Hot Girl Summer: A Contemporary Black Feminist Movement
In summer 2019, Megan Thee Stallion, a popular rapper from Houston, Texas coined the phrase “hot girl summer”. Quickly the phrase became a social media phenomena across Twitter and Instagram as people across the world created tweets, memes, and so much more promoting a “hot girl” lifestyle. Despite the popularity of hot girl summer, the phrase did not escape criticism. Soon a counter movement, known as city boy/hot boy summer, began to gain fervor. Across the internet the battle between hot girls and city boys took place across timelines, Instagram stories, and urban radio platforms. As a social media movement started by a Black woman “hot girl summer” promoted bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and overall joy for Black women. The rise of a counter social media movement centering Black men shows the range of methods used to police Black women. Nevertheless, hot girl summer, and its critics, offer a contemporary case study in Black feminist theory.
Before assessing how hot girl summer was co-opted, we must understand its position as an accessible example of Black feminist theory. Megan Thee Stallion did not advertise hot girl summer as Black feminist movement, but the core tenents align with Black feminist theory. On July 17th 2019 Megan tweeted, “Being a Hot Girl is about being unapologetically YOU, having fun, being confident,living YOUR truth , being the life of the party etc” to clarify the meaning of being a hot girl (Pete 2019). The connection between Megan’s tweets and Black feminist theory is an example of the practice bell hooks calls for in “Theory as Liberatory Practice” (hooks 1991). hooks explains that “personal experience is such fertile ground for the production of liberatory feminist theory” (8). The creation of theory from personal experience allows space for theory to be created outside of the academy. Megan Thee Stallion’s status as rapper does not prevent her from being hailed as a theorist. Her declaration of being “unapologetically you” aligns with existing theory about carefree Black girlhood and countering standards of respectability. Furthermore, studying hot girl summer as Black feminist theory allows for a multi-media approach to understanding Black feminist text.
Hot girl summer is not concerned with standards of respectability. The social media phenomena operated in multiple branches as it flooded the internet as a hashtag and dominated music charts. So as Megan and her fans promoted hot girl summer via social media it also appears as a popular tag in her music as she opens songs with her signature “real hot girl shit”. Fever, her debut album, features multiple examples of songs that center women’s pleasure (2019). Hit songs like “Sex Talk” empower women to take charge of their sexual experiences. The most poignant example of the hot girl summer philosophy in Megan’s music is the single titled “Hot Girl Summer” featuring Nicki Minaj and singer Ty Dolla $ign. Throughout the song Megan gives examples of nonmonogamy, sexual freedom, and bodily autonomy. One example is in her first verse of the song:
Handle me? Who gon’ handle me?
Thinking he’s a player he’s a member on the team
He put in all that work, he wanna be the MVP
I told him “ain’t no taming me, I love my niggas equally”
As Megan raps about the essence of being a hot girl she is explaining nonmonogamy. Despite never using the textbook term, Megan is offering listeners a method of dating multiple partners using the metaphor of a sports team. Megan is saying that hot girls have options that expand beyond monogamy. Moreover, Megan asserts that no one can tame her. This line declares her as an autonomous person who regardless of relationship status will act in her own best interest. Ultimately, Megan outlines that the hot girl lifestyle is not defined by respectability as she promotes nonmonogamy, sexual freedom, and independence.
Black feminist theory also explains the critique surrounding hot girl summer. Despite massive success, hot girl summer faced opposition from people across the internet. Critics commented on Megan Thee Stallion promoting promiscuity and carelessness amongst Black women. These criticisms, however, are steeped in racist and sexist standards of Black womanhood that are rooted in a legacy of slavery. Patricia Hill Collins outlines this history in her text “Controlling Images and Black Women’s Oppression” (Hill Collins 1991). Collins’ theory explains that four controlling images of Black womanhood frame how Black women are continually policed: the Mammy, the Matriarch, the Welfare Mother, and the Jezebel. Each image frames the sexualized nature of Black womanhood as an extension of the political economy of slavery and the forced reproduction of Black women to serve chattel slavery in the United States. Using Collins’ work as a foundation allows us to understand criticisms of hot girl summer as contemporary examples of the Jezebel image, “the sexually aggressive woman”(271).
Overall hot girl summer exemplifies a contemporary movement centering Black women and girls. Megan Thee Stallion’s promotion of a carefree lifestyle allows Black femmes to feel supported amidst a hip hop and rap industry that is founded on misogynoir and hypermasculinity. Ultimately, studying hot girl summer as a contemporary Black feminist movement affords opportunities to examine music and social media as materials in public scholarship.