"Take a million selfies, delete a million selfies"; a phrase that rings too close to home for many millennials. These are the words, of course, of the thinking woman's meme account: Top Girl Studio.
Scrolling through the account, with its enviable millennial pink theme, it’s easy to see why Anna, the brains behind it all, boasts such a big following online (63k and counting). A graduate of Central St Martins, she kicked off her career by creating iGirl, a Burn Book for the modern world with new-school digital rules and regulations. It was a satirical take on our insecurities, used to make light of the everyday user and her first world woes. Since then, she's turned her ability to create "WTF me too" memes into a job, which has led to work with the likes of Charlotte Simone, Missguided, Nike and Bliss Skincare.
Covering everything from a love of Netflix and refined carbs to more serious issues like mental health, Top Girl Studio often posts the sorts of things you wish you had the confidence to say out loud. A gallery of side-splitting truths, at once hilarious and familiar, avid scrollers of the 'gram will find it difficult not to relate to her work.
We caught up with Anna, two years down the line from iGirl, to find out how she's continuing to break down the barriers between online funnies and mental health, and what she's learned about our generation.
"Top Girl Studio started off as just a name to go by as a freelancer back in 2016. After finishing university, I decided to start posting my projects on Instagram and Behance. I remember thinking I didn’t want to produce work for other companies because I knew I’d feel unfulfilled. I wanted to create work I was passionate about, something other women could possibly get behind too. Then iGirl happened and since then it’s been one crazy ride.
What I think is important is to show young creatives out there that you can make it happen for yourself. There’s no right or wrong, you can make up your own rules along the way and create the future you want. The internet can be an amazing platform to showcase your work. The possibilities in 2018 are endless; make money by doing what you love, take it from me, it works."
"In today’s society everything has become about making a connection, whether it be on a dating website with Brad, 28, from London or on your LinkedIn profile. Memes are no different. It’s all about the connection you make with one another, this idea of being 'in it together', you’re not alone. Suddenly your Monday morning isn’t so sh*t anymore when you know half the world are feeling it too. The struggle is real."
"We’ve become a generation that lives life via our Wi-Fi signal. Besides our obsession with creating connections, realising how reliant we’ve become online is the major thing I've learned about millennials; like getting to know one another by the aesthetic of our Instagram feeds instead of just talking to each other IRL. In 2018 we’re judged by how many followers we have, or how many comments we get on our latest selfies. We completely expose ourselves on social media, and we know what we’re doing, but we have this compulsive need to be liked, or more importantly to feel accepted. Basically we’re just living life one vulnerability at a time.
I think understanding who we are online definitely helps when it comes down to my work as a lot of my quotes/ graphics revolve around this idea of being super relatable."
"My Instagram is basically an ad for millennial pink, the majority of my work is pink, but only for the simple reason of… I like pink. It’s extra, it’s hot, it’s lit. What’s not to love? I understand there is this odd relationship between the colour pink and gender but it’s not the colour that’s the problem but how it’s come to represent a feminised version of everything and anything out there. A girl is pink and a boy is blue, that’s what we’ve been brought up to believe and that’s what history tries to tell us. Is it right? No. Should that change? Of course.
What I think matters most is not feeling boxed in or stereotyped. If you love pink and you’re a woman, that’s okay; if you're a guy who hates blue, that’s cool too. What you need to remember is you are not one, single, definite thing, you have a choice and that is your right, always. Currently, as of now my choice is pink and who knows, maybe next month it will be baby blue. All I know is whether you’re diggin' blue, pink, black or whatever, who actually cares, it’s just a colour. Only do what suits you and don’t give a f*ck what anyone else says."
"Memes have been around for over 25 years and are constantly evolving, thanks to the internet. They’ve become an important way for us to connect with one another, and in my eyes have become a coping mechanism for a lot of us. Essentially memes are just harmless fun, and as long as they keep us laughing with bae every day, then I see a future for them. I don’t see them disappearing any time soon."
"iGirl was created shortly after finishing university, it was a personal project I did over summer. There essentially was no goal with it, I just wanted to create something for myself that was super sarcastic. After scrolling through Instagram, day after day, I realised everything had become about having the perfect feed, and being ‘internet goals’. Then fast-forward a day or two and I realised I was doing it too. I’d spend literally six hours arranging ‘the perfect aesthetic’ for my Insta feed, deciding on what the cutest/ most popular hashtags to use were. I found the whole thing weirdly entertaining and wanted to highlight how ridiculous it all was. In short, I wanted to take the piss out of everyone, including myself. I think iGirl worked because she was simple but relatable. She had your back and she was the everyday girl."
"After iGirl hit the internet, Missguided got in touch with me and wanted to create some girl power quotes for their Instagram, done in a similar style to iGirl. I think in a world full of materialism and consumerism, it’s possible to say we worship brands, and by doing so we’ve become products of our own identity. That’s where this idea of a babe bible came into play. I wanted to create something where we could all be part of the same girl gang. Missguided as a brand is so on point and for them it’s all about lifting women up and supporting one another. Their message is important but not forced, which is what I dig about them. It’s all about having fun and just doing you.
Everything about this project felt super natural so when it came down to creating the commandments themselves, they honestly just stemmed from basic girl talk. If you hang around on the internet long enough and start reading everyone’s Instagram comments, you just get a vibe for what everyone’s feeling. Aesthetic n’ attitude, that’s what it’s all about."
"It sounds cheesy but anything and everything around me can turn into my inspo source. Pinterest is basically my love life when I’m trying to get new ideas for work, whether it’s for a design layout or a meme. I’m a visual thinker, I’m all about the mood boards. Maybe it’s a font that gets me excited or a conversation I have with myself at 2am, or a scene from a reality TV show I’ve been binge-watching for three days straight; to me it’s all about the little things that create the bigger picture.
But yeah, I’m basically Regina George from Mean Girls online – but at the end of the movie, when she's less of a bitch. I have always believed that honesty is the best policy, and I get we live in a world full of hypocrisy and it’s tough out there for a millennial. I just want girls to realise they’re not alone and that everyone’s dealing with their own BS. Let’s just have a margarita and laugh at all the bad decisions we’ve made this week and move on."
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