“Hot Girls” are busy. They’re having the summer of a lifetime, dancing alone in their bedroom, eating ice cream out of the tub, and inspecting their pubic hair. They’re going on long, contemplative walks and taking pride in eating a smorgasbord of snacks for dinner. Now, they’re struggling with stomach issues, too.
Over the past year, women on TikTok have begun embracing their gut problems: farts, aches, and number twos (or lack thereof). The hashtag #hotgirlswithIBS has accumulated over 110 million views, #IBStok 690 million, and #guttok a whopping 1 billion. You’ll find influencers populating each of these hashtags with content raising awareness of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and its sister disorders to normalize the fact that women (gasp) poop, too. Your parents and grandparents probably talked about tummy troubles in hushed tones behind closed doors. Now, young people on TikTok are being loud and proud about their gut woes, giving them a shiny new rebrand — but is the app’s influx of gassy content leading impressionable onlookers down a rabbit hole of misinformation?
Before unpacking the #hotgirlswithIBS movement, we must break down what a “Hot Girl” even is. No, it doesn’t denote a woman’s appearance — instead, the phrase refers to a young woman doing something traditionally seen as taboo or “unladylike.” The concept of a Hot Girl originated in 2020 when rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s track “Girls in the Hood” — and one particular line from the song, “I’m a hot girl, I do hot shit” — inspired a viral TikTok trend. Creators began posting videos of themselves answering a mock phone call, telling the other person on the line: “Can’t talk right now, I’m doing hot girl shit.” The clip would then cut to them doing something that one might consider totally un-hot, like shaving or eating sweets to curb period-induced cravings. For some, these videos serve as reminders that these acts needn’t be shrouded in a…
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