link attributes, and basic formatting tips, gURL asks their reader to “sit back and appreciate [your work] for a moment. Consider its impact, meditate upon its impact” (2000). Nowhere did the guide treat its reader like an experienced programmer; the barrier-to-entry was non-existent. Rather than perpetuate harmful stereotypes about gender-based technophobia, gURL projects actively encouraged girls to “be involved in making decisions about technology, both for their sake and for the sake of technology” (Takayoshi 95).

The methods by which gURLs avoided third-party interference ebbed and flowed. They were “...constantly evading the state's attempt to take over their spaces in the interests of incorporating them into traditional notions of active citizenship…”, akin to the riot grrrls escaping mass-market publication through the affiliation with ‘womens’ magazines. In order to preserve their spaces there was “...a constant to and fro between trying to open up their underground or virtual sites for other young women and trying to keep them safe from surveillance”, evidenced by various ezines promoting ‘members-only’ spaces or email registration (Harris 48).

Coded language was a common preventative tactic against unwanted audience members. Unlike zine distribution, the Internet is universal; next to password-locking a personal site, gURLs had to get creative. Young women performed a similar surgery to the riot grrrls by exchanging ‘girl’ for ‘gURL’. The second letter is subverted “to filter out those seeking to buy young women as schoolgirl pornography” (48). It didn’t hurt that URL was also the abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator, or a standardized web address. The term quickly gained in popularity due to its colloquially digital double-meaning. Some inherited the orthographic ‘grrrl’ or the intentionally-shortened ‘grrl’. More explicitly defamatory language was also frequently subverted. Australian artist Rosie Cross coined her alias ‘geekgirl’ in the early 1990s, canceling out a double negative connotation by combining both (2004). Geekgirl Global grew from a self-made site into a global conference for femme-identifying computer nerds, and Cross’s impact crossed between material boundaries. Regardless of grammatical fluctuations, varying ‘girl’ versions were all attempts to usurp “the culturally-defined images of girls and take charge of the act of defining…avoiding belittling representations of what it means to be female…” (Takayoshi 97). Another form of avoiding supervision - and an incredible movement in the digital art space - was intentional visual aesthetic decision.

Given the amount of previous example graphics, the general gURL aesthetic might have already caught some notice. To be clear: each document exists as an independent artwork based in diverse, personal alteration. The underlying political ideology perpetuated by gURL projects is what places them in direct comparison and contrast. Devoting thorough analysis to common iconography is necessary not only for archival purposes but for the aforementioned integral connection between message and medium.

A multilayer language began to develop between gURLs. The outer crust layer comprised more general Net trends, a period of play characterized by Olia Lialina as a ‘Vernacular Web’. Internet users coalesced around certain dialectic signifiers, universal beyond site topic or programmer affiliation. GIFs, for instance, proliferated virtual reality; gURL sites regularly deployed them as category icons or in editorial introductions. The only surviving visual element of Skirt! Magazine is their .gif logo, where the title was turned into a long-lashed, winking eye (1999).

Structurally speaking, frame and table attributes were popular organizational tools. Largely considered obsolete by contemporary coders, the HTML [iframe] tag enabled scrolling for certain elements whilst keeping others static. The Disgruntled Housewife landing page is divided into two separate windows of writing and site directory. Both can be scrolled independently, allowing a user to peruse site offerings whilst automatically engaging with their latest post (1998). The [table] element could be divided into infinite column and row combinations, lending an easy skeleton for amateurs to build upon. The majority of gURL sites utilized this scaffolding and separated content into either two or three columns. Using chickclick.com as a primary example, the zine siphoned new posts to the right and promoted fellow e-zines on the left. Considering chickclick is more of an aggregate than wholly separate publication, the rudimentary rectangular system accommodates for faster, instantly accessible updates. Subpages were often identically formatted; link accessibility was prized over aesthetic experimentation.

Not all gURLs opted into the standard HTML structure. Prior to their 2000 redesign, gurl.com released each ‘issue’ as a borderless cluster of hand-drawn GIFs. A bubble-lettered ‘CONTENTS’ label was the sun around which all other subcategories rotated. This format extended into each section, where said contents were displayed in a similarly non-linear fashion. Unlike a physical zine, consumed by flipping chronological pages, gurl.com embraced Net liminality and presented each publication as a muscular system open for anatomical study. Referring to site updates as ‘issue releases’ was intentionally ironic. Irony has demonstrated a history as a critical tool for feminist rebuke. As Martina Ladendorf relates the concept to gURL practices, irony “puts an issue to question without openly challenging” (136). Despite relying on print terminology, gURL balked at every opportunity to visually conform. The rejection of visual standardization work to expand the definitions of a previously restrictive medium.

The section headers themselves - similar to Skirt! Magazine - were hand-drawn, animated images. Each thematically resonated with the category content and remained unchanged between issues. The images referenced common girl-oriented iconography in a simultaneous embrace of familiar associations and re-engineering of stereotypical connotations. The column “Looks Aren’t Everything” - subheaded by “a love/hate look at beauty culture” - was accessible by a .gif of a mascara-ed eye within a handheld mirror. The single eye winked back at the reader, possessing an otherwise inanimate object. The playful animation acknowledged the structural insecurities of self-reflection. Anita Harris, returning to her concept of girl websites as their pseudo ‘e-bedrooms’, clarifies the cutesy connotations are intentional. Often “... young women themselves try to disguise their spaces…sometimes playing this up by using the language of girls' private play and the intimate world of girlhood that (hopefully) is of no consequence or interest to the state or advertisers” (48). Each hypertext document was embedded in a purposeful playset of girl-adjacent imagery, toeing the line between abject satirization and affectionate mimicry. One offer from “Looks Aren’t Everything” was a ‘virtual makeover’ section where users submitted photos of themselves to be “mangled” by gURL editors. Not “to make the girls better looking” but to recontextualize style “around fantasy and playfulness instead of necessity” (Ladendorf 133). Another titled ‘Paper Doll Psychology’ analyzed a reader’s mental state based off their digital outfit choices. Although paper dolls have existed for centuries, their contemporary iteration most often comes in the form of advertising material or magazine cut-out. Paper dolls are frequently featured in ‘girls’ magazines’ as a method for girls to imagine themselves in an idealized body. gURL continued their print subversion through the reference, peeling back layers of a common toy to examine its deeper, gendered implications. “You don’t think you wear those clothes just because you LIKE them, do you?” ask Rebecca and Esther, two gURL editors, when introducing the interactive game. “If clothes don’t make up the girl, they at least make up a little bit of what people think about her” (1997).

Another commonly hand-drawn element of gURL publications were their logos. An essential distinction: gURL logos were not (at first) commercial entities. Instead, these distinct images sought to encompass all aspects of the site, furthering visibility. Many featured the logos of sister sites on their homepages akin to a membership badge. The cybergrrlz logo is the only .png to last through a decade of site updates. The zine maintained a minimalist aesthetic and expressed itself through the singular design. It is a crudely drawn image of a girl laying in front of her monitor, legs kicked up behind her. Girl and monitor are at the same level as one another. She surfs in a position that evokes journaling or a practice similarly self-oriented. She feels no need to perform. Returning to Gerrard: the cybergrrl, emblematic of the project as a whole, does not offer herself as “an aesthetic or sexual spectacle” (43).

Missclick, the teen-specific chickclick subpage, featured explicitly figure-based mascots. At the top left, a school-aged character waves to her audience. Her face is impish and her posture relaxed, implying she and the reader are on a similar level of insider knowledge. An ordinary girl, barrettes and backpack included. Although not explicitly labeled, the character is clearly the personification of Miss Click herself. Her bottom half is pictured on the site’s right side. She is bent at the knees, anticipating quick movement. The racial ambiguity of Miss Click distinguishes her from a majority of gURL drawn characters. Although some sites (gurl.com) intentionally tried to depict a broad range of girl-adjacent identities, non-white audiences were left visually bereft. ChickClick was a collective vehicle of girls reading and writing; by opting to not identify editors and instead associating all underneath the same ‘mascot’, the site succeeds in unique usership fusion.

For sites that did choose to feature a general ‘masthead’ or ‘editor’s page’, publishing personal photographs was common practice. Real pictures were rarely uploaded other than in this specific context. How permanent an Internet footprint could be was not yet common knowledge. Naivety aside, the general ‘unprofessionalism’ of most headshots should be considered as another example of print subversion. Akin to the editorial board of teengrrl.com discussed previously, riotgrrl.com provided similar background for each site contributor. Such a typical introduction contrasts the general “ideological resistance to the logic of primacy and coherence”, providing a standardized biography typically required from traditional publications (Rhodes 135). As displayed in the image below, the riotgrrl biographies were mainly self-promotion. Hyperlinks directed back to the editor’s independent product rather than an outer web of knowledge. Striking a balance between “the politics of anti-commercial feminist movements..with the pro-technology, capitalist ideologies of the Web” required gURL writers to uphold both private and public requisites for maintaining a sustainable web space (Comstock 403). For riotgrrl, this meant breaking down the barrier between columnist and reader through an ‘interact’ interface: a forum where all would engage in equal discussion (1999).

Although gURLs approached site creation in a variety of different ways, the underlining mission - to make safe digital spaces for young women - stayed constant. Within the short span of a decade, thousands of teenage girls took to the Internet. They acted as web developer, reporter, editor, and artist. They forged international communities based on a mutual optimism for ambitious digital and gender liberation.

But the Internet is a complicated, commercial environment. This first chapter has detailed at length the various revolutionary modes of communication introduced by the World Wide Web. The next chapter will delve further into its shadow side. As gURLs continued to tightrope between activism and advertisement, their original intentions - and the Internet itself - completely deteriorated.