Images by Ross, Niki Nihachu, neverbutterfly from Wikimedia
From blundering boyfriends on TikTok to the biggest online creators, here is the full breakdown on the trend that exposed how the internet thinks about women.
If the vast ocean of short form social media content were divided into smaller identifiable seas, one such expanse of content that many a scrolling sailor has become drowned in, would be person-on-the-spot asked-a-question videos.
There would be a “Name a vegetable” Cove, a “Name five animals” Bay, and the Great “How many times do you think about the Roman Empire?” Reef.
The “Name a woman” trend stands with such esteemed company.
These trends follow a set formula, like any good experiment. We have ‘the observer’: a TikTok account holder, typically female, camera operator, and ‘the subject’: caught unaware, usually male, (boyfriend? quite possibly) and surely about to be the star of a very funny video.
For some, the question asked is unimportant, and it’s more about the surprise and seeing what a brain spits out when asked to name a vegetable at lightning speed. He said artichoke?! And so on.
But for others, the question, and the data collected in the multitude of recorded responses, is the real gold. No one cares if one guy thinks about the Roman empire every day. But millions of men all over the world? Thinking about it every day? In secret?! Incredible.
“Name a woman” began as the former. Leagues of men blurting out random females, often of varying species and levels of fiction.
However, like Leo DiCaprio dumping another 26 year old, a pattern began to emerge.
“Sydney Sweeney”, “Megan Fox”, and “Margot Robbie” and other women known for their looks or male popularity were appearing in increasing numbers, and simultaneously a new aspect to the trend mutated.
Boyfriends and husbands began to be considered to have “passed the test” if they gave their partner’s name, and failed if they gave the name of another; some failed more terribly than others.
Reactions to a failure were varied, from incredulous, when given an answer like “Miss Piggy”, to borderline outrage when, without thinking, your boyfriend says your sister’s name rather than your own.
Professor Bradley Wiggins is the author of “The Discursive Power of Memes in Digital Culture” and is an expert on how trends like this spread. He says:
“These iterations help to increase the virality, as more people find things to latch on to and iterate.”
“As soon as there’s that element of pass/fail, a whole new audience of people will be more interested in participating based on that aspect.”
And more there were, mostly personal accounts making videos on a whim during weekend afternoons; but when ‘Name a woman’ hit the online creator community, a fascinating iteration of the trend emerged.
“I remember asking [my boyfriend] to name a woman.” Says Blaire, known online as QTCinderella, “We were on stream, and- he got all flustered, I think he said his Mom? But then got all defensive, mostly playing up to the camera for sure, he was very aware of the TikTok trend.”
QT livestreams on Twitch.tv, where she has 1.14 Million followers, she has over half a million Youtube subscribers and is one of the most influential creators in the community, hosting and creating a number of huge events involving some of the biggest names in online entertainment.
“I like to do the Chappell Roan and say ‘I’m your favourite streamer’s favourite streamer’”
“I’m pretty sure [name a woman] originally came from Billy Eichner, that’s what I had always thought”
Billy on the Street with Billy Eichner is a 2011 TV comedy series. In the episodes, Billy goes around New York city with a microphone, asking questions of passing pedestrians. In the first episode, Billy goes up to a woman clutching a dollar and says “Miss, for a dollar, name a woman.” Shocked, and becoming defensive at Billy’s increasing intensity with each repetition of the question, she is unable to do so.
“The online streamer community is so centered around gamers, both in the audience and the creators, it just fit to have something like this become a game.” Continues QT.
“I said to [my boyfriend] I bet you can’t name 100 women, he said he could, I said, do it on stream, and try for under ten minutes.”
Blaire’s boyfriend is also a popular streamer called Ludwig. He broadcast his attempt to over 30,000 live viewers and published the video to his Youtube channel with 7 million subscribers.
A viral challenge was born. Name 100 women, dead or alive, listing them on screen as you go in as short a time as you can.
“I put a tweet out and tagged all my biggest creator friends.”
“Women are overlooked in pop-culture, whether it’s filmmaking, comedy, streaming, all the communities I’m part of.”
Since 2022, QT has run “The Streamer Awards”, an annual award show recognising achievement in the livestreaming community. Every year the show has been hosted by women.
“I just decided, it’s my show, it’s the way it is, if it was just men no one would say anything, that would just be Hollywood for the past century”
“But it has to be fun, otherwise people just reject it. At the end of the day, I have to deliver a great show for the audience and it’s that pressure I feel the most.”
“Not only do we get the names of women out there, but the joke is on the guys that struggle with it. It’s showing people a bad example like here’s how not to be.”
The first name in Blaire’s tweet calling on male online creators to take the challenge was @slime_machine. Anthony Bruno, known online as ‘slime’ is a smaller online creator and close friend to QTCinderella.
“I really wanted Slime to do it, I just thought he would be funny and it would get clipped and people would talk about it. He’s exactly that ‘bad example’ I was hoping for.”
Anthony is known for his sharp wit and but sometimes prickly demeanour, often making an example of members in his streaming audience that are antagonistic or rude. He’s also very happy to be the bad example that QT was looking for.
“I’m happy to be that foil I think that’s a good character to play”
“But the punchline is that men are dumb at the end of the day, not that women aren’t worthy.”
Across the lists of 100 women, the most popular category of celebrity was actresses – and the actress appearing on the most lists was a familiar name for this trend, Sydney Sweeney.
Professor Wiggins has an explanation:
“There’s always a massive recency bias when it comes to online trends, if a topic or name is prevalent in popular culture, it’s sure to reflect in online culture as well.”
The woman that appeared on most lists was Hilary Clinton.
Politician, almost-president and former first lady, it’s hard to name a more prominent woman in American politics from over the last 30 years. But QT thinks there is a different reason for her prominence in this challenge.
“She’s the answer guys think they should put! The kinda best example of the type of woman that should be celebrated.”
This idea that that the challenge is not just about fulfilling the 100 names, but picking worthy names, echoes back to the TikTok version of the trend.
Slime had this in mind during his attempt.
“At first, I had it in my head as like what if this were the list of 100 women’s names to send into space, you know? Like here are earth’s representatives, but that went out of the window as the challenge got harder.”
Hilary Clinton was the first name on his list, but at around the 4-minute mark this notion went out the window.
“He just started listing pornstars! And I remember he said ‘here we go!’ like he had just discovered fire or something!” Explains QT.
Clipped and titled ‘QT discovers a cheat code’ This is perhaps the most viral moment from the challenge, gaining millions of views across YouTube, X and TikTok.
Slime was not alone. Porn Actresses was the 6th most common category of women for the challenge, featuring more frequently than TV personalities, Authors and academics.
For many this confirmed fears that started with the earlier videos. That the internet’s view of women is hyper-sexualised and misogynistic.
But is there cause for alarm? Slime himself thinks not.
“For sure it’s a commentary, or an insight on our perceptions, but you don’t have to panic or change what you’re doing to fix it, it’s about being aware.”
“It’s like with AI, it’s just a soulless reader of all the worst things humans have put out there on the internet, feeding on this diet of the worst parts of culture and that makes it sexist and racist and they have to hard code around it, but then that’s the same slop that gets fed to people on TikTok and Instagram.”
QTCinderella agrees, saying:
“if this [trend] teaches you anything it should be awareness. Know the world you’re in, know how the algo works and be better than it.”
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