A Reflection on Hot Girl Summer 2023
I just found out who Alix Earle is...an IT Girl vs. me, a Growing Girl
This post started as a review of Call Her Daddy’s Season 4 Premiere featuring Alix Earle, but as the morning has progressed, it has morphed into a reflection on the powerful hot girls who have taken over popular culture this summer.
“Hot Girls of the Summer” doesn’t give these women enough credit. These are IT Girls. They are the influential artists, influencers, and cultural icons that have carried culture and the media industry on their backs this summer. Women that come top of my mind include Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Olivia Rodrigo, Father Alex Cooper, Alix Earle, Madeline Argy, and newest US Open champion Coco Gauff.
I’m sure there are many others that dominate other areas of the internet that I am unfamiliar with, but these are the girlies I’ve been seeing the most as a pretty well-versed content consumer. All of these females have either 1. produced record-breaking music and performances this summer (Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Olivia Rodrigo), 2. Created highly watched and listened-to TikTok/Instagram and Podcast content (Alex Cooper, Alix Earle, Madeline Argy - the latter two have also signed on to Cooper’s new media brand Unwell and both have podcasts premiering soon), 3. Won major sports tournaments and/or brought new awareness and support to women’s sports (Coco Gauff, Spain’s National Women’s Football Team, & US Women’s National Soccer Team).
Watching the rise of female internet personalities around my age is fascinating. Part of my fascination stems from the fact that I am in my self-proclaimed “flop era” and have been since graduating college. You may be thinking, Arden, no! You’re doing great, sweetie. But, seriously, if the past 2 years haven’t been my flop era I’m terrified as to what the real flop era will look like so here’s to hoping the slay era is in my near future.
The video compilations of aesthetic clips from a girl’s dream life they manifested set to the latest popular song has lead me to deleting Instagram and TikTok a few times. Watching them sometimes makes me feel like I am missing out on my 20s because I am not really partying, succeeding in a job, spending money from said job, traveling, glowing up physically, and doing all those other things hot 20-somethings seem to be doing these days.
The definition of the IT girl
She comes in various fonts but is typically a self-motivated female creator/performer who uses their experiences to create relatable content that either launches them into internet fame or supports their career endeavors in a way that makes them more relatable and therefore a household name. It also helps if they are stereotypically pretty and thin. They also teeter on the tightrope of social activism, balancing between calling out injustices and remaining passive enough to the machine so that they don’t upset anyone.
These girls go out, they have money, they have unique, yet trendy clothes, they travel around the world, they stay fit, and they keep getting hotter.
The non-famous version of an IT Girl is a Hot Girl, who does all of the above except they aren’t necessarily famous in pop culture or in specific internet communities. Sometimes they are, but I know a lot of girls from college that I would consider Hot Girls. They’ve got it all together and they just keep getting better. They are hustling to make their dreams a reality. They have the confidence to dress however they want. They adapt to adulthood with little issue. Seemingly…
There’s another type of girl who sometimes blows up within internet culture too. She’s the girl who’s open about her mental health and life struggles online and finds an audience who deeply relates and therefore gives her a following that could rocket her to Hot Girl status.
She’s a Growing Girl, and there are levels to her too.
The definition of a Growing Girl
She may or may not have ever experienced life as Hot Girl. If she has, she has been disillusioned or possibly traumatized to the point where she has stepped back into a protective cocoon where she prioritizes a slower lifestyle in order to heal from said disillusionment and/or trauma. She does not always feel comfortable sharing her life on social media, possibly because she feels inadequate. She may not have social media at all. And if she does have a platform, it’s focused on the “real” side of girlhood. She actively works to maintain her mental health. She is struggling to adjust to the expectations of adulthood and often feels like she is not doing it correctly. She does not have the money to live the lifestyle she sees others living online. After she says her opinion, she often thinks she’s being “too much.” She bed rots.
I consider myself a Growing Girl. To use myself as an example, in contrast to the Hot Girl Summer many have had, I’ve spent the summer job hunting, entering my 3rd period of unemployment post-graduating college, staying at home, stressing about money and surviving in a capitalist society, questioning my worth, getting scammed, somewhat successfully cutting back on my weed usage, constantly criticizing my levels of productivity re: job search and writing, and trying to keep myself from dipping into a depressive episode. It’s been glamorous.
I could create other categories for the types of 20-something girls, but for the most part, I think the Hot Girl and the Growing Girl are the two ends of the girlhood spectrum.
As a Growing Girl watching the Hot Girls and the It Girls pop off this summer, sometimes I get sad. Will I have the chance to live my Hot Girl dreams? Will I ever be a Hot Girl again? Am I what is keeping me from being a Hot Girl? What is the difference between a Hot Girl and a Growing Girl? Is it mental illness? Is it luck? Is the difference that I don’t consider myself a Hot Girl and that’s why I am not one? I have so many questions.
I am truly happy that the IT Girls and the Hot Girls are having their moment this summer. I hope it continues because the content is gold. Despite the frustrations and comparisons that arise as a 20-something female watching other females slay, one cannot deny that girls really do do it best. I’ve had moments where I wish I wasn’t a girl. It’s hard. But, I’d rather be proud of my gender and their accomplishments.
This piece is coming to a close so I’m going to wrap up with a few notable female celebrities who I would categorize as Growing Girls. I don’t have personal knowledge about them that leads me to categorize them in this way, it’s just a vibe I get.
Celebrity Growing Girls (aka the Quiet Queens? I can’t think of. abetter name at this point): Greta Gerwig, Caroline Polachek, Ayo Adebiri, Lana del Ray, Sophie Turner, Olivia Rodrigo.
Maybe Growing Girls are just quieter Hot Girls…
I’m done now. Let me know what you think.