glory be to the girl moss

How a generation of ex-girl bosses are recovering from burnout through slow living.

One fateful night, during my scheduled 3 A.M doom scrolling, I came across a reel that *almost* unalived me. The “19-year-old business owner” in the video wakes up at 2 A.M, does 5 hours of deep work while on her walking pad, goes to the gym, attends 12 Zoom meetings, batches content for her social media pages, and does a bunch of other chores.

Just watching that reel made me so tired that I spent the rest of my day rotting in bed. If you have ever come across such exhausting “spend the day with me” content from #girlbosses, or worse, if you have ever tried to be one, my sorrows and prayers are with you.

In the third (and final) year of my bachelor’s degree, I made a moderately successful attempt to be a girl boss — along with my regular coursework and social obligations, I took on a full-time fellowship, juggled multiple extracurriculars, and started freelancing as a culture reporter.

By the end of my degree, I was severely burned out and constantly sick, forcing me to end my girl boss era. Unfortunately, I am just one among the millions of Millennial and Gen-Z women who were brainwashed into being girl bosses.

The term “girl boss” was popularised by Sophia Amorusa, a self-made fashion entrepreneur, in her 2014 best-selling book, “#GirlBoss” giving rise to a problematic brand of online feminism void of any nuance and intersectionality called “girl boss feminism”. Later, many labels joined the portfolio of girl boss feminism — boss babe, SH-E-O (like CEO), SH-ERO, mompreneur, etc.

Many feminist scholars and intellectuals have critiqued the ideals of girl boss feminism at length, and rightfully so. For starters, it promotes the belief that maximising your economic productivity will free you from the shackles of patriarchy. It glorifies labour as a form of fulfilment when it really is just a means for financial stability. Another criticism was that the labels promoted by girl boss feminism were in itself discriminating against women. What is the need to have a label for an ambitious woman but not for an ambitious man? Why “girl boss” when there is no “boy boss”?

In 2022, Sophia Amoruso herself disowned the term tweeting, “Please stop using the word Girlboss thank you.” In February 2024, she told ELLE, “I made this thing, and it took on a life of its own. It’s not that I’m embarrassed by it, but I don’t want to be defined by it.”

During the pandemic-induced quarantine and WFH era, girl bosses (and others) were reminded of the sweet joys of engaging in seemingly unproductive hobbies and the dopamine kick of enjoying life’s little pleasures. This culminated in a massive ideological shift in online girlhood which kickstarted the “slow living” trend. This trend briefly called “snail girl,” “girl rot,” “girl living,” and “lazy girl” now seems to have found a permanent home in the label, “girl moss.”

The term “girl moss” was first popularized in 2022 by Daisy Alioto, a journalist and influencer who tweeted:

Being a girl moss is simple.

It is being present in daily life, acknowledging life’s highs and lows, and taking the time to savour life (at least as much as you can considering we still live in a capitalist society). It is an active choice to prioritize your well-being before sacrificing yourself at the altar of your capitalist overlords.

“We are not meant to work 40+ hours per week, constantly be consumed by technology, and never have a moment of downtime. This is completely going against our natural intuition,” explains Jenny Flora Wells, a holistic therapist and social worker based in Los Angeles, USA. “Slow lifestyles are centred around what we are passionate about instead of competing with others to feel a temporary and fleeting sense of worthiness.”

Thanks to the girl moss movement, a generation of burned-out Millennial and Gen-Z women are finally healing from years of hustle culture propaganda telling them that success is just around the corner and all they have to do is work hard.

Jo Hayes, a 39-year-old etiquette coach based in Brisbane, Australia says that her transition from being a girl boss to a girl moss was “a radical lifestyle edit done gradually over time.” An ex-TV Journalist, Jo led a fast-paced life in a newsroom with high expectations from bosses, strict deadlines, and social obligations. “I could have been out every night of the week,” she remembers. “My life was too busy.” While she was happy with her career and lifestyle, she desired inner peace and a greater presence of mind in her day-to-day life.

“I started saying a ‘radical no’ to many things in my life,” Jo confesses. “This stripping back of my schedule flooded my life with an enormous amount of space, peace and blissful rest.” Being a girl moss has changed Jo’s life as prioritising rest helps her make better decisions, and be a better spouse, parent, friend, colleague, and boss.

Another ex-girl boss Meggha Sharma, a 27-year-old brand marketing consultant based in Banglore, India says that her journey of being a girl moss was by actively differentiating capitalism and social justice (which the girl boss ideology had simplified beyond measure). “The process of renouncing my girl boss era was simple when I understood that if I don't want the same things as other people, then why bother running the same race,” she opened up.

For Meggha, being a girl moss is all about aligning her career goals with her life goals while cutting out the unwanted noise and actively prioritising her hobbies and personal projects. “Slow is subjective,” she reminds us.

Another major aspect of being a girl moss is going back to nature, stopping by to smell the flowers and feel the dew (not that we have any left because of global warming). It is an active choice to replace the grind with long walks, thick novels, good food, meditation, and outdoor activities.

The girl moss trend reminds us that maybe it is time for us to introspect about our life’s priorities and unlearn the utopian promises of hustle culture. It is time to escape from the constant cycle of working non-stop and losing out on the things that actually matter, and acknowledging that we are not meant to just survive but thrive.

Healing from burnout is a complex process. It took me eight months of complete rest and stillness to heal from just a year of overworking and following the hustle culture grind. It requires unwinding the pattern we have been living in and not overworking ourselves daily. “Beginning this healing journey requires slowing down every aspect of our lives and even simplifying our routine to not overwhelm our window of tolerance or nervous system,” explains Wells.

For many other ex-girl bosses and me, practising a lifestyle centred around holistic well-being over glorified and oversimplified metrics of success has worked wonders. I am a girl moss now, prioritising presence over productivity, and ready to be absorbed back into nature and I urge you, my fellow burnt-out girl bosses, to join me on the forest floor. Remember what the Dalai Lama said, “We are human beings, not human doings.”