Katherine Dee (Default Friend) guides us through egirl 001, her new zine that chronicles the evolution of e-girls from pre-internet proto-icons to current TikTok stars.
Katherine Dee, known to many by her pen name Default Friend, has established herself as one of the most distinctive voices in internet culture today. A writer, researcher, and keen observer of digital life, she’s been praised as “Marshall McLuhan’s clearest heir” and “one of the most original culture commentators of her generation.” Through her blog and The Computer Room podcast, she’s offered prescient takes on everything from the decline of the girlboss to the emergence of the Log Off movement, well before these trends gained mainstream attention.
Her latest project, egirl 001, is a 32-page full-colour magazine created with 2dcloud and Metalabel. It maps the evolution of the e-girl figure from 1982 to 2024, weaving through ASMR, cosplay, TikTok, and subcultural internet forums, and highlights figures like Sailor Moon, Petra Collins, and Lana Del Rey.
Elephant sat down with Katherine to discuss the changing aesthetics of online femininity, how subcultures are shaped by the platforms that host them, and why understanding the e-girl might be the key to understanding digital identity in the twenty-first century.
You trace e-girl culture back to 1982. Who was the proto-e-girl before the internet had a name for her?
It depends on how you define an e-girl. Is she just a mediated girl, or is she specific to the internet? Maybe she was a Minitel Rose pen pal, or perhaps the MacPlaymate.
If the internet had a high school yearbook, what superlative would the girl earn in 2025? “Most Likely to Start a Discourse,” or something wilder?
Two come to mind immediately. One is “Most Likely to Crash Out in Public,” and the other feels uncouth to say!
Your zine includes quotes from various voices. What’s the strangest or most surprising thing someone said that made you rethink the whole project, or laugh out loud?
I spoke to a gentleman whose voice I didn’t end up including in the zine, but he stuck with me — kind of haunted me. He was like an archivist of e-girls, a thirty-something-year-old guy who had followed different young women from imageboard to password-protected Tumblr to Discord server. He wasn’t friends with any of them; it was mainly paradoxical. The way he described his own life was incredibly haunting. I think there are many fans — they’re usually called orbiters, but let’s be more charitable here — like this. Just staring through a window, stuck outside.
Talk to us about conceiving the ideas and bringing them to life? What goes into that?
This project is designed to be a series. It feels like the timeline can’t live without the stories that support it. For this instalment, being as wide-reaching and comprehensive as possible felt important to me. It took a lot of research and numerous interviews. The first version was simple, and it kept growing, going deeper and deeper.
This isn’t your first time deep-diving into internet culture, but this project feels especially personal. Did you discover any mirror moments while researching, like bits of yourself you didn’t expect to see reflected?
I’ve never identified with the e-girl archetype. I’m a fan more than I have fans; I orbit more than I am orbited. There are hints of the women who support, and in some cases, tear down, e-girls in this book. That’s where you’ll find me — watching, learning, loving, occasionally hating.
Why is a physical archive for this project so important?
E-girls are ephemeral. There are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. They are both influential and structurally disposable. A physical artefact — something that says, “I was here!” or more accurately, “SHE was here!” — was incredibly important to me.
You’re working with some very internet-aware artists. What visual trope or aesthetic from e-girl culture are you absolutely over, and which one do you secretly love forever?
I LOVE the black eyeliner — you know, the Shoe0nHead, Siouxsie Sioux, Boxxy look. But I could live without the Belle Delphine highlighter-on-the-nose thing.
What does the future hold for you as an artist, and for this publication?
More instalments! My art is deeply rooted in ethnographies, and I hope to continue exploring other, lesser-discussed internet experiences.
Words by Jo Rosenthal
