The Hot Girl Walk is more than just a TikTok trend — it’s turned into a worldwide confidence movement. The concept? For those who don’t know, it’s simple: you take an hour-long walk and think about how hot you are.
Who Created the Hot Girl Walk?
The Hot Girl Walk is credited to TikToker Mia Lind, also known as @exactlyliketheothergirls. Lind calls herself the “CEO of the Hot Girl Walk.”
In 2020, when the world went into lockdown, Lind decided to start taking daily walks to improve her mental health. In early 2021, she started posting about the Hot Girl Walk. The trend quickly resonated with millions of users on TikTok as gyms shut down and people were spending more time outside in an effort to boost their mood.
Today, Lind has over 100,000 followers on TikTok, the #hotgirlwalk hashtag has more than 500 million views, and the trend is officially a confidence movement that’s been covered by some of the biggest media outlets in the world, including The New York Times.
What Is the Hot Girl Walk?
Lind describes the Hot Girl Walk in her TikTok videos as a four-mile mindfulness walk where you’re only allowed to think about three things: 1) things you’re grateful for, 2) how hot you are and 3) things you want to achieve.
It’s meant to be done everyday and outdoors, but other than that, the Hot Girl Walk is about working on your confidence and nurturing your mental and emotional health. After Lind came up with the term in late 2020, people quickly adopted the trend and shared their own Hot Girl Walks across social media platforms.
In one of her TikTok videos, Lind said she created the Hot Girl Walk “not to lose weight, but to set goals and increase my confidence.” Lind said the initial inspiration for the walk came from rapper Megan Thee Stallion, who inspired a meme called “Hot Girl Summer” in 2019.
What Does ‘Hot Girl Summer’ Mean?
The sentiment behind Hot Girl Summer is not to fixate on your physical appearance, but rather focus on feeling great about yourself. Essentially, the rapper wants you to do you.
“It’s just basically about women — and men — just being unapologetically them, just having a good-a** 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 b*****,” Megan Thee Stallion said in an interview with Vox.
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Transforming the Meaning of “Hot Girl”
With her music and attitude, the rapper helped shift the definition of what it means to be “hot” in popular culture. At a Megan Thee Stallion concert in London in July 2019, Vice UK asked attendees what they thought it meant to have a Hot Girl Summer. Here is what they said:
“It’s about living my best life, feeling like a bad man and doing what I have to do. Being you and being independent is all it’s about. Enjoying yourself and not caring is the key,” Keliane told Vice UK.
Others said it is about being you, unapologetically. “It’s the outfit and especially the attitude. You can look like trash but if you have a hot girl summer attitude, you’re good,” Deborah told Vice UK.
The phrasing is powerful, as it’s all about how you feel as opposed to how you look. As Rebecca Jennings wrote for Vox : “So, yes, hot girl summer can sort of mean whatever you want it to mean, but there are some uniting factors: Hot girl summer, as its name suggests, is a feminine-coded term enjoyed largely by women, and like many cultural trends, it originated with black women. There’s a third-wave feminist tilt, in the sense that women having sex and making money without shame — basically, activities men have been allowed to do forever — can be considered feminist acts.”
What’s the True Meaning Behind a Hot Girl Walk?
A Hot Girl Walk is in line with the movement of loving yourself, reclaiming what “hot” means and focusing on your mood over your weight. “The biggest transformations are the ones that start internally,” Lind said about the walk.
That’s something we can get behind. Industry experts are on board, too. Alessandra Cardin, a holistic health coach, told toast why she loves Hot Girl Walks: “As you’re walking, you’re getting fresh air and endorphins, but it’s also the perfect time to repeat affirmations and visualize becoming your most healthy, confident self.”
The Hot Girl Walk Is a Confidence Movement That’s Here to Stay
A Hot Girl Walk no longer a trend — it’s a worldwide confidence movement thanks to its focus on what’s inside over what’s on the outside — and it’s inclusive, too. The term allows for both men and women to be ‘hot’ at any given time of the day.
Two years later, it doesn’t look like the Hot Girl Walk will slow down anytime soon. While we may each have our own version of the walk, the one thing we all have in common is that we feel pretty damn good after it.
Lead image credit: Photo by Marco/Adobe Stock
