[imagesource:merchill]

As a woman, I am thoroughly familiar with infantilising nicknames.

But now the internet is doing a fun thing and using a cutesy phrase to refer to grown-ass men.

Like most internet jargon, coated with a level of irony, “Babygirl” is being used to describe a doting adoration and overwhelming need to protect and provide for a couple of middle-aged male actors hitting our screens of late.

The Daily Beast did deep lengths along the World Wide Web and mostly found that while the internet doesn’t seem to have many concrete definitions of the term, nor a uniform aesthetic for the babygirl men, a Mashable article, titled “2022’s Horny Dictionary,” defines the phrase as being “used to describe when a man is so primally attractive that you want to provide for him that became mainstream in 2021”.

Draw ur bbygirl like this pic.twitter.com/LlcpiVrLEX

— unsleeply sven (@sleepykitsune__) March 26, 2023

Writer Elena Cavender added to that by saying it’s “a term of endearment for when a man is being cute, comfortable in his masculinity, or weak in an evocative way”.

That being Normal People‘s Paul Mescal:

Happy B-day Paul Mescal, the baby girl himself pic.twitter.com/cbmVkeObSu

— dierre (@divinheadfirst) February 2, 2023

The Last Of Us‘s Pedro Pascal:

sometimes babygirl is a 48 year old man called pedro pascal and that’s okay pic.twitter.com/F234qkVrXL

— succession lockdown (@JOELSMILLRR) April 2, 2023

My 56yr old babygirl <3 pic.twitter.com/dAMPvJkDGD

— astral mando era!! (@wildstpascal) April 3, 2023

Succession’s Kendall Roy:

i’ve lost a limb a heart even pic.twitter.com/3pKQC9FQz2

— clara ✩⋆ (@kendallroyz) February 24, 2023

The Bear‘s Jeremy Allen White:

carmy is soooo babygirl pic.twitter.com/OixJ7ITpLl

— heike (@fleabagslutt) January 3, 2023

The Banshees of Inisherin main man Colin Farrell:

babygirl pic.twitter.com/wIc6bVsmRc

— colin farrell fans (@colinfarrellHQ) March 27, 2023

And Game of Thrones star Jacob Anderson:

Jacob Anderson is best babygirl https://t.co/UITl7yGohA pic.twitter.com/uQtss5cEbw

— shannon ️‍ iwtv brainrot (@shawesum) December 22, 2022

And of course, Harry Styles – although his case is debatable:

Anyone who was incessantly referred to on Tumblr in 2011 as “smol bean” is obviously babygirl. However, I—and many of his critics—associate Styles more with the term “softboi” because of his concerted efforts to appear subversively feminine. He might even qualify him as its more extreme and obnoxious subtype “cuckboi.” However, he does have dimples and dresses like a giant toddler. So babygirl he is!

CERTIFIED BARBIE BABYGIRL !!!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/WKGz1JLRzj

— ♡ (@kissyloml) April 4, 2023

The popularisation of babygirl seems to have roots in the 2021 meme “Why Does X Call You Babygirl?” according to one Reddit user:

Comment
by u/FrosnPls from discussion can someone please explain to me the “baby girl edward” thing?
in OurFlagMeansDeath

The photoshopped image referred to is a panel from the manga Mob Psycho 100:

It must be noted that babygirl differs from the “softboi” aesthetic and its many subgenres in that the boy isn’t supposed to have any awareness that he is indeed babygirl.

In other words, you don’t choose the babygirl lifestyle. It chooses you.

[source:dailybeast]