#MyGirlfriendNotAllowedTo

About

#MyGirlfriendNotAllowedTo^[1] is a Twitter hashtag used with humorous tweets describing various activities that a person does not want his or her female significant other to partake during courtship.

Origin

hile the origin of #MyGirlfriendNotAllowedTo^[1] is currently unknown, it first appeared as a worldwide trending topic^[2] on June 3rd at 7:20 p.m. (EST). According to Topsy Analytics^[3], the hashtag was used 155,300 times that day. Some of the earliest examples of the tweets were posted at 9:30 p.m. (EST) by @ShuggNotSuge^[4], who used the hashtag 22 times that night.

Spread

By June 3rd, at 10:40 p.m. (EST), #MyGirlfriendNotAllowedTo became the #1 worldwide trending topic and remained visible on the list through the following day. Also on June 4th, compilations of the tweets were featured on The Frisky^[5] and The Daily Beast’s Women in the World^[6], both criticizing the misogynist nature of a number of the tweets. However, as the Frisky pointed out, a number of people were attempting to co-opt the tag to point out inequalities between men and women (shown below). Meanwhile, Tumblr user bedussey^[10] compiled eleven tweets from the hashtag into a photoset, which gained more than 153,000 notes within 48 hours and was featured on the site’s curated LOL tag. According to Topsy analytics^[3], the hashtag was used 392,489 times on June 4th.

Over the next two days, collections of #MyGirlfriendNotAllowedTo tweets were featured on dating site How About We^[7], collegiate message board Tiger Droppings^[8] and men’s humor site The Chive.^[9] On June 6th, a link to the Frisky article was submitted to the /r/TwoXChromosomes subreddit^[11], gaining 8 points and 6 comments in five hours.

Notable Examples

Derivative: #MyBoyfriendNotAllowedTo

On June 4th, the complementary hashtag #MyBoyfriendNotAllowedTo^[12] began to circulate on Twitter, spawning similar jokes about things that people didn’t want their boyfriends to do. Although it didn’t garner as much attention as the original hashtag, #MyBoyfriendNotAllowedTo briefly became a worldwide trending topic^[13] with 228,687 mentions, according to Topsy analytics.^[14] Tumblr user awkwardnigerian^[15] compiled a number of these Tweets into a photoset, which gained more than 48,000 notes in 48 hours.