Women on TikTok no longer want to formulate unnecessarily long and polite emails. Instead, they now write the way they are used to from men.
Kassel – Who doesn’t know it? E-mails, which actually only contain a single piece of relevant information, stretch out over lines and you can’t find the actual content because of the empty phrases. Or the downside: You try to be polite with each other and then you get an unloving “Okay. -Sent from my iPhone”.
Between those two extremes is a recent trend on TikTok where women are shortening and rephrasing their emails to make them sound like they were written by a man.
TikTok trend: women now write emails as short as men
For anyone who can’t imagine what needs to be left out of an email to make it sound “male”, here’s an example posted by @meggy.sfr.
The original email: “Hello Frank, can you send me the invoice number for April when you get a chance. Thanks very much! Greetings and a good start into the week. Meggy”
The email after masculinization: “Hello Frank, send me invoice number for April. Now! Meggy”
Other users even go one step further and delete other polite phrases such as “Hello” or change “Feel free to contact me if you have any questions” into “Don’t contact me if you have any questions”. This 21-year-old has embraced not only male behavior, but even a traditional male profession.
TikTok trend: users exchange ideas in the comments
As usual for TikTok trends, all the videos play off the same song – in this case a snippet from “All Things Go” by girl boss icon Nicki Minaj. In this way, users who follow the topic and exchange ideas in the comments quickly find each other. One writes: “Recently my boss answered my email with ‘Yes.’ responded”. Another adds: “Well, I have the feeling that I’m not good enough at my job to be unfriendly.” There are also numerous comments on TikTok about these cartoons from Hawaii.
The feminine urge to use exclamation marks in emails to sound friendly.
The trend towards “men’s e-mails” shows the frustration of women in professional life
Everyone involved is aware that “men’s e-mails” are primarily a sarcastic commentary on the professional world, in which women often feel compelled to be friendly because otherwise they will be labeled as bitchy or hormone-controlled. Or, as @notnotkimkardashian comments, “The feminine urge to use exclamation marks in emails to sound friendly.” But they’re often faced with men who don’t have the time or inclination to be polite and are direct and short with theirs co-workers. This imbalance feels unfair to many women.
The number of videos and comments on the trend shows how many have already experienced something similar and have something to say about it. The only question that remains is which of the users actually sent their e-mails in this way afterwards. (loud)
