There’s a trend that’s rippling through social media (and IRL) that I’m only vaguely aware of since writing this post: “hot girl summer.” My immediate friend group isn’t able to explain this phenomenon to me easily, and I’ve chosen to forego an online search, so I’m going to go ahead and extract the following: things with expiration dates give people a sense of peace. In this case, “hot girl summer” sounds like a fad in which people are allowed to act out or play up a more idealized version of ourselves. We’re given the permission to “feel thyself,” but we know it’s only for this summer season. We’ll make up for our sins in the autumn.
A rock band that doesn’t indulge in commercially-supported movements of any kind, indie rockers and sisters-trio, HAIM, have coincidentally released a new single during this “hot girl summer,” called “Summer Girl.” Lead singer Danielle Haim stated in an Instagram post that lyrically, “Summer Girl” started as something she would say to her (then) cancer-stricken boyfriend to attempt to soothe him (“Let me be your summer girl”). Musically, it started as a loop in Garage Band, not-unknowingly echoing Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side.”
And now, we have a music video to accompany the single directed by recent frequent collaborator Paul Thomas Anderson. He captures the girls strutting down the sunny streets of LA (including trips through Canter’s Deli and the New Beverly Cinema). As the sisters walk shoulder-to-shoulder, they strip away infinite layers of tops – thrift store sweaters only reveal more thrift store t-shirts underneath – a never-ending shedding of skin. It’s important to note that they’re also outpacing a meandering saxophone-tooting dude, who they ask in the song to “Walk beside me, not behind me.” At the end of the video, they finally get down to the last article of clothing, strutting even more assertively than at any other point. This moment must be the hot girl summer I’ve heard of.
So, ok. HAIM asked the mopey saxophonist to walk beside them, to join these hot girls of summer. I’ll attempt to do the same. I click on an article titled Hot Girl Summer, Explained. One line from the article explains the movement is “Just as much about posting hot photos as it is living your life with confidence.” So, ok; confidence. That sounds positively empowering, and even more asexual then I previously assumed. So, did I initially give an unfair reading of what I thought “hot girl summer” was? Was I also following from behind, tooting a sad saxophone without fully understanding this of-the-moment, women-borne movement, instead of walking beside them? Buddha said that, just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again. It’s time for all of us – every one of us, a hot girl of the summer – to strip off the layers that hold us back, and to do so every season, without expiration, infinitely.
