#TBT: Hot Girl Summer Edition

By now you must have heard the track (Hot Girl Summer), seen the video, shared the memes, and signed the petition. Megan Thee Stallion and Cardi B’s “WAP” is one of the loudest and most provocative pop music moments of our stolen summer. The sex-positive (an understatement) anthem dropped late Thursday evening following a flurry of promo and hype, with the world eagerly anticipating the collaboration between two of rap’s most exciting artists.

The video kicked off a stream of conversation that extended well into the weekend, ranging from objections to Kylie Jenner’s inclusion in it to debates around women’s expression and agency of their sexuality. The plethora of commentary isn’t new when it comes to Megan — she’s been a major part of the cultural conversation for a while now. From her musical collaborations with icons like Beyoncé, to securing her bag with Coach and her recent collaboration with Revlon, Megan’s Hot Girl Summer has defied a seasonal construct.

While the March release of SUGA got us through the early weeks of quarantine, we’ve been talking about Megan’s power in our office for a while. Last summer, we wrote an article about the brand appropriation of ‘Hot Girl Summer’ and while this year is unequivocally different than the last, our piece still feels strikingly relevant. As brands continue to think through the ways in which they engage with Black icons and Black culture in a meaningful way, the question of appropriation versus appreciation will always be at the forefront.

Read on for our July 2019 piece.

The Appropriation of Hot Girl Summer
In the age of social media, a strong brand identity is currency unto itself, currency that is often not adequately protected. In 2019 (and 2020), music is only a small part of what makes an artist culturally relevant. Visuals, language, fashion, political affiliations – in short, branding – all combine to create a project that audiences can rally around. As musicians increasingly build their brand culture on social media in the form of memes, catchphrases, dances and the like, it can be challenging for them to truly own the most vital intellectual property that they create. Enter Megan Thee Stallion.

Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion is a truly digital native musician. Her first brush with fame came when a video of her freestyling went viral in 2013. Building on that early fame with an active Instagram presence and the cultivation of a passionate online fandom, she broke into the mainstream in early 2019 with the release of the mixtape Fever, inclusion in hip-hop tastemaker XXL’s Freshman Class, and most notably, the rise of the Hot Girl Summer meme. So what is ‘Hot Girl Summer’? We’ll let Megan explain:

The message of it is simple: Megan is encouraging everyone to be themselves and to have fun. But the cultural context — a Black woman being unapologetically herself, remaining unbothered by the haters and pursuing the things that bring her joy — is what’s turned the meme into a movement.

As brands increasingly feel the need to react to cultural movements in real time, they do so with varying degrees of sensitivity and to varying degrees of success. On the surface, a brand participating in the fun of Hot Girl Summer with a social media post shouldn’t be a big deal, but when you look at the underlying context, it can become problematic.

Megan herself responded to Forever 21’s e-mail marketing, in which they use a poor approximation of AAVE (African American Vernacular English), spelling summer as “SUMMAH”. It’s more cringeworthy than outright offensive, and seems strange that a brand would choose to dabble in AAVE when many brands have already been called out for doing so. Not to be left behind, Pac-Sun posted a “hot girl summer starter pack” and almost immediately deleted the tweet, after Twitter users widely accused the brand of co-opting the wave and white-washing a movement that was started by a Black woman and her largely Black female fandom.

When a fandom emerges this quickly, members of its community tend to be fiercely protective of the codes, messages and tone that mark their belonging. Before engaging with the aesthetic of an emerging subculture, it’s critical to have a firm cultural understanding of the context from which it came. In response to brands trying to ride the Hot Girl Summer wave, Megan has filed for a trademark of her ‘Hot Girl Summer’ phrase.

There is a justified cynicism towards brands engaging with Black culture with a lack of understanding of the cultural context — this was the case in 2019 and is especially the case now in 2020. Black culture as a commodity is nothing new, but in an era that places a premium on inclusion and diversity, engaging with cultural movements should be done with care. To learn more about how to engage with emerging cultural movements and subcultures, drop us a line.

With love,

Brenda