A “pick me” girl is slang for a girl or woman who desperately tries to seem different, or “not like other girls”, in order to attract male attention (Know Your Meme). The label often implies putting other women down along the way. It spread on Twitter in 2016 and on TikTok in 2021.
Origin
- 2005, the line. Mental Floss, citing Merriam-Webster, says the phrase first caught on in popular culture through a 2005 Grey’s Anatomy episode. In it, Meredith Grey pleads with her romantic interest to pick her over his wife. The line is “Pick me. Choose me. Love me.” (TODAY).
- February 28, 2016, #TweetLikeAPickMe. Know Your Meme says the term’s origins are unknown but that it gained popularity when #TweetLikeAPickMe trended in late February and early March 2016. The earliest tweet it found using the hashtag was posted on February 28, 2016. On March 1, Blavity collected the tweets and said the term originated on Black Twitter. InsideHook likewise notes the moniker “has roots in Black internet culture” and says the hashtag spread on Black Twitter in both 2016 and 2018.
- March 2021, TikTok. Around March 2021 the term took off on TikTok in skits criticizing “pick me” girls. Know Your Meme lists one of the earliest, posted by @hannah.montoya on March 3, 2021.
How It’s Used
The 2016 hashtag asked users to tweet things a stereotypical “pick me” girl might say. InsideHook describes the targets as women who boast about being “wifey material” while shaming other women, for example over casual hookups or not cooking for a partner. Mental Floss notes that “pick-me” now works as a noun (“She’s such a pick-me!”) and an adjective (“Oh, that’s so pick-me…”). It can describe any behavior, not only romantic, that seems submissive or dishonest but is meant to win approval. Know Your Meme notes the term is often used as a female version of #Simp.
Pick Me Timeline
| Date | Moment | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 2005 | Meredith Grey’s “Pick me. Choose me. Love me.” in Grey’s Anatomy Season 2 | TODAY |
| February 28, 2016 | Earliest #TweetLikeAPickMe tweet found | Know Your Meme |
| March 1, 2016 | Blavity collects the tweets, crediting Black Twitter | Know Your Meme |
| March 3, 2021 | One of the earliest “pick me” girl TikTok skits | Know Your Meme |
| July 19, 2021 | InsideHook (Logan Mahan) publishes a critique of the TikTok trend | InsideHook |
| June 6, 2023 | Ellen Pompeo links the term to her Grey’s Anatomy line | TODAY |
Criticism
Know Your Meme notes the term has been criticized for encouraging female-on-female hate. In a July 19, 2021 InsideHook article by Logan Mahan, McGill graduate Amy Rosenbluth, who wrote an analysis of TikTok’s #PickMeGirl trend, said “pick-me-ism definitely is rooted in internalized misogyny”. She also argued that women who publicly shame others as pick-mes cast themselves as superior in the same way. She noted that accusations had grown to cover things like enjoying sports or not wearing makeup.
Recent Developments
On June 6, 2023, TODAY reported that Ellen Pompeo told Katherine Heigl, in a Variety “Actors on Actors” conversation, that her daughter and friends call girls “pick me girls”. Pompeo asked, “Do you know who invented the ‘pick me girl’?” Mental Floss describes a male counterpart, the “pick-me boy”, that rose in the 2020s.
Sources
- https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pick-me-girl
- https://www.mentalfloss.com/language/slang/what-does-pick-me-mean
- https://www.today.com/popculture/tv/ellen-pompeo-pick-me-girl-greys-anatomy-rcna87950
- https://www.insidehook.com/internet/pick-me-girl-tiktok-trend-explained
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickme_girl