r/Girl Dinner Diaries and the Unifying Appeal of Gossip Over Picky Bits

Words: Hatti Rex

Make it stand out

The feminine tradition of putting the world to rights over a nice meal is no longer confined to IRL hangouts. On Reddit, women all over the world are spilling their guts and revealing their plates on /r/GirlDinnerDiaries in an anonymous crowdsourced group therapy session to a growing audience of 6 million hungry ladies. Though occasionally people will post their success stories, problems range from totally minor gripes (who ordered the veggie burger for period pains?) to the major life confessions (fries with a side of catfish?) and the things you simply wish you’d never read (...man butt pesto sandwich?)

There’s a boy version too, with around a third of the users, plus a more sinister hub for Kitchencels. Now that Instagram, Substack and other social platforms feel like a performative highlights reel edit of everyone’s best bits, where the LARPing extends to yassified food posts and hype-driven restaurant choices, anonymous message boards like Reddit can feel more true to life. As food becomes a taste signifier in the cost of living crisis, the cultural capital of anv everyday meal adds an extra layer of fatigue to life in late-stage capitalism.

Admittedly, humans have been telling stories over a shared meal presumably since cavemen roasted mammoths over a flint-ignited flame but this is like the Rate My Meal Deal Facebook page of yesteryear with a side of true-life drama. Plus, there’s no dudes allowed.

Flair options for tagging the posts range from big to small wins, rants, sad girl dinners or for venting purposes only. As you can imagine from the glorified snack plate ‘girl dinner’ trend of 2023 which infantilised women’s eating habits but like, in a fun way, some of these meals are quite literally just a bunch of picky bits out the fridge. Or worse, a leftover burger in a tortilla. ‘For the feral plates and the feral thoughts’, the tagline promises. Some meals, be it homemade, Doordashed or via a restaurant, are more extravagant and look so good I’ve saved them for later dinner inspo. Really sorry about your boyfriend’s friend’s cheating scandal but please can I get that stir fry recipe? ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

“You’re sharing what’s on your plate, literally and figuratively and there’s something really comforting about being able to throw it all on the table and have thousands of women say, ‘Girl, I get it.’”

As for the confessions themselves, the board’s top post with 79k upvotes is a sincere woman-to-woman moment on a plane that became the catalyst for the original poster breaking up with her toxic partner, with a side of Bison burger and brussel sprouts. But between “ghosted by the homeless man I was dating” and “I am the mystery office pooper :(“ you can honestly see why some of these inner thoughts could only ever be told to strangers. These admissions often feature on /r/popular, escape Reddit and seep out across the internet like when sauce leaks in the fridge. 

On X, original posts are often mocked and ridiculed on antagonistic aggregators like Reddit Lies, whilst the official account receives minimal support. Obviously there’s an underlying question of misogyny in the reposts with the group being focused solely on women’s stories but the anecdotes often reach such a high level of bizarre unpredictability that they become genuine human interest stories, regardless of gender. Plus, gossip has always been an important method of communication for marginalised people.

The contrast of the photo vs. caption is as wild as @zukosombrs describes, “like i just read one about a girl whose brother is a pedophile and then was like ‘anyways jamaican chicken curry’??????” It’s why True Crime has become such a colossal genre, or why people love snippets of their friend’s dating mishaps, or why magazines with extreme real-life drama like Take A Break are so enjoyable for a leisurely browse. 

Everybody is both nosy and keen for reassurance that their life is comparatively ‘normal’ but in the extremely disappointing era of bots making up the majority of internet traffic and constantly evolving AI slop it honestly feels like a relief to be able to experience the whole range of human emotions as a reaction to genuine tidbits of other people’s real lives. It has to be one of the main reasons we exist as a species. 

Out of curiosity and need for article subjects, I bit the proverbial bullet and created my own post on /r/GirlDinnerDiaries as an avid lurker, first time poster and intel requester. For transparency, the image was a particularly delicious homemade breakfast burrito brioche sandwich situation with leftover black bean and lime salad, plus a fresh omelette in a bun. After a couple minutes of the post being live, the moderators removed my request and sent a ‘hey girlie’ DM. Thankfully, the board’s original creator was happy to respond to my rampant questioning. 

“I think GirlDinnerDiaries has become such a large community because it feels less like posting on the internet and more like going out for appies with your girlfriends and venting about life,” the MOD mail message begins. “You’re sharing what’s on your plate, literally and figuratively and there’s something really comforting about being able to throw it all on the table and have thousands of women say, ‘Girl, I get it.’” She describes how women keep coming back because it feels like one giant group chat, or a girl’s night you can join to vent whenever you need. Put that way, it does feel like being by the sinks in the club bathroom without having to pay for entry. 

“I don’t necessarily believe Reddit itself is a safer space than other platforms,” my anonymous contact explains, some boards are a petri-dish of poisonous rhetoric. “I think what makes GirlDinnerDiaries feel safe is how passionate we are as moderators about protecting the community we’ve built and keeping it a safe, supportive space for the girls.” With our time being so finite, I have respect for the world’s internet moderators for their unrelenting service to both their communities and supplying the world with real-life entertainment. Bon appetit!