What is a hot girl summer?

Term is about confidence and loving yourself 

Image by: Amna Rafiq
Megan Thee Stallion coined the term ‘hot girl summer.’

As students are leaving one phase of their education, starting new jobs, and coming into a new level of academia, the summer season is a great time for self-improvement, self-love, and presents opportunities to change or stay the same.

The days become longer, the weather gets hotter, so we have more time to be in the sun and, inevitably, we have to buy more clothes. Of course, it’s a season that’s romanticized to the point that an entire social media phenomenon surrounds it.

We all love summer, but we love a “hot girl summer” more.

Megan Thee Stallion coined the term “hot girl summer” in 2019. She became the face of the term, dropping it in one of her mixtapes and creating a whole song that launched the aspiration to have a hot girl summer. The term represents the fun mix between social media terms rising to prominence and the impact of celebrities on language.

Of course, the association of the term with the celebrity has led to some contention. Criticism has been levied at Megan Thee Stallion and her music, labelling her as too provocative because of her style.

In tandem, many have criticized the term “hot girl summer” as limiting and inaccessible because they assume “hot girl” refers to conventional attractiveness. Some believe to be a hot girl, you must be conventionally attractive and have a robust dating life.

That’s not what being a hot girl means, though.

Megan Thee Stallion is a bright and beautiful individual, but she’s not conventional by any means. She’s a tall, muscular Black woman who faces difficulties in life and the media because of her appearance. Still, she calls herself a hot girl because she feels confident in her face and her body and spreads that positivity through her music.

A hot girl summer is just that: not trying to be conventionally attractive or conform to typical ways of acting, but being confident in how you present yourself. Megan Thee Stallion embodies multiple personas and appearances; ‘hot girl’ is just another manifestation of her confidence.

As the school year closes and the summer approaches, the pressures of looking as conventionally attractive as possible, having that bikini body, and living life to the fullest is on all of us. However, just because your hot girl summer is not the same as Megan Thee Stallion’s, doesn’t mean you’re excluded from it.

There’s no need to change the words to “cozy girl summer” or “lazy girl summer.” Rather, to be a hot girl is to fully embody your best self. It means embracing the persona you enjoy putting out to the world the most.

To create your best self, you have to look inward and find what you want to change and what you want to stay the same. Look at your career, your style, your personal relationships, and find what fits in your ideal world. It doesn’t have to be that you conform to the beauty standard. Rather, it’s about maximizing the best things in your life.

“Hot girl summer” has a lot of loaded connotations that might seem exclusive, but the term “hot” was never strictly defined. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and no one’s eye matters more than your own. 

Tags

Girl Boss, Hot Girl Summer, Megan Thee Stallion

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