'Hey Girls,' is this cyberbullying?

"Hey girls, uhm, did you know? Your boobs... go inside your shirt."

There has been much ado about this phrase, and the responses it has sparked. The simple four-pane image of a teen dispensing some unsolicited girl talk has unraveled into a popular meme and, to some, sparked a dangerous new form of cyberbullying. When young girls fight back against the difficult problems of teen sexuality, are they taking action, or heaping shame upon their peers?

A meme is born

Last summer, on June 18, a Tumblr user posted the original four-pane image, seemingly innocuous amongst the typical flotsam of a teenage Tumblr page. Though it was deleted quickly, the picture had struck a chord that no delete button could erase. The "Hey girls, did you know?" picture went viral, and others followed. Some responses attacked the original message, including a popular copy that read, "Girls, did you know that, uhmm, your boobs can go wherever they want. Because it's YOUR body." Thousands of images cropped up on Facebook and Tumblr, ranging from the offensive ("Open books, not legs") to the frustrated ("Hey girls, did you know? These pictures are really annoying.") That's the thing about memes. They never die, they simply evolve, folding over and into themselves in never-ending mutations and exchanges.

Slut-shaming?

For those unfamiliar with the term, "slut-shaming" is a rather jarring umbrella term for any words or actions that seek to put down or guilt women and girls who, in some general court of opinion, act in perceived "slutty" or "promiscuous" ways. Rush Limbaugh chastising Sandra Fluke over issues of birth control? Slut-shaming. An Instagram question from Sweden asking for all "sluts" to be identified? Slut-shaming. And now, the once-innocuous picture of a girl advising other girls to cover up ranks among them.

Buzzfeed's Katie Heaney posits that the slut-shaming or, to use a kinder term, "cyber-bullying," is more potent when it is started by women, and may be a reason the "Hey Girls" trend is even worthy of note:

"Hey Girls, Did You Know" is a sexist meme — another image-regulating, slut-shaming meme — that persists. But it's one started and largely perpetrated by girls themselves."

The Daily Mail calls the trend "alarming" and "deeply worrying." 

A few things to note: Several voices have identified the term slut-shaming as self-defeating; bringing hurtful words and assumptions into conversations that may not have included them before. Also, if one were to scroll through the exhaustive tiles of "Hey Girls" pictures and their natural mutations, they would see several messages aimed at males, a fair amount fighting back against the shaming undertone of the original, and far more that veer off into predictably dadaist strains of parody.

Worrying trend, or typical part of the teen conversation?

Taken as a whole, the "Hey Girls, Did You Know?" phenomenon reads as a fairly typical cross-section of teen interaction. There are accusations, dirty words, empowering interjections, responses, clear and otherwise, parodies, cartoons and pictures of dinosaurs photo-shopped over fully-covered teenage breasts. It is a fair split between male and female interactions. It is entertaining and maddening. So what's the takeaway?

One could take the talk of covering boobs and closing legs as a sort of amplified counter-attack waged by young girls on typical perceptions of teen sexuality. After all, what other point in life is so critical, so hyper-sensitive to ideas of love and like, of friendship and belonging and childhood blending uncomfortably into adulthood? On social platforms that so easily magnify every message, what one teen thinks is an empowering, or at least defiant statement against "society's expectations" can easily morph into a monster of accusations and guilt, and invite themes far darker than the original intention. On the other hand, insecurity, jealousy and typical teen politics could lead some young women to lash out at other young women, the "sluts" and "hoes" that could be faceless "others" as much as they could be actual people.

So should you worry about the latest round of cyberbullying and teen gender politics? It's a thorny and difficult subject, as open to solutions and discussion as the meme that started it.