Who Are The Betches? Say Hello To A New Social Phenomenon

What do you get when you take the Queen Bee from Mean Girls, and inject a dose of Hannah from Girls’ narcissism and sardonic humour? A betch, duh.

Betch
Betch
(Image credit: Rex Features)

What do you get when you take the Queen Bee from Mean Girls, and inject a dose of Hannah from Girls’ narcissism and sardonic humour? A betch, duh.

What is a betch? A betch, according to the New York Times, is a young woman who is 'materialistic, sustains herself on iced coffee and Diet Coke, and believes the three cardinal rules in life are “don’t be easy”, “don’t be poor” and don’t be ugly”'. Find her in clubs, sororities and gyms across the States, and watch her rule, with a Starbucks in one hand and an iPhone in the other.

Betches are mostly rich sorority girls who hate working, love wearing make-up and survive on sushi. They get blind drunk, dominate their social scenes and can 'happily bitch about anything and everything’. Frankly, they sound terrifying.

Where have the betches come from? Betches are the invention of three young women – Jordana Abraham, 23, and Samantha Fishbein and Aleen Kuperman, both 24 – who, through their website, Betches Love This, have introduced us to a whole new social phenomenon. Such is the popularity of their particular brand of sass, that their website has attracted over 140,000 Twitter followers and receives four million unique visitors a month. The site, they say, is 'satire'. But its thousands of young female fans clearly recognise some truth in what they read on The Betch List, a handy guide to the betch mentality. And now they’ve even penned a book – Nice Is Just A Place In France: How To Win At Basically Everything – which has made it onto the New York Times bestseller list. Not to mention their line of clothing and accessories, including t-shirts bedazzled with the words 'bat s**t crazy betch'.

Who do betches like? The site’s Betches Of The Week section includes everyone from Michelle Obama – admired for her 'skinny arms' – to the Queen and Elle Woods from Legally Blonde, who is dubbed the 'power career betch' to look up to. Elle is favoured because 'she stands up for what she believes in' and we guess we can see the betches’ logic on that one. They also 'love British people, British s**t, and basically all things British'. So even if we don’t want to join their gang, at least we don’t have to fear the Betches’ wrath.

Do betches have any redeemable qualities? There might be something in their I-don’t-give-a-s**t attitude that has a whiff of girl power about it. After all, a betch’s main characteristic is a total disregard for other people’s opinions. They admire Charlie Sheen because they’re 'extremely impressed by his ability to say whatever the f*** he wants and not care what anyone thinks’. And when it comes to men, you can bet a betch would never let someone walk all over her. 'A betch doesn’t just use her hotness to get laid, she uses it to manipulate the bros who think they’re in charge’, apparently. Kudos to anyone who likes to put a player in his place, we say.