girl dinner

Girl dinner is a low-effort meal made of snacks and odds and ends, like cheese, crackers, fruit and pickles, eaten instead of cooking a proper dinner.

What girl dinner means

Dictionary.com defines it as a meal for one made of low-prep snacks such as cold cuts, cheese and fruit, often arranged attractively. The joke is in the gap between a “real” dinner and what many people actually eat when they’re alone and tired: a plate of leftovers and whatever needs using up, sometimes styled like a charcuterie board.

It’s usually self-deprecating and affectionate. Posting your girl dinner is a way of saying “this is what I actually eat,” not what a food influencer would make.

Examples

• “Tonight’s girl dinner: half a baguette, brie and six olives.”
• “Not cooking tonight, it’s a girl dinner kind of evening.”
• “Girl dinner but make it a bowl of cereal at 10 p.m.”

Where it came from

Olivia Maher coined it in a TikTok posted on May 11, 2023, showing a plate of bread, butter, cheese, grapes, pickles and wine, and joking that it was like a medieval peasant’s dinner. Know Your Meme reports the video passed a million plays within two months, and a wave of copycat videos followed, along with “boy dinner” replies by mid-July. Maher, who is based in Los Angeles, is the sister of US Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher.

Dictionary.com added “girl dinner” in February 2024, in the same update as “bed rotting.”

The criticism

Not everyone found it harmless. Dietitians quoted by Fox News warned that some girl dinner videos glamorized meals that weren’t really meals, and an eating-disorder specialist told USA Today the trend could feed social comparison and stereotypes about how much women should eat. Maher responded that viewers only see one part of a person’s day.

Related terms

• Girl math: joking logic for justifying purchases.
• Goblin mode: unapologetically lazy and messy.
• Bed rotting: spending the day in bed on purpose.
• Soft life: a calm, low-stress way of living.

See more terms like this in our TikTok slang guide.