We Need More Complex Female Characters

About

We Need More Complex Female Characters is the first part of a short copypasta phrase that goes on to list a female character that is believed to be complex and was not well received by the fans. The phrase started to rapidly spread on Twitter after it's creation, with people using it as a form of showing off their favorite characters by claiming the internet couldn't handle them.

Origin

On September 19th, 2023, the X user @trancevivi^[1] posted an image of the character Laura Kearney from the multi-story character-driven game The Quarry. The character, who received mixed reception for her portrayal and storyline on game release, was touted as a 'complex female character' by @trancevivi, who posted "y'all couldn't even handle Laura Kearney" (shown below).

Spread

The phrase was used sparingly over the next few months, with other female characters being attributed to it until the end of 2023. The phrase had a significant spike following a February 4th, 2024 post by X user @HAWKW0RLD,^[2] who used it with a picture of Lois Lane from the Adult Swim show My Adventures With Superman, earning over 1.5 million views and 37,000 likes in three days (shown below).

As the phrase began to get more popular, it started to be used for fan-favorite female characters. On February 5th, 2024, the X user @daenerysim^[3] uploaded a photo of Daenerys from Game of Thrones while using the phrase, earning over 30,000 views in two days and causing discourse as to her character's role within the story (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References