Celia Rivenbark: You can thank Mia and TikTok for the 'hot girl walk'
Leave it to TikTok to make something as ordinary as taking a walk around the neighborhood sound almost edgy. The “hot girl walk” is officially a TikTok craze. It’s a dubious honor. Last year, hordes of young folks shocked their parents and orthodontists with another TikTok craze: filing their teeth to look like vampires. Turns out they just looked like IDIOTS.
TikTok isn’t always weird and harmful to your enamel. Much of the time it’s just derivative and unfunny. Which is how less evolved types might describe this column so, yeah, there’s that.
The whole freezing honey in empty water bottles and then posting videos showing you drinking it at the squishy stage? Just stop. Climbing pyramids of carelessly stacked milk crates? Wake me up for the inevitable compound fracture. Now THAT’s interesting.
The “hot girl walk” was recently detailed in, of all things, Parade magazine, which may have just officially ended the trend’s hotness. It’s off brand to read about hotness between ads for big-button cell phones, limited-edition pennies worth, uhhh, a penny, and vinegar “cures” for arthritis, am I right?
But let’s not hate on Parade, even though it’s admittedly one of my favorite things to do, and let’s turn our attention to Mia Lind, the perky 22-year-old who “invented” walking while hot. Mia is adorably earnest as she explains the three rules of hot girl walk. And, no, they aren’t “You do not talk about hot girl walk.”
Mia explains a hot girl walk is different from a regular walk because you are only allowed to think about three things: what you’re grateful for (nice), goals you’d like to achieve (motivating) and how hot you are (wait; what?).
This is all well and good if you look like Mia Lind but for the rest of us, that last one could devolve into “I’m hot! This is a hot girl walk and I’m really hot! Nope. My bad. Just under-boob sweat…” And from there, self-loathing and questioning taking advice from anyone who has never experienced the heartbreak of thigh chafing.
Lind herself completes a four-mile hot girl walk most days. Whoa. I can’t drive that far without getting tired. So, yeah. Ima change that to, say, one mile, because that’s one of my personal goals!
The premise that you can only think about three things is completely unrealistic. Here’s how that would work for me…
OK, powerful hot girl jammin’ and empowering tunes? Check! Peppy new really old hot girl floral skort from Costco? Check! Willingness to embrace my long dormant or possibly never existed hot-girl attitude? Mmmmkay.
And we’re off! I’m going to think about all the things I’m grateful for. Wait! Got one! I’m grateful for the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial because, well, have you SEEN it? I want to pay attention to what they’re saying but I’m fixated on that weird Medusa coil she’s got winding around her skull like it’s a living, breathing thing. Braided hair don’t care, amiright, Amber?
OK, next up: Achieving goals.
Well, that’s easy. I want someone to look at me the way Johnny Depp’s lady lawyer looks at him. It’s mutual, too. He looks at Camille Vasquez the same way I look at a properly made banana pudding.
Oh my gawd, I am STARVING. I’m grateful I’ve only gone a few yards. To be honest, I kinda hate Mia right now. She says the true hot girl keeps her shoulders back and stride purposeful. You must not slouch or look as if you don’t think you are fierce.
What does she know of the world? She’s probably wearing Lululemon that cost more than my first car. I’m determined to keep this up because the idea behind it is solid. Unless she tells me I’d be even more fierce with fangs.
Celia Rivenbark is a NYT-bestselling author and columnist. Write her at celiarivenbark@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: You can thank Mia and TickTock for the 'hot girl walk'
