This Chick-fil-A worker was disgusted to realize why men are creepier toward her when she wears this one hairstyle.
The “sexy school girl” is a long-standing trope that’s been adopted everywhere, from Halloween costumes to young girls’ beauty icons—like Britney Spears wearing pigtails and a school girl outfit in the “…Baby One More Time” music video or it being part of Baby Spice’s signature look.
On the surface, it’s just a cute look. But when you stop and think about it, it’s actually quite gross that school-age, aka underage, girls have been sexualized to the point that pigtails carry an adult connotation.
It’s not just a “preference,” as some might say. It toes the line of normalizing predatory pedophilic behavior and desires.
“When you wear pigtails to work and make double [the] amount of tips as usual,” creator Grace (@semiattractivementallyok) wrote in the text overlay of her video. She lip-synced to Lana Del Rey’s “Put Me in a Movie,” mouthing the lyrics, “C’mon, you know you like little girls,” NBC News reported.
This Chick-fil-A worker has started to figure out the same thing.
Chick-fil-A worker calls out creepy men
Creator @shawtywitdavlogsquad shared what it’s like to be a young woman working at Chick-fil-A. Her experience has over 163,000 views on TikTok.
She recounted that men used to make weird and inappropriate comments toward her “at least like three times a week.” She said she’s noticed that it’s been happening less lately.
It popped into her head because she recently got engaged and can now use the out of “sorry, I’m engaged” and flash her ring, she shared.
As she thought more about it, she came to an upsetting realization.
“I think it’s because I haven’t worn braids in a few months. And I used to wear them all the time,” she said.
“Old men liking girls in braids is so gross to me like we know what u are!!!!” she wrote in the caption
So, she decided to test out her theory and go to work with braids.
“Old people that used to tell me like, ‘You look so like young and cute in those,’” she recounted.
But this time around, no creepy comments were made. However, we’d like to point out that it seems @shawtywitdavlogsquad only did this for one day. In her original video, she said it didn’t happen daily but every few days. So it’s possible the unfortunate comments would have come if she’d done the experiment for longer.
“I think I am just getting older. … I think my face doesn’t look as young… as it did when I first started working here, which I’m fine with because I don’t want creepy men making comments to me,” she concluded.
Pigtail trend goes viral
As female servers started to notice that their hairstyle impacted how many tips they got, they took to TikTok to share their findings. That sparked a trend of other women adopting pigtails for work and testing different styles to see what gets them the most money.
One server, Katelyn Boss, told Business Insider that donning the hairstyle earned her her first $100 tip.
“I was really surprised that it worked so quickly. I kept trying it, and it just kept working,” Boss said.
She continued, “I was making more money than I ever had; I was surprised. I didn’t think it would work, and everyone at my job makes fun of me about it,” Boss said.
And it doesn’t just work in restaurants.
“As soon as I put on those braids, I’m telling you, something just clicked with these men, and they started throwing me money,” Veronica Portillo, who works as a dancer at a strip club, told NBC.
One man asked her for a private dance and told her he reminded her of his “little niece.” That’s really alarming.
Commenters react
“It’s so odd growing up and realizing most men would only hit on me cause I looked so young. But now that I’m 23 and clearly older, even though I’m a lot more attractive now, it never happens,” a top comment read.
“I used to work at cfa and while wearing braids an old asked if he could ‘pull them’,” a person recounted.
“when i stopped wearing braids they stopped,” another said.
“I do this all the time when I need extra tips,” a comment wrote.
@shawtywitdavlogsquad old men liking girls in braids is so gross to me like we know what u are!!!!
♬ original sound – vlog squad
The Daily Dot reached out to @shawtywitdavlogsquad for comment via TikTok direct message and comment.
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