Name: Ashton Dalmer 
Advisor: Prof. Kira Hall, TA Velda Khoo 
Course: LING 2400: Language, Gender, and Sexuality 
Semester: Fall 2023
LURA 2024

Have you ever seen an adult man get called “babygirl”? With the rise of social media, the internet has fostered spaces for communities to form with a certain level of isolation that isn’t achievable in the real world. Among these communities are fan spaces where people gather to discuss and share content about specific forms of media that they are a fan of, referred to as “fandoms”. There are fandoms for just about any piece of media you can think of, but the larger collective of all of these different subgroups is known overall as the “fandom” community.

The thing about language is that it’s always growing to fill new niches. General day to day language is a lot broader, but when a group focuses on a certain topic, new words and terms are formed in order to be more specific and detailed in the discussion of it. This is commonly seen in academic circles, with research fields developing unique language for their respective subjects. This is sometimes referred to as a ‘sociolect’. However, the fandom portion of the internet has also been rapidly developing its own sociolect, creating words and other linguistic elements to describe common things in fandom.

The nature of a sociolect is that it is inherently reflective of the community for which it is developed. New terms reveal where the group found their language to be lacking. So what is lacking in the discussion of fanworks to dictate these linguistic changes? The essay I developed for the course “Language, Gender, and Sexuality” centers specifically on the use of the term “babygirl” within the wider fandom sociolect, and the implications it has on the larger system of the community and the unique way it interprets and interacts with gender. The essay examines its frequent use in reference to the character Astarion Acunin from the video game Baldur’s Gate 3 as a sort of case study.

Within fandom spaces online, the term ‘babygirl’ is used for a very different demographic than seen in more day-to-day language in the non-virtual world. In the more common interpretation, it is used as a term of either endearment or sexualization towards a woman, typically used by men. It can be seen as infantilizing, or objectifying, and although not all of these initial implications are lost in its use in fandom, the script gets flipped a bit. In fandom spaces, the term ‘babygirl’ is most frequently used to refer to an adult man, often of questionable moral character, and someone the speaker views as both attractive, and in some ways, pathetic.

I chose Astarion as a case study to examine this word, because he fits this archetype to a T: a visually middle aged man, with a tragic past and a relatively loose moral code, and, most importantly, someone many people find attractive. He played a large role in its popularization as a term, particularly on Tik Tok. To see the term used, there are many clips of his lines from the game Baldur’s Gate 3 that are posted on TikTok, where there are comments that read “He’s so babygirl” or something similar. It is used as a term of endearment, but it has an inherent implication that the user finds the subject both attractive and worthy of pity or care.

This usage alteration is inherently influenced by the environment in which it is used. Notably, most online fandom spaces tend to be dominated by queer people and women, which has a massive influence on the way gendered language is used in these spaces. The essay further dives into exactly what these implications are, and what they say about the greater community at large and the way it sees and interacts with gender.

Title Image Credit 

Babygirl meme. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/511369732706492638. 

References

1. Eckert, P., & Mcconnell-Ginet, S. (2013). Language and Gender. Cambridge University Press.
2. Honors, E., English, T., & Eason, J. (2022). Creative Matter Creative Matter No Canon We Die Like Men: The Oppositional Power of Fanon on No Canon We Die Like Men: The Oppositional Power of Fanon on Different Social Media Platforms Different Social Media Platforms Eason 1. https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1067&context=eng_stu_schol.
3. A 200-year-old sassy vampire from the video game Baldur’s Gate 3 is the internet’s new boyfriend. (2023, October 25). NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/baldurs-gate-3-astarion-internet-crush-babygirl-rcna121687.
4. Lakoff, R. T. (2004). Language and woman’s place: Text and Commentaries. Oxford University Press, USA.
5. Tannen, D. (2013). You just don’t understand: Women and Men in Conversation. Harper Collins.