The Era of the “Hot Girl Walk”: How Young People Are Celebrating Joyful Movement
Published August 30th, 3:29 PM
You’ve seen it on Tik Tok primarily: Young people, primarily young millennials and Gen-Z-ers, using the phrase “hot girl walk”. If you haven’t heard the term, a “hot girl walk” typically consists of going for a long walk, usually outdoors, and is typically paired with a podcast consisting of self-reflection, healing, or educational material. Does this sound like a pretty basic physical activity that’s been branded with a cutesy name for the sake of posting it on the Internet? That’s what I thought at first, too. But in truth, the hot girl walk boasts something more compelling than just taking a walk - it’s a reframing of our relationship with exercise by a younger generation.
Fitness culture has always highlighted the relationship we have to our physical appearance, and ultimately slimness. We have grown up being told by the industry to hyperfocus on our outer shell: the 90s championed thinness, the early 2000s shamed celebrity bodies on the front of tabloids, and the 2010s idealized the “Kardashian” body type, which praised a very specific type of curviness.
While these beauty standards affect every individual, it’s important to note that they disproportionally affect women, especially women of color. Most of these standards of “body beauty” are only societally praised when they exist in combination with other Eurocentric features. Moreover, the media has a habit of treating body shapes and certain physical features as though they are trends, when we should really be taught that our bodies are simply vessels that we should care for so that they may carry us through life.
With a plethora of impossible standards to abide by, young people were (and still are) taught to use exercise as a means to shrink and grow their bodies in “just the right places”, rather than celebrate the benefits it can bring to our bodies. We have been conditioned to view moving our bodies as solely a weight loss tool, forgetting that physical activity is also known to promote healthy sleep habits, improve focus, and reduce the risk of many diseases.
The hot girl walk is a stark contrast to this toxic fitness culture we know so well. Perhaps taking some inspiration from Megan Thee Stallion's song Hot Girl and the rapper’s confidence, the core of the hot girl walk is to celebrate ourselves and what our bodies can do. By complementing the physical act of walking with a meaningful podcast, we emphasize that exercise can be an activity that nurtures not just the body, but the mind and soul as well. It has reframed exercise as an opportunity to move our bodies joyfully and pair it with the properties of self-reflection nature can lend us.
And let’s not forget about that Vitamin D, baby!
If you haven’t tried going for a hot girl walk, I’d highly recommend it. Personally, I like to rotate a couple of podcasts. Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday podcast is a great listen every single time, with different guests every episode discussing healing, how to navigate major life changes, and so much more.
Another excellent podcast I’ve been loving is Maddie Dragsbaek’s Emotionally Online. The chit-chatty format full of personal stories is very nostalgic of childhood slumber parties. Maddie also perfectly manages to unpack serious themes like self-respect, body image, insecurity, and confidence.
So, at the end of the day, is it just a walk? Probably. But like anything, reframing it in a way that subtracts some of the impossible standards the fitness world places on us feels refreshing and new. If you’re someone who struggles to find the motivation to exercise (or, perhaps you’re on the other end of the spectrum and love an intense gym session daily), try working in some hot girl walking to your routine. It might be low-impact on your joints, but the impact it will have on your overall relationship with exercise is sure to be high.
The “Still” New Year: How I’m Fighting That Creative Rut Post-Pandemic
Published April 28th, 2022, 1:28 PM feeling optimistic!
I know, I know, it’s already the end of April, making the New Year kind of old news at this point. January has come and gone and at this point; we’re only just soaking up the nicer weather, and the endorphins that come with it. Vitamin D deficiency is a real thing, people.
Though I can say the first couple of months of 2022 have left me extremely grateful (the health of my family takes the top of the list), I’m finding that some of the pesky pandemic creative rut I battled is still somewhat lingering.
I won’t lie, I’ve been pretty hard on myself. I spent the first few months of the new year beating myself up for not feeling inspired. Frankly, I’m over it! In a full attempt to pull myself up from the bootstraps, I am coining the term “Still New Year”, as in, it is STILL the New Year, and though the snow has melted, it is perfectly appropriate to set new resolutions for myself.
Below are some goals I am setting myself as we dive deeper into the heart of the year. My overall aim is to fill more of my time with meaningful experiences and creatively fulfilling endeavors because, let’s be honest, watching Dr. Phil reruns and doom-scrolling on Instagram is not exactly cutting it.
Attend (and eventually participate!) in poetry readings and events
Begin learning the guitar (this one is ambitious considering I have not a single musical bone in my body)
Outline mood boards & creative direction for future Cardroom Magazine issues
Spend the day at the museum
Increase time in nature (even if it’s just for a dog walk a day)
Finally read that stack of books collecting dust on my nightstand
Spend more time with loved ones going to new places
Consume more meaningful content (TedTalks and inspiring podcasts - I’m particularly liking Oprah’s Super Soul podcast and find her guest speakers to be extremely motivational)
If you are like me and are struggling to find creative inspiration post-pandemic, maybe you too can try some of these things - just please, in the process, be kind to yourself. We’ve all suffered a collective trauma and it’s going to take some semblance of grace to reconnect to our old selves to make us feel truly normal again. And if you find that old passions of yours just don’t do it for you anymore, don’t beat yourself up over it; outgrow one thing into something new.
We’ve had an ample amount of time alone locked in our houses to overthink ourselves into oblivion - no more! Start with small creative goals every day. It’s “still” the new year. You’ve got this.
The Story of Cardroom - and What Creating the Digital Collective Has Taught Me
Published March 30th, 2022, 5:22 PM from a Starbucks with an actually decent playlist
I suppose you could say my digital magazine Cardroom went from being a twinkle in outer space to actualizing in my freshman year of university. I was taking a creative writing class with a woman who was crazy in that loving, eccentric, grandmotherly-type way. She told us stories about her side hustle working as Mrs. Claus, a role for which her long gray hair was an eerie fit. Additionally, she would pretty routinely show up late to our 9:30 class. My professor was a character, certainly, but more than that you could tell she yearned for us to open up through our writing, and allow for it to connect us in ways we didn’t know it could.
Per the standard “you can leave if I’m not here after the first fifteen minutes” rule, it was waiting in that classroom lodged deep in the underground of the theater building that I would come to meet some great people - including my future BSU roommate Katie. That being said, I was still wary of sharing my writing during the first couple of weeks. Letting a group of strangers into a corner of my mind that had only previously existed in notebooks scattered throughout my childhood bedroom was daunting. I’d been writing poetry and some (pretty bad) short stories since I was in the seventh grade, and had always considered writing to be a central element of my identity and self-expression. But could I share it with them?
Turns out, it’s a little like anything in life - the more you do it, the easier it gets. We’d only meet a couple of times a week, but pretty soon I would realize there was something rewarding about putting your work out there and having even one person say, “that line is sick”, or “you should consider expanding on this part”. The very thing that used to terrify me was becoming part of the reason I do it in the first place.
Writing had always been an outlet for me, but it was then that I discovered the value it could serve in connecting people you wouldn’t expect. I took inspiration from my classmates and allowed myself to be vulnerable and blunt in ways I hadn’t before. When the class wrapped, I was left without any place for that; so, I thought I could create a place of my own - a place for not only poetry, but a place to highlight art in any form.
Thus, Cardroom was born. Or, should I say, the idea for Cardroom. It took me a couple of issues to grow my digital design skills, but even as I began I could sense I was creating something that would give myself and others a valuable outlet. I recruited talented artists I knew for the first issue, Reinvention, which was released in August 2018. That issue was eventually displayed on the front wall inside the John Joseph Moakley Center, a building on BSU’s campus.
How did I go from a seventh-grader scribbling bad poetry to having an issue of my own digital magazine displayed at their university? I’m not sure, but I’m certainly not going to question it. It was a huge moment of pride for me and only encouraged me to keep creating and keep making content that fulfilled me. I don’t know for certain where Cardroom will end up or what formats I’ll explore in the future (clothing line, anybody?), but I am certain that I am grateful for the growth it’s brought me, in terms of both my skillset and identity. A nice added bonus? Maybe I could be that eccentric gray-haired Mrs. Claus for someone else, if only for a minute.