anatomy of a playground (2024)

i was ten years old, standing in a circle with my two best friends. we were taking a break from our regularly scheduled playground performances in which we’d act out scenarios from our imaginations, or whatever movies we were obsessed with at the time. i was almost always chosen to play the man.

it was a hot, late spring afternoon, our fingers still sticky from lunch. the vulnerability of early girlhood loosely tied us together, binding us to each other in a way unique from any other friendships or relationships we’d come to have in adulthood. i don’t remember exactly what we were talking about, but i’m sure it was gossip. either that, or puberty. those were our two main conversation topics for the last half of elementary school. one of us would come to class and share a new rumor we’d learned from TV or friends at daycare—what virginity means, what a period is, what sex looks like. we were constantly picking at the mysteries of our bodies, our knowledge consisting entirely of half-truths.

i listened to them talk, absentmindedly reaching up to grip the warm metal playground bar sitting just below my chin. after taking one lazy swing, letting my knees kiss the sand on the way down, my friends’ eyes widened and they screamed in horror. i immediately shot to my feet, confused. they didn’t speak. when i reached up to take another swing, they screamed again, holding their hands in front of their faces.

“you need to shave your armpits!” one of them yelled.

the thought had never occurred to me. i looked down and, sure enough, there it was. across the smooth skin of my underarm, a cluster of dark, wispy hairs had sprouted unceremoniously. i had never even considered looking at my underarms before this moment. my body, up until now, was merely a vessel i used to climb trees, play pretend, and torment my little sister.

my best friends were both small, prepubescent, and thinner than average. while some feel self-conscious about being “late-bloomers,” i had the opposite problem. my body was a stranger, constantly changing without warning. i was 5’4—short for an adult, but huge for a 10-year-old. my chest was already expanding, my clothes didn’t fit right, and i attempted to hide behind zip-up hoodies at school and rash guards at pool parties. despite looking like a teenager, i was still a child.

i will never forget the horror that my body evoked that day. when i got home, i awkwardly asked my mom if i could start shaving. just a few weeks later, she stopped me in the bra aisle of Kohl’s and whispered, “it’s time.” my face burned. i imagined death. i ended up chopping off all my hair in an attempt to control some aspect of my appearance. my body wasn’t my own anymore. it was a public possession, belonging to anyone who laid eyes on me.

i’m reading lisa taddeo’s Three Women, in which she remarks, “One inheritance of living under the male gaze for centuries is that heterosexual women often look at other women the way a man would,” and not only this, but we’re taught to constantly view ourselves through the male gaze. thankfully, throughout the last five-or-so years, i’ve been able to work through this sort of conditioning. it still sits with me, and i often fear it will never go away, but i’m at least able to recognize it and name it for what it is. despite my own attempts at breaking free from these expectations, i’m acutely aware of the way they continue to permeate our culture.

my thirteen-year-old niece has had a TikTok since she was about eleven years old. for the last two years, she’s been posting videos of herself dancing, lip-syncing, and venting in a way that i find eerily similar to the posts i’d make on Tumblr when i was her age. when i show my friends her videos, they often comment on the uncanniness of it all. the way she looks into the camera, her gestures and facial expressions, all of them in perfect mimicry of the adults making similar videos across the platform.

recently i found out her account got banned, and when i asked her why, she said:

“i took a video in my one-piece bathing suit, and i usually know how to film them so they don’t get taken down, but you could see the top half of my thigh.” when i asked if she made another account she responded, “yeah i did, i don’t have as many followers, but i still get a couple hundred views and people commenting to tell me i’m pretty, so that’s all that really matters.”

i can’t imagine what it would have been like if i had access to TikTok when i was her age. part of me feels thankful that all i had were my friends at recess, gasping when my body didn’t adhere to certain social standards. it feels like, now, there is no period of blissful unawareness of the appearance of one’s body. my niece and her friends have had YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram forever, and while i had many of those things at her age, it’s arguably different now.

is it even possible to be unconscious of one’s appearance when you have immediate access to it, tucked in your back pocket at all times? or when you have filters that show you exactly what you should look like in order to be considered beautiful, and therefore valuable?

i don’t want to say that i think social media is evil, but on some level, i do. i grew up in the era of Tumblr, a website i visited more often than i’d like to admit. in comparison to TikTok, there are plenty of similarities—the romanticization of depression, the worshiping of thin bodies, and the not-so-subtle centralization of European features. even with these similarities, i would argue that TikTok is drastically worse than Tumblr.

young girls’ feeds are a never-ending stream of “That Girls”, Charli D’Amelios and Addison Raes. clothing hauls and makeup tutorials and trendy dances. not only that, but TikTok gives its users whiplash by taking them from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other in a matter of 15 seconds or less. the worst part is, there’s no real way to escape it without feeling like some sort of pariah—especially if you’re a thirteen-year-old girl.

does the concept of girlhood exist anymore? is there room for curiosity in a world where the answer to any question you have sits at your fingertips? instead of feeling like a stranger in your own body, your body becomes simply another object to curate for the viewing pleasure of others. while this is something that women have been conditioned to do for a long time, the age range seems to be shrinking. there is more time spent in front of the mirror, and less being oblivious to the way others might be seeing you.

when i try to talk to my niece about things like this, she groans audibly. she smiles and nods, sarcastically listening to whatever point i’m trying to make. i know i’m not the person who is going to change her mind, but i feel obligated to try. i try to remember that every generation has its own version of a culture-shifting technology, whether its cell phones, computers, the radio, or even books. whether i like it or not, childhoods that look like mine will continue to dwindle. the concept of girlhood will change, shift with the times, as it always has. the only thing we can do is continue to witness the evolution, for better or for worse.