I'm really pleased so many people enjoy my analysis, as I've loved the series for a long time, but let's be clear. I don't have authorial authority or anything here. I'm just a fan writing out my thoughts on it. Okay? Okay.

I'm sure if BKV came across my ramblings, he'd probably see me as a crazy fan connecting yarn threads on one of those pin-boards or something. Although in turn, my biggest fear for the Amazon Series is that it will cut out a lot of the nuance and hyper-simplify characters to the most shallow conceptions of them.

Anyway.

Social Anxiety is definitely a prominent aspect of Erin's personality. However, I think there are deeper elements to her personality than that. Social Anxiety to Erin is, in my opinion, as being a "tough punk" is to Mac. It's connected to a deeper identity.

I said it before, but I'll go a bit further into it than I already did.

KJ and Erin represent similar anxieties.

Tiff and Mac represent similar anxieties.

Both sets have an element of duality to them, where they are very similar, but very different.

This is going to cause me to diverge a bit from Erin as a character, but honestly I did the same thing with KJ. It's just easier to analyze the characters beyond a surface level in contrast with each other, I think.

So. Let's start with what you were interested in. Erin. I will argue that Erin and KJ's anxiety is both firmly connected to social expectations and social perception of their senses of self. Their anxiety comes from how they interact with others, and what others think of them.

KJ is an extroverted thrust. She seems to be trying to act in various ways that will make her fit in.

Erin is an introverted thrust. She hides from the outside world. I mean. Adult Erin's advice to her was not to be afraid to reach out to other people. While there's a "Pop Culture Reference" element to Erin that is more prominent with her than it is with the other girls (They all do it a bit. It comes with the "Nostalgia Media" territory, though I'll argue to the death that Paper Girls is a work of Anti-Nostalgia. I won't waste too much time laboring this point, but can I draw attention to the fact that the antagonists are afraid of change and want to maintain stasis? In a story about growing up/the end of childhood. Mm? Yes?)

So absolutely. I think it would be easy to see Erin as a bookish girl, hiding in novels. Of course, Mac's dream is even more on the nose about that. Her Dream Monsters openly taunt her as such. Her personality is such that she just responds by wanting to fight them off.

I think an aspect to Erin's character that isn't considered all that often, but deserves to be, is her family.

Continuing with the thread of Erin and KJ being similar sides to the same coin, yeah?

I get the impression that Erin's family wants very much to fit in, so there might be a lot of expectations on Erin to be "proper." Consider the first pages of the book. Her dream sequence. When she swears, the Dream-Creatures become enraged, only for Erin to proclaim it's a dream, so she can swear there if she wants to without getting in trouble. There's also the way she responds to Mac in the first pages, the general way she views smoking, etc.

I get a very strong "wants to be proper" vibe to her. Where KJ seems very much to be proper, she wants to be cool; like her low-key hero Mac.

There's also the chocolate bars. Erin's family gives out full sized chocolate bars on Halloween. Erin says it's because her mom wants the neighbors to like them, and worries that the neighbors don't like them. TV Tropes suggests that would be racism, last I checked. That's not wrong.

However, both with Erin and KJ and the stuff moving around their characters, I think they represent a strong social anxiety around fitting in.

Hm. The more I think about it, the more I think the outward thrust to be accepted, and the inward fear of not being accepted, comes across in both of them.

Mac and Tiff, to contrast, I think the central theme with them is family difficulties. Mac's father is an alcoholic, I'm all but positive her birth mother is dead (Mac views her dad's house as "Her house", the man who lives there refers to the family "Moving away after their daughter passed." I don't get the impression that the story is just taking place on Dad's weekend. I highly doubt an alcoholic with possible criminal ties would get anything close to custody. So. Yeah. I assume dead.) She clearly has a complicated relationship with her Step-Mother. She has a sort of hero-worship for her brother who doesn't seem to be above light-sibling bullying.

Tiff, contrarily, is fully adopted, has very high expectations from her adoptive parents, and it's not a perfect relationship. We have that whole scene with the background falling apart like a jigsaw puzzle and looking more and more like a video game, while Tiff's adoptive parents fight in the background.

Anyway. Erin.

Social Anxiety is definitely a part of her character. She's afraid of reaching out to others. That's like.... That's for her what being a tough punk is for Mac. It's the most visible part of her character.

What really fascinates me about her is her family, the struggles they face, and the expectations being placed upon her.

It's not a perfect analysis, but I hope you enjoy it.

And again, this is just my opinions and reading of it.