I Am Ready For Everyone’s Tube Girl Era
Hopping on a train, whipping out your phone and filming yourself in the throes of an underground wind tunnel has never felt better. And we have one woman to thank for that.
Tube Girl, aka Sabrina Bahsoon, is sparking a revolution on TikTok. The concept is simple enough: she films herself on the London tube lip-syncing to pop music and hyping herself up, resourcefully using the wind generated by the train. (We love women in STEM.)
The catch is, as you can expect on a train, there are usually people around.
But Sabrina has shooed off any shame and drops a new ‘Tube Girl’ video nearly daily. And the consistency has paid off, with her videos racking up millions of views – even catching the attention of mainstream news, with a recent appearance on BBC and a brand collaboration with M.A.C.
And in perhaps the move that bubbled up the most envy in me, she made a video with Troye Sivan on the tube – dancing together between two carriages. Oh, and she also got to attend Paris Fashion Week, because she’s already that famous.
On TikTok, her immaculate energy has gone international with the #tubegirleffect, where other confident girlies are braving their own public transport systems to become their own best hype girl.
I can’t help but think that even a few years ago, Tube Girl instead might’ve elicited derision and scorn.
But in the year of girl dinner, Barbie, the Eras tour, and Sophie Turner’s divorce, Tube Girl is yet another shining beacon in our journey to reclaim girlhood in all its glory.
Like a UNO reverse card to the age-old ‘boys will be boys’, infamously used to defend behaviour that should not be defended, this feels like a glimmering new era of ‘girls will be girls’.
And if that means lip-syncing on a train, eating snacks for dinner, drunk dancing at the VMAs, and divorcing a Jonas Brother, I am here for it.
Lia Kim is a culture writer/producer at Junkee who loves games, but don’t call her a gamer. She’s on most socials as @ellekaylia.
Image credit: @sabrinabahsoon