Valley girl (or Val, Val Gal) is a stereotype depicting a socio-economic and ethnic class of white women characterized by the colloquial California English dialect Valleyspeak and vapid materialism. The term originally referred to an ever increasing swell of semi-affluent and affluent middle-class and upper-middle class girls living in the early 1980s Los Angeles bedroom communities of San Fernando Valley. The Valley's proximity to Hollywood and prevalence of Jewish American women among both the demographic and the Los Angeles media machine helped give the stereotype large exposure to the rest of the world.
In time the traits and behaviors spread across the United States and abroad, metamorphosizing into a caricature of unapologetically spoiled "ditzes" and "airheads" more interested in shopping, personal appearance and social status than intellectual development or personal accomplishment.
Read more about Valley Girl: Sociolect, In Popular Culture
Famous quotes containing the words valley and/or girl:
“In a valley late bees with whining gold
Thread summer to the loose ends of sleep....”
—Allen Tate (18991979)
“I see a girl dragged by the wrists
Across a dazzling field of snow,
And there is nothing in me that resists.
Once it would not be so....”
—Philip Larkin (19221986)