What is “Hot Girl Summer”?

Well ladies and gentlemen, it is the time we have all been waiting for. Hot Girl Summer is here. 

A little over a year ago, in the confinements of our quarantine, we were pondering each and every day how to stay sane, out of debt, and healthy; waiting for the world to reopen and go back to the way it was. 

Students’ graduations were taken from them, summer and vacations were cancelled and (if you were like me) you got to experience the life of living with your parents again, for the first time since high school.

And although we are still very much in a pandemic and should still be taking all the necessary precautions, it does not mean that we can’t celebrate after all we have gone through in the past year. And just in time for warm weather and bikini season, we are going to make this year ours….and EVERYONE is invited.

I was driving home on a Friday night after work- windows down, hair in the air and not a care in the world. Nothing could get to me, not even the 5:30 traffic I was stuck in for an hour and a half. Although it was such a minuscule part of my day, just a drive home, it was the most peaceful I have been in eight months.

For years I have been a follower, aka a #DaddyGang member of the Call Her Daddy podcast hosted by Alexander Cooper. On this ride home I decided to listen to the latest episode, the season premiere the gang had been waiting for. 

And in my essential bliss, stuck in traffic, Cooper started talking about a topic that we all know too well thanks to Instagram and TikTok. The Hot Girl Summer season is upon us.

A trend for this summer is the art of just not giving a F*%$. All over my Instagram feed and For You page have been women, men and individuals of all genders, ethnicities and sizes inspiring people to participate in what we can only hope will be the best summer yet. 

However, the one thing that stood out to me the most in the episode is really asking myself, what does it mean to have a Hot Girl Summer? Because the first thing that I think of is living in a bikini, at the beach, and having sex with anyone and everyone. But this is simply just not true. 

Referring back to the idol and icon herself that trademarked this saying, Meg the Stallion said in an interview with 102.7 KIIS FM, “I was introducing everyone to what was going on, it was summertime and I was telling everybody ‘look we about to turn up. We are not about to care; we are doing us. Eff all the opinions we are having a Hot Girl Summer.’” 

Hot Girl Summer is not specific to one thing, one gender, one person; it is a mindset of living your best life and understanding that we went through some dark and sad days last year, we need to appreciate the ones that are bright and sunny. 

Now, are we going to let down our girl Meg by not participating? No, because that is the point of Hot Girl Summer, you can do whatever the hell you want. There is no such thing as participating in any particular way. 

If you want to stay at home and kick your feet up and watch a movie- that is Hot Girl Summer; do you want to explore your relationship with your boyfriend/girlfriend- that is Hot Girl Summer; do you want to have a sex escapade and sleep with everyone in town- that is Hot Girl Summer. ALL of these things are Hot Girl shit, and no one can discriminate against each other's Hot Girl journey. 

That is what I was thinking about on my drive home, listening to the testaments by all of the daddy gang members that Cooper collected for that episode that talked about what Hot Girl Summer meant to them. All of them spill love for one another, lifting each other up to wear that bikini, to shoot your shot with that guy at the bar, or to leave a toxic situation if it is not directly benefiting you and your life. 

I know for me, being a plus size woman, I was scared of Hot Girl Summer for some reason. When it first caught on, I felt like it was used as a motivation to work out and get in shape for the summer (like everyone says every year). Back in December/January, people always say that it is the time to work out so that we could have a Hot Girl Summer - like we were unable to.

This wave of Hot Girl Summer stems off of purely lifting each other up and instilling a confidence in others to show off imperfections, to show off their identity, to show off scars, mental illness struggles, cellulite, everything that makes you the person you are. 

And don’t think the Hot Girl Journey stops in August, after a year of being confined to our bedrooms it is time to appreciate that going outside and taking care of yourself, and the world around us, is so much more important than we thought. This Hot Girl mentality is going on for the rest of the year, even when Hot Girl Winter comes around.

I felt so inspired after reading into what Hot Girl Summer meant and figuring out what it meant to me so, I turned to our Bitter Blush team. I wanted them to feel just as inspired as I was, and this is what they had to say when I asked them what their Hot Girl Summer looked like and what the phrase meant to them. 

Carla Wilson, one of our newest staff writers explored the idea of a Hot Girl Summer, especially after the anxiety-driven year of 2020’s events: 

“Last year, everything felt so unsure and so unsafe,” she said. I was scared that Trump would get a second term. I was stuck in my house watching the news. I sat on my couch as the number of COVID-19 related deaths rose every day. I also want to improve my confidence in myself and learn how to handle my anxiety about everything returning back to ‘normal.’  And a big misconception I have seen online is that you have to be skinny to be able to have a Hot Girl Summer. You can be any size and have a Hot Girl Summer. Hot Girl Summer is about improving your confidence and working hard to achieve your goals while having fun!”

One of our amazing Editorial Managers explained her own struggles with the understanding of the phrase “Hot Girl Summer” and how she plans to spend it:

“Hot Girl Summer--for the girl that doesn't understand the concept of ‘hot.’ Okay, that might be a stretch...I understand someone being ‘hot’ as a conceptual, abstract idea, but as someone who is on one extreme of the asexual spectrum, it took me a moment to come to terms with what ‘Hot Girl Summer’ meant to me (and I will admit that for about two days in 2020, I genuinely thought ‘Hot Girl Summer’ was referring to the temperature). ‘Hot Girl Summer means living your absolute best life, and for me that’s going to be sipping drinks with friends that I haven't seen in a year, gardening with my family, spending weekends building Legos with my little cousin who happens to be my favorite person on the planet, and sitting outside to write papers for school because i might as well take advantage of the hot weather!”

Bee Barbera, our interview manager, expressed that they are making the most of their Hot Girl Summer by embracing who they are, but also what they stand for:

            “So, I’m non-binary but I fucking love Hot Girl Summer. To me, it isn’t about gender, it’s about embracing and celebrating me in my entirety--the feminine, the masculine, the slutty, the brainy, etc. I can shake my ass AND fight systems of oppressions.”

And last but not least, our CEO, our BB queen, Addis Fouche-Channer had some of her own thoughts on what Hot Girl Summer meant to her:

            “I think the idea of Hot Girl Summer is great and can be equated to being reckless and/or careless, in terms of sleeping around or not being mindful of boundaries. To me, Hot Girl Summer means being true to oneself, enjoying the time you spend with those in your life, and truly not giving a fuck what people think about you.”

Four different people, with four different stories and four different plans for Hot Girl Summer, but all surrounding one theme: that we are putting ourselves first for the first time in some of our lives and not letting anyone’s opinions get in our way. 

So, there I was, sitting in my car, finally through the thick of it, realizing that this calm peacefulness was what Hot Girl Summer should feel like. I was feeling confident, I was listening to music and having a good ass time by myself, just driving home from work. 

For me, I realized at that moment that my Hot Girl Summer was going to focus and explore my first serious relationship with my boyfriend and try to stop taking things too seriously--that is what I vowed to myself. You don’t need to be single or even sexually active to have a hot girl summer­–you make of it what you want. 

So, whether you are having a Hot Girl Summer, a Hot Boy Summer, a Hot Non-Binary Summer, a Hot Trans Summer, a Hot Fat Girl Summer, or any Hot ______ Summer (insert anything), Hot Girl Summer is calling your name to be effortlessly you and everything that you are and everything that you want to succeed. Take this as your official commencement to Hot Girl Summer! 

Welcome my friends. Now get out there (or don’t) and own YOUR hot girl shit.

102.7KIISFM. (2020, July 30). Megan Thee Stallion Explains Hot Girls Summer + Talks 'Suga' & More [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suAu1q5rpKA