We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. The song has become an essential part of my personal quarantine soundtrack, and I think it should be part of yours, too. Quickly brought to life online by black women and then adopted by everyone else on Twitter and beyond, hot girl summer was built on a bedrock of breezy confidence. I am a lot of things.
Thank you!
Follow Vox online:
The phrase comes from year-old Houston, Texas, rapper Megan Thee Stallion , whose alter ego is "Hot Girl Meg" — a fun-loving, college, partier persona. Still, the phrase "hot girl summer" doesn't actually appear in one of Megan's songs, for what it's worth. Since then, people on the Internet are using the phrase "hot girl summer" to describe their ideal summer, so much so that it's being referred to as a meme , with brands getting in on it, too. But as with anything, when brands start co-opting the internet adores, it becomes indelibly cringe-inducing — and ruins hot girl summer for the rest of us. For Black women in particular, the co-opting feels particularly gross; "hot girl summer" was created by a Black woman rapper and her fan-base which is made up of a lot of Black women. When brands use the term without understanding it fully, it feels like pandering, and erases the freedom and positivity that hot girl summer is supposed to represent. Which is why I have to ask: can't we just leave hot girl summer alone? Hot girl summer is also inclusive by nature.
Who is Megan thee Stallion?
At its core, the trendy slogan—currently being used in Instagram captions everywhere—is simply a lifestyle that encourages everyone to be their best selves in all walks of life Essentially, "Hot Girl Summer" is a call to action to be sex-positive, body-positive, and you-positive—and to live out loud. Still confused?
We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. This is a fact, regardless of whether you know why or where it came from. It just is: Learn it, know it, live it, love it. Just lean into it, like falling asleep on the beach after two spiked seltzers. Here are answers to seven additional questions you might have, including whether you yourself can have a hot girl summer. Spoiler: You can! To understand hot girl summer, one must first understand the original Hot Girl. But it was her fans who brought hot girl summer to life.
