Known for her tongue-in-cheek bravado (especially during the Crash era), Charli XCX has truly perfected the art through her latest single with Tiësto, “Hot In It.” An unapologetic celebration of embracing narcissism during the apocalypse, XCX speaks to the fact that, at humanity’s core, no one really cares that much about the end being nigh so long as we still have the necessary mediums to be looked at and admired (with contempt even falling under the category of “admiration” nowadays). And yes, if the government truly wanted to cause an outrage, they would try to do what Trump once attempted and ban TikTok. An app that, incidentally, perfectly suits the brief length of Charli and Tiësto’s danceable number (try as Charli and others like her might to decry the pressure they get from the record label to make everything “TikTok-ready”).
At two minutes and nine seconds, “Hot In It” is the ideal “extrapolation length” for meme and viral-centric TikTok. Charli even hedges her bets on ensuring it’s a bop for the app by wielding the old “It’s Britney, bitch” maneuver via commencing the track with, “It’s Charli, baby.” She then adds somewhat arbitrarily, “Tiësto.” And, unlike Olivia Rodrigo, who bemoans on “good 4 u,” “I’ve lost my mind, I’ve spent the night crying on the floor of my bathroom/But you’re so unaffected, I really don’t get it,” Charli doesn’t waste her time wondering at all, instead announcing, “You won’t see me cryin’ on the bathroom floor/I ain’t ever comin’ back for more.” Apart from “crying on the bathroom floor” being a real thing among jilted women, Charli accents the continued influence of 00s pop on her music by essentially quoting *NSYNC with, “Wanna see you walkin’ out that door/Bye bye bye bye.” Yes, it’s almost like plagiarism.
Nonetheless, being that XCX is finally getting some overdue credit from the music industry, websites like Pitchfork were quick to herald the advent of a new single from her on the heels of releasing Crash. So it was that Charli commented on the outlet’s quote of her chorus, “Rockin’ it, droppin’ it/Shake my ass, no stoppin’ it/I look I hot in it” with, “I think what you’re trying to say is ‘voice of a generation.’” And, to be clear, much to Gen Z’s dismay, the voice of the millennial generation. Although, once again, there’s no doubt that Gen Z will try to graft it for themselves, having so little to choose from in the way of pop culture apart from Billie Eilish and the aforementioned Rodrigo.
But “Hot In It” could not be more tailored for the millennial set, for, lest anyone should forget, it was millennial mascot Paris Hilton who coined, “That’s hot” in reference to just about everything she found pleasing (usually her own reflection). To this day, she still hasn’t shaken the catchphrase (just as former frenemy Lindsay Lohan can’t let go of her one viable movie for the sake of clinging to relevancy). Nor would she want to, as it’s part of her wind-up doll shtick that also includes such “memorable” words and phrases as, “Sliving,” “Beyond” and “The only rule is don’t be boring and dress cute wherever you go” (she didn’t seem to grasp that that’s two rules, but it’s probably “intentional” for her enduring dumb blonde persona).
And, businesswoman that she is, Paris will likely be shrewd enough to play up this song as much as possible in her own DJ sets (to Tiësto’s potential vexation) and various social media posts designed to emphasize the point that she’s been saying this about herself from the get-go. In other words, confidence is key. Even if you’re merely faking it at the outset. For it’s all part of the process of “transcending” into the self-assured (read: vain and egotistical) bia you were always destined to be—per the insistence of millennial spokeswomen like XCX and Hilton. And unlike another “kind of girl” who once claimed to be the spokesperson for her “echo boomer” generation: Hannah Horvath a.k.a. Lena Dunham.
It was Horvath that asserted herself to be as much with far less confidence in the form of, “I think that I may be the voice of my generation… or at least a voice of a generation.” Oy. Horvath did not look hot in it. “It” being her bid for “quirky but endearing.” It’s almost like she didn’t get the memo (email?) that Gen X does it best when it comes to getting away with self-deprecation (and narcissism, for that matter [see: Cher Horowitz]). Because when millennials do it, it isn’t genuine—it’s merely fishing for an assuaging compliment.
Luckily, Charli has set up her fellow millennials for no such need to bother with false modesty thanks to this defiant, self-involved ditty. Two adjectives that millennials relish characterizing themselves with (if we’ve been taught nothing by the recent “too early” nostalgia for Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey). And, since they also “heart” the 90s so much, they can take a page from Clueless when they add, “Carpe diem, okay? You looked hot in it.” A phrase, conveniently enough, that also seamlessly doubles for applying to being literally hot in this ever-melting planet.
