Charlie Elizabeth Culverhouse explores the meaning, madness, and psychology behind the ladies’ pastime turned TikTok trend. It’s an all-girl party, crafting optional

On my birthday, six of my best girlfriends came over. We spilt beads over my freshly hoovered floor as we haphazardly made bracelets. We sang karaoke, the song choices fuelled by nostalgia for our childhoods. Then, full of party rings and chocolate cake, headed out to dance. It was the ultimate Girls’ Night.

Girls’ Night is an umbrella term, under which all sorts of group activities that women partake in sit. TikTok videos under #GirlsNight, which boasts 6.1 billion views, show friends doing crafts, like glass and pottery painting, hosting dinner parties, throwing themed get-togethers, or heading out for a night of karaoke.

As I sat with my best friend of 24 years, watching The Holiday and making DIY Christmas garlands (a classic Girls’ Night for us), we got to talking about our love for these evenings.

“Girls’ Night provides more of a purpose behind meeting up with your girls,” she says. “Crafts are neglected with all the business of everyday. By merging Girls’ Night and crafts night, it’s a wholesome two-in-one situation; you build deeper connections while doing something fun. You catch up, gossip, spend quality time together, and by adding an activity, you have memories you can refer back to.”

“I saw Girls’ Night as a way to do what I never got to as a kid. I wanted to create the perfect teenage life”

My outlook was more bittersweet. I saw Girls’ Night as a way to do what I never got to as a kid. I wanted to create the perfect teenage life, the one noughties films falsely promised would break up the monotony of those long years.

I never underwent a dramatic makeover like Brittany Murphy in Clueless, I never experienced the (admittedly toxic) camaraderie of a girl squad like in Bring It On, and boy troubles never saw me and a band of chick-flick archetypes band together like in John Tucker Must Die. That friendship was all I wanted – minus the murder.

Instead, my teenage years were more like those of Kat Stratford in 10 Things I Hate About You, only without the addition of a Heath Ledger-like love interest. That time was plagued by a lack of connection with other women as we struggled through and were constantly pitted against each other with school grades, our Instagram follower counts, and the expense of our makeup collections.

But after speaking with friends and experts, my experience seems to be in the minority. Girls’ Night is not about creation, but recreation.

Georgina Sturmer, a MBACP-accredited counsellor, believes Girls’ Night isn’t the first time women are spending quality time together, but is instead recreating the type of bonding childhood activities once provided.

“Girls’ Night might not consciously be a nostalgia trip, but it represents a ‘grown up’ version of the bonding we see between girls in the playground in childhood,” she says. “If the stereotype is boys playing sport and girls chatting or doing arts and crafts together when they’re young, then Girls’ Night offers a grown up version of this, while something like Sunday league football might present the ‘grown up’ male alternative.”

But while Sturmer suggests that the traditionally gendered activities of the playground appear to follow us into adulthood, Bayu Prihandito, a psychology expert and founder of life-coaching service Life Architekture, believes most friendships overcome these stereotypes as we grow up.

“men become more emotionally expressive in their friendships, while women broaden their social circles to include more activity-based relationships”

“From a young age, female friendships often focus more on emotional sharing and mutual support, while male friendships tend to revolve around shared activities and interests. But as people age, these patterns shift,” says Prihandito.

“Men become more emotionally expressive in their friendships. On the other hand, women, while maintaining emotionally rich friendships, broaden their social circles to include more activity-based relationships.”

So, what about the boys? It might not be plastered all over TikTok like Girls’ Night, but it seems men are doing Boys’ Nights, too, and have been doing so for, like, ever.

Owen, 24 – who I’ve known for nearly a decade, and spent my teenage years hanging out with in local pubs that quietly ignored our lack of IDs – lifted the iron curtain and revealed that activity-based Boys’ Nights have long been the norm for him.

“I’ve always bonded with people by doing shared hobbies: Lego when I was younger, probably golf or football now,” he says. “We’ve always done Boys’ Night, whether we’re doing something sporty or just meeting at the pub for a chat. It’s good fun to do something more active when you can think ahead and plan, and it’s easy to get along with each other when you’re bonding over something you all like to do.”

So Boys’ Night isn’t all that different from Girls’ Night, though Prihandito credits the internet with ‘trendifying’ the latter. Aesthetic dinnerware and table decor are pushed as must-haves for girly get-togethers, with many brands capitalising on the trend as a way to sell products. But it’s clear these evenings are about much more than just looks.

“as adults we are not always given the opportunity to be creative, so crafting activities help us to access other ways of expressing ourselves”

“Girls’ Night highlights the importance women place on maintaining connection and support,” Prihandito says. “These gatherings are more than fun or relaxation; they also offer a sense of community and belonging.”

This belonging is incredibly important, especially when we factor in that young women are the loneliest social group – reportedly feeling lonely more regularly than both older generations and men of the same age.

Sturmer also notes this desire for connection, pointing out that quality time is the aim with Girls’ Night, something that can be missing from quick coffee-fuelled catch-ups.

“When we think about the benefits, it comes down to the fact that just sitting around and chatting doesn’t suit everyone,” Sturmer says. “As well as catching up with our friends, Girls’ Night activities present the opportunity to make or create something, or try something different. As adults we are not always given the opportunity to be creative, so crafting activities help us to access other ways of expressing ourselves.”

The experts’ insight made me question my own approach to Girls’ Night. On reflection, it seems I’ve been living in the past – and not in the healthy, nostalgia-fuelled way other women have been with their pottery-painting, kitchen-disco evenings. I’ve been putting too much pressure on these nights to be perfect, to make up for a time that’s now passed.

I’m not going to get the Clueless makeover I originally desired, and I don’t really want the cliquey friendships depicted in noughties films to invade my relatively peaceful twenties. Instead, I have taken with me the parts of that childhood dream that matter most: good friends and a shelf full of poorly decorated wine glasses.

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