TikTok has a remarkable way of recycling the exact same aesthetics and trends, haphazardly slapping a new name on it, and calling it something new. The latest manifestation dupe is Lucky Girl Syndrome, a TikTok trend in which users say the phrase, “I am so lucky; everything works out for me.” And, as the Lucky Girl Syndrome prophecy states, they will be so lucky, and everything will work out for them.
Some
The trend really took off after TikTok user @lauragalebe posted a video describing herself as “one of the luckiest people [she] knows.”
“I just always expect great things to happen to me and so they do,”
As
“Depending on who you ask, it’s either an empowering practice that can see you fulfill your dreams by repeating daily affirmations such as, ‘Everything works out well for me,’ or it’s a non-inclusive, toxic social media trend of rich, white girls not checking their own privilege,”
It’s simply a new version of the decade-old book, The Secret, which first touted the alleged life-changing magic of manifestation. Manifestation can involve a whole host of rules or it can involve practically none. For instance, one old TikTok taught us about scripting, in which people repeatedly write down a wish until it comes true; another trend told us to follow our “angel numbers,” something that sounds complicated but that I refuse to investigate.
There’s nothing wrong with positive thinking, of course. German academic and NYU psychology professor Gabriele Oettingen,
Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that the Lucky Girl Syndrome trend will go away any time soon. TikTok creates a new version of the manifestation trend every few months; we’ll see this again. Maybe the trend sticks around because
Until the world begins to calm, I’ll be spending my time anticipating what we’ll call the next version of the Lucky Girl Syndrome.