There are No Girls on the Internet

About

“No Girls on the Internet” is a popular catchphrase used by netizens to imply that there are no female entities actually participating in online forums and conversations, especially in anonymous-friendly settings like chat rooms and message boards. This age-old myth of “There are No Girls on the Internet” also jests that the world wide web is essentially a sausage fest, dominated and defined by interactions among dudes and a smaller population of dudes who claim to be girls in pursuit of lulz (also see: trolling).

Origins

While the exact origin of this expression remains buried in the depths of interweb history, such stereotype of the average Internet user as “a geeky male who is single and desperately seeking interaction with the other sex” is not exactly an inside joke. Ever since the dawning age of Usenet, falsely posing oneself as a girl to gain others’ attention has remained a popular trolling technique in chat rooms, bulletin boards and more recently, in the context of online gaming (ex: World of Warcraft, Starcraft, etc).

Somewhat inevitably, all the fuss surrounding “being a girl online” led female netizens to falsely identify themselves as dudes in these settings, as to avoid harassment or verbal abuse from others (who are presumably dudes).

Burden of Proof: TITS or GTFO

Due to the widespread nature of “No Girls on the Internet” and similar wisdoms, identifying oneself as a “girl” within certain communities (ex: 4chan) has become a hilariously arduous task, often leading to an inquiry of documented evidence and profile pics from skeptic netizens. As encapsulated in another catchphrase TITS or GTFO, the burden of proof seems to rest heavily on the shoulder of those who claim to be “not dudes.”

Debunking the Myth: Internet Usage Statistics by Gender

In contrast to this long-standing myth, more recent studies of the online demographic have found that the gender gap in internet usage is closing in. According to a 2006 statistics report released by PEW Internet & American Life Project, 86 percent of younger women (ages 18 to 29) were online, compared with 80 percent of men in the same age group. Yet despite the recent development, the same report also found men to be in the overall lead of online activities, representing somewhere between 68 percent to 66 percent of internet users in the study group.