“Yea I’m a f* Tomboy”: “girl crush,” postfeminism, and the reimagining of K-pop femininity

“Girl crush” is a relatively new genre in South Korean pop music (hereafter “K-pop”). Unlike the stereotypes of female idols being cute and submissive, idols of the “girl crush” genre usually show provocative “girl power,” challenging the patriarchy by incorporating feminist messages in their works. In March 2022, a girl group (G)I-DLE released a song entitled Tomboy, which went viral for its outrageous music video delivering a bold statement about women being independent, fearless, and abandoning toxic heterosexual relationships. This study conducts a social semiotic analysis of Tomboy with a postfeminist lens and comes up with three findings: first, the music video of Tomboy has shown a postfeminist sensibility by exhibiting an entanglement of feminism and antifeminism; second, Tomboy has tackled a queered theme by focusing on women’s collective empowerment and sisterhood against patriarchy; third, “girl crush” has revealed the limitations of celebrity feminism, making the relationship between “girl crush’s” success and feminism questionable.