anime girl with brown hair in a ponytails headphones and a green sweatshirt studying at a desk while a cat stares out the window behind her

LoFi Girl

Part of a series on Lo-fi Hip Hop Study Mix. [View Related Entries]

Updated Apr 11, 2023 at 01:35PM EDT by Adam.

Added Feb 25, 2020 at 08:51AM EST by Sophie.

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About

LoFi Girl, also known as Study Girl, is an animated character created by Juan Pablo Machado for the YouTube channel Chilled Cow and their YouTube stream Lofi hip hop mix- Beats to Relax/Study to. The short animation shows a girl wearing headphones studying at her desk next to her cat and a window. The animation came to be known as a character that doesn't stop studying.

Origin

On March 2nd, 2018, artist Juan Pablo Machado[1] introduced the animation in a blog post titled "Making of a 2d animation for Chilledcow LoFi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to" (shown below).


anime girl with her hair in a ponytail wearing headphones and listening to music while writing in a notebook at a desk with a cat staring out the window in the background

On March 19th, ChilledCow uploaded the animation to the stream "Lofi hip hop mix – Beats to Relax/Study to" (shown below). The video gained over 27.8 million views in two years.



Precursor

On July 15th, 1995, the Studio Ghibli anime film Whisper of the Heart was released in theaters. In the film, there is a shot of a young girl character studying that appears to be the basis for LoFi Girl (shown below).



Spread

On March 14th, 2018, Twitter user @Jet0o[2] posted an animation of parents sitting across the table from a girl who looks similar to LoFi Girl and captioned it "My daughter. We need to talk. It's good that you're diligent in your studies but you have an unhealthy addiction to lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to" (shown below, left). The tweet garnered over 90,200 likes and 36,800 retweets in two years. On August 22nd, 2019, Redditor SpicySusBois posted the LoFi Girl image to r/dankmemes[3] congratulating her for studying for over a year straight (shown below, right). The post accumulated over 79,900 points (94% upvoted) in six months.


Jet「確かめなくても間違いないことは」「君に出逢えてホントにホントによかった」 @Jet0o My daughter. We need to talk. It's good that you're diligent in your studies but you have an unhealthy addiction to lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to. This girl has been doing homework for a year straight. happy birthday lofi hip hop radio

On October 8th, 2019, the satirical news site Hard Times[4] published an article titled "LoFi Hip Hop Radio Girl Still Fails Test After Four Years of Studying." ChilledCow began posting weekly LoFi Girl fanart. On November 7th, 2019, ChilledCow posted "This week's fan art of the Study Girl is from @Timo_wei95" to Facebook[5] (shown below, left). On February 22, 2020, YouTube deleted the stream.[7] The video was reinstated that day and a new stream was started. Twitter user @Pixlriffs[6] tweeted, "Happy to see @ChilledCow's lofi hip hop radio stream got reinstated, but I think by taking the account down – however briefly – YouTube may have inadvertently created the longest video on the platform. That is a 13,165 hour, 23 minute, 44 second long stream" (shown below, right). The tweet garnered over 16,300 likes and 4,700 retweets in three days.


dorupl change a the sel t Metanurghesis Timo.its Aandy malod to Pixlriffs A @Pixlriffs Happy to see @ChilledCow's lofi hip hop radio stream got reinstated, but I think by taking the account down - however briefly - YouTube may have inadvertently created the longest video on the platform. That is a 13,165 hour, 23 minute, 44 second long stream VOD E lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to ChilledCow O 15K watching LIVE NOW lofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to ChilledCow O Recommended for you |13,165:23:44 5:15 PM · Feb 22, 2020 · Twitter Web App

European LoFi Girl

In September 2020, users of the subreddit r/europe began making redraws of the LoFi Girl based on their country. This was inspired by August 31st posts by user u/Marccolo with a Romanian version of LoFi Girl (shown below). First posted to r/Romania,[8] it was subsequently posted to r/europe where it amassed over 33,000 upvotes.[9]


IULIE STATR 3oteanu ecea " GATE

From there, other r/europe users began posting their nation's version of LoFi Girl. This culminated in a competition on the subreddit which u/Marccolo ultimately won.[10] Additionally, several mega-threads with different LoFi girls were created[11][12] and the subreddit r/LofiGirl was used for the competition.[13] The phenomenon was covered by boredpanda on September 7th.[14]



End of the live stream

On July 11th, 2022, after two consecutive years on stream on YouTube[15], the video was taken down by the platform due to a bogus copyright claim. The stream accumulates 668 million views and more than 20,000 hours of music when it was momentarily deactivated.

After users noticed the end of the stream, they started to post several memes on social media saying “goodbye” to the LoFi Girl, saying “she’s finally ready to take that exam”. The post by @zelune, received 54,000 likes in five days.



Synthwave Boy

On April 11th, 2023, the LoFi Girl channel introduced a second stream featuring a new, presumably male character typing on a computer with coffee and a dog cozied up next to him. The second stream focuses on synth wave music to "chill/game" to, leading the community to dub him "Synthwave Boy." The introduction of the second stream came after a brief ARG where the LoFi Girl went missing from her stream, presumably to investigate a blue window she could see from her own. This turned out to be the room of "Synthwave Boy."



Various Examples


Jllideae @une coffee John Newton @playthatjohn If you recognize this girl you're either: A.) Being productive B.) Being unproductive C.) Going through some s--- D.) All of the above PRIA 12:45 DM 3/22/19 Twittor for iDhone me: hey girl whats up her: i only datelofi hip hop radio - beats to relax/study to me: शीमा PRADA Lofi hip hop memes for relaxing/studying teens @lofiteens #music #memes #lofi #lofihiphop #lofihiphopradio #chilledcow #chillhop #musicmemes You vs the girl he tells you not to worry about @lofiteens 11:26 AM · May 29, 2018 · Twitter Web Client HARUKI MURAKAMI RCVENGE OF THE @ARmiN Scientooni st

Search Interest

External References

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Top Comments

VinchVolt
VinchVolt

in reply to TvTropesRuinedMyLife

She originally was; the channel first used a loop of Shizuku Tsukishima from the 1995 Studio Ghibli movie Whisper of the Heart (notable for being Yoshifumi Kondo's only directorial work prior to his 1998 death of a brain aneurysm brought about by overwork); the image that this article features is in fact another still of Tsukushima and her parents from the same movie.

From what I can tell, Chilled Cow had it replaced with a newly commissioned animation of an original lookalike character, the now-ubiquitous study girl, later in the channel's life due to copyright concerns.

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