Such an Aries
Happy birthday, Valley Girl
Dear Readers,
A year ago today, I published Valley Girl’s very first post to warm reception and highly-engaged readers. Since the spring of 2025, we’ve gone many places together, from the original Indigenous valley girl1 to the Japanese incarceration camps to valley girl speech patterns to the Bravo TV show, The Valley. Every week, I’m tremendously thankful to have found such a dedicated readership that is willing to explore the Valley Girl2 gender trope with me—and across concepts that are often presented as unrelated. You’re willingness to analyze this enduring gender stereotype, regardless of where you’re reading from, bodes well for rethinking what you think you know about gender and the mythologies that often propel these beliefs.
A friend recently shared with me (Hi Unita!), that she could immediately tell Valley Girl was an Aries from all the hot pink within her text. After reviewing her first year of publication, I can see that. Aries women are known for being confident, bold, independent, and “trailblazers” in their lives, careers, and relationships, and I can see a lot of those traits within the tonality and subjects of these essays. I also don’t find it a coincidence that my late grandmother—and the first valley girl in my family—was an Aries. When she moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s with my late grandfather, she was setting out on a life that was completely different from that of her entire family. Many of the women documented in these essays set out on terrains, lives, and battles that often distinguished them from their origins, even when they were in defense of their origins. Spiritually, perhaps, the valley girl is always an Aries.
To mark Valley Girl’s first year on the internet, I officially put up the paywall on yesterday’s piece: an analysis of one of Eve Babitz’s unpublished short stories that I found in her papers at the Huntington Library3 here in California. More paywalled pieces are coming that reflect not just my own analysis but, also, my effort to procure them: going through archives, original reporting, and spending time with personal papers. Behind the paywall, I’ll also be sharing more personal writing about my experiences as a valley girl.
As I wrote last month, I’m also introducing Valley Girl Office Hours for paid subscribers: an informal weekly video meeting with me to discuss that week’s piece. If you’ve been eager to ask me any questions about how I write these essays, my research, or what this work has prompted in your own reading and contemplating, this office hours is for you. Loosely held opinions are welcome.
Our first Valley Girl Office Hours is today at 12-1pm PT. I hope I see you there.
Love, Koa
Lowercase “valley girl” to indicate a female-identified or pangender individual who happens to be from or inhabits the San Fernando Valley.
Uppercase “Valley Girl” to indicate the manufactured caricature.
In 2022, The Huntington awarded me a fellowship to conduct research for this project.