‘Hot Girl Summer’: The song that made Megan Thee Stallion a modern icon
Before there was “brat summer,” there was the “hot girl summer” of 2019. Declared by Megan Thee Stallion, and provided with an official anthem by herself, Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign, the season rather captured something of the zeitgeist at the time. Female body positivity and self-affirmation were decidedly in vogue, and by making herself core to the phrase that best captured these ideas, Megan made herself into more than just a rapper. She became the face of a cultural phenomenon.
As for what “hot girl summer” actually was, Megan herself had some thoughts. Speaking to the Root during the June of that summer, which was still a couple of months before she released the actual song, she explained, “It’s just basically about women—and men—just being unapologetically them, just having a good-ass time, hyping up your friends, doing you, not giving a damn about what nobody got to say about it. You definitely have to be a person that can be the life of the party, and, y’know, just a bad bitch.”
Megan, as the idea’s originator, is undoubtedly the authority on the matter, but her fans also have their own interpretations of what it all meant. In July that summer, Megan was performing at Wireless Festival in London, so Vice UK decided to show up and ask some of the people in attendance to share their ideas.
“A hot girl summer is about you being you, innit!” enthused one woman called Tracy. “You doing your thing and not giving a fuck about what anyone thinks. It’s about trying new things and taking on a new persona that you wouldn’t usually consider. Honestly, it’s just about being your inner bad bih.”
“It’s your attitude, it’s your aura, the energy you give off,” said someone called Vanessa Maria. “A hot girl summer is made from living your life and enjoying it. It’s about us being surrounded by the strong Black women in my life. Black women are a circle of winners so get with the winning team baby!”
In a similar vein, albeit with a bit more of a relaxed attitude towards the subject, a fan called Lee said, “It’s about being stress-free and happy about everything. Having fun and enjoying the summer while it lasts. A hot girl summer means actually being happy, having good friends and loving yourself.”
In general, there is clearly a thread that runs through people’s interpretations of hot girl summer that values confidence, fun and self-expression. And, regardless of the specifics and subtleties of each individual’s idea about it, the phrase itself was a sticky one that suited social media remarkably well. It can be found on all the different platforms.
It didn’t take very long for plenty of corporations to try and get in on the act, too, co-opting the phrase to promote whatever they were selling. That probably indicates the limits of “hot girl summer” as a politically radical idea, but it does show quite how into it people were—and, at the center of it all, was Megan Thee Stallion herself. She tapped into an energy that was swirling around the ether at the time, and, in doing so, she transformed herself into a literal icon. Not many figures can claim to have ever done the same.