Wake Up Babe, Getting Dumped Is Cool Now
It’s the year of the breakup—but it’s not as bad as it sounds. The girls are posting through it, and the message is clear: No more crying over men alone.
There was a time when getting dumped meant blasting Lorde’s Melodrama alone in your bedroom. Now it means cutting yourself fringe bangs at 2 a.m., posting about it on TikTok, and waking up to thousands of strangers telling you he did you a favor. “We’re better off without him” is the sentiment. Chalk it up to the attention economy, where every experience is source material, or the fact that misogyny is on the rise, everywhere from politics to reels, but one thing is clear: the need to decenter men is catching on.
At least, that’s the idea behind Dumped Girl Summer, which 28-year-old actress and producer Francesca Keller coined on her Substack after getting broken up with for the first time in her life. In the viral essay that launched the phrase, and the advice series that followed, Keller argues that heartbreak isn’t something to hide from, but something to capitalize on. Her post-breakup catharsis, she writes, became the catalyst for becoming her hottest self, spiritually and physically.
“Tell everyone. Buy a shirt that says you just got dumped,” she advises. Her other tips: dress up, get a little weird, and say yes to absolutely everything. “I don’t think I’ve ever been reached out to by that many women in my life,” she recalls of the countless D.M.s she’s received in response. Though predictably, the opposite sex hasn’t been as supportive of her take. “The men got defensive and obnoxious,” Keller says. “It just goes to show that men can’t handle women taking power over something they’re supposed to be ashamed of.”
Keller’s breakup philosophy resonated for good reason. It arrives at a shift when many are rethinking relationships. Last year, in British Vogue writer Chanté Joseph argued that having a boyfriend is embarrassing, and women of all ages flooded the comments in agreement. “Yes, it is. Especially if you are young (19–60 years old),” reads a comment with more than 20,000 likes. Then came the #youngho—a trend that encourages taking life less seriously by going straight from the club to the airport, starting the day at 2 p.m., and cooking everything on high heat. What once might have been seen as a personal failure to settle down into domestic life is now an excuse to chase pleasure and self-discovery.
Enter Kate Bodnya: The Moscow-based influencer and dancer has documented over a hundred days of her breakup on Instagram. Her argument? Women should deprioritize men. “I think that we tend to disappear into a relationship like sugar in hot tea,” she says. This became clear to Bodnya this spring after she separated from her partner after seven years together. As she tells it, the two months that followed were a blessing in disguise: She posted through the pain, gained thousands of followers, monetized her videos, and funneled all her energy into her creative work. “It’s important to use breakups as breakthroughs,” she says. That breakthrough doesn’t always look like a career pivot. Writer Caroline Calloway has been publicly embracing a more whimsical version of herself that her ex never quite understood. In one video, the writer styles her hair in a way that she explains he would’ve absolutely hated, snapping small, white blossoms off of nearby branches, perching them atop her head, and weaving blue ribbons into her braids. “He liked me best when I was quiet,” reads one caption.
Beneath the post, a commenter replies, “Ok but how wonderful is it when the trash actually takes itself out… The streets can have their whimsiless little man back.” In the comments section of another video, Calloway reveals that her ex weighed 350 pounds, that their sex life was amazing, and that she definitely wasn’t with him for his looks. It’s the kind of unflinching (albeit backhanded) candidness that comes naturally to a generation that grew up processing life online.
While many like Keller, Bodnya, and Calloway share vivid details from their breakups, others like New York-based Angela Li take a more analytical approach. Li’s intimate TikTok conversations about life, love, and heartbreak are like FaceTimes from a friend. “Why are we upset that the person who cannot love you properly is walking away? Let them walk away from you,” she says in a video with more than one million views. Look up “Getting Over Your Ex Boyfriend” on TikTok, and thousands of videos similar to Li’s pop up, often giving practical tips, like block your ex on social media or throw away their hoodie.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
It’s not that getting over an ex is new. It’s that social media is changing how we share and process it. For decades, women have made songs, books and T.V. shows dedicated to the anger, confusion and sadness that follows a bad breakup. But Dumped Girl Summer doesn’t just give us something to relate to, instead it asks what’s in it for you? Today, breakups aren’t just plot devices or something we share in private—they’re stories we broadcast shamelessly to the world, reclaimed with every video, caption, or personal essay. And let’s face it, you can’t help but feel less lonely when thousands of comments tell you that getting dumped is the best thing that ever happened. Why wallow alone when you can enjoy your freedom, fuel the child in your heart, and let loose together?
Plus, realistically, no one stays in Dumped Girl Summer forever. Heartbreak comes in waves, and eventually someone new will come along. Perhaps when temperatures drop, bundling up with another will regain its charm. But we’re never going back to crying over a man in private. As Bodnya puts it: “We should give this energy to ourselves, because he really isn’t that important.”
Thanks for the love !! Dumped girl summer is a mindset and it heals <3