The Asian Baby Girl Starter Pack meme collage showing stereotypical ABG style attributes with labels.

ABG

2009slang / aesthetic archetypeclassic

Published October 18, 2026

ABG, short for Asian Baby Girl or Asian Baby Gangster, names a slang term and fashion archetype tied to Asian American women known for bleached hair, tattoos, Adidas sets and boba tea1. Growing out of 1990s New York Chinatown gang subcultures, the look was reshaped online by 2010s YouTube tutorials and later went viral on TikTok through the 2020 ABG Challenge4.

fashion aesthetic memes stereotype memes race and identity memes slang memes challenge memes

Overview

Online, ABG mostly appears as a visual archetype in starter pack memes and makeup tutorials, not as a single joke format5. A typical post lays out the markers: bleached hair with dark roots, winged eyeliner, lash extensions, hoop earrings, body piercings, Adidas three-stripe sets, a boba cup and a boyfriend in a modified Honda or BMW3. The humor often leans affectionate, with Asian American creators cataloguing or exaggerating the look from inside the community.

The acronym gets deployed like 'valley girl,' labeling a type instead of a specific person5. On TikTok, the ABG Challenge turned the aesthetic into a before-and-after format in which users film themselves transforming into the look with liner, lashes and tinted contacts4. Posts range from straight tutorials to joke edits that match the styling to a soft or trap backing track.

Origin & Background

Platform
Urban Dictionary (first online mention) / YouTube and TikTok (viral spread)
Date
2009

The 'Asian Baby Gangster' label traces back to Asian American women in 1990s New York City Chinatown, who adopted thinned brows, lightened hair and tattoos as a counter to stereotypes of the quiet, submissive Asian woman1. Writer Mai Train documented this history for i-D in October 2020, describing the aesthetic as a reaction to how Chinatown women were perceived1.

Online, the first known mention of 'ABG' surfaced on February 7th, 2009, in an Urban Dictionary entry by user Lolzercoptorzallday that laid out the acronym for a wider audience7. The 2010s diaspora internet picked up both the slang and the look, and the term moved from gang shorthand to a fashion label used across Asian American social media5.

How It Spread

On October 24th, 2014, YouTuber Eau de Robin posted a makeup walkthrough called 'How to Look Like an Asian Baby Girl » ABG Tutorial,' which gathered more than 66,000 views across the following decade2. Months later, on May 7th, 2015, the Fung Brothers released '18 TYPES OF ASIAN GIRLS,' opening with the ABG archetype and cataloguing navel piercings, push-up bras, import modeling and vape shop scenes; the clip surpassed 4.8 million views3.

TikTok reset the aesthetic in mid-2020 through the ABG Challenge, with creator @janellemyh's makeup tutorial on June 25th, 2020, reaching more than 2 million plays and 260,000 likes4. Users filmed themselves styling thinned brows, nose rings and bleach-blonde ends to match the archetype, and the challenge hashtag collected thousands of imitators.

Mainstream crossover came on September 29th, 2023, when Jungkook of BTS and American rapper Jack Harlow placed the line 'All my ABGs get cute for me' in their single '3D,' bringing the slang into K-pop radio play6.

Timeline

2009-02-07

User Lolzercoptorzallday posts the first known online definition of 'ABG' to Urban Dictionary[7].

2014-10-24

YouTuber Eau de Robin uploads 'How to Look Like an Asian Baby Girl » ABG Tutorial,' an early walkthrough of the look[2].

2015-05-07

The Fung Brothers release '18 TYPES OF ASIAN GIRLS,' opening with the ABG archetype and spreading it to a 4.8M-view audience[3].

2020-06-25

@janellemyh's ABG makeup tutorial on TikTok reaches 2M+ plays and helps spark the ABG Challenge[4].

2020-10

I-D publishes Mai Train's history of the ABG aesthetic, tying it back to 1990s Chinatown women[1].

2023-09-29

Jungkook and Jack Harlow release '3D,' with the lyric 'All my ABGs get cute for me'[6].

How to Use This Meme

Starter pack posts stack the aesthetic's markers (bleached hair with dark roots, winged liner, lash extensions, Adidas slides, a nose hoop and a boba cup) alongside lifestyle cues like Thai iced tea runs and Honda meet-ups5. For video versions, creators commonly film a plain-face 'before' and a styled 'after,' often set to a trap or phonk track in line with the ABG Challenge format4.

Frequently Asked Questions