Hot Cheeto Girl

About

Hot Cheeto Girl is a slang word describing a schoolgirl who behaves in a loud, annoying or passive-aggressive manner, typically wears thick eyebrow makeup, false eyelashes and long nails and often eats Cheetos and other snacks at school. Connotations of the slang word encompass a number of racial stereotypes associated with Latin American and Black women, which has led to "hot cheeto girl" being sometimes regarded a racially coded expression.

Origin

The exact point of origin of the slang word is unknown, but is presumed to be in late May 2019. On May 31st, 2019, Twitter^[1] user @sandiacontajin made the earliest post which reflected the spread of the slang expression (tweet shown below, left). On June 8th, 2019, Twitter^[2] user @liindxx_ posted used the expression in a tweet about the National Best Friends Day (shown below, right).

The slang word did not see viral popularity until mid-August 2019, when TikTok user @haleyferggg posted a POV Roleplay captioned "pov the hot cheeto girl comes to talk to you" (no reuploads of the video could be discovered). On August 21st, Twitter^[3] use RUINJEON reuploaded the video, with the tweet going viral in the following days (post unavailable).

Spread

In late August 2020, the video became a subject of viral discussion on Twitter, with several users writing that the video carried racist undertones (example tweet shown below, right).^[4] No mentions of race were made in the video.^[5]

@haleyferggg's video inspired a roleplay trend on TikTok in late August 2019. On August 31st, 2019, Twitter^[6] user @yuqsoul reposted a POV Roleplay by @shirleyross18 in which she roleplayed as a "hot cheeto girl," with the reupload gaining over 719,000 views in one year (shown below). On the following day, @shirleyross18 uploaded an follow-up video in which she denied the accusations of her "hot cheeto girl" roleplay being racist, claiming that the TikTok "has nothing to do with race." On the same day, @yuqsoul^[7] reuploaded the apology video to Twitter.

girl wha??? pic.twitter.com/MtMtCuEg49

— kristi (@yuqsoul) September 1, 2019

The slang word did not see active presence online until January 2020. In early January 2020, Hot Cheeto Girl roleplays regained popularity on TikTok. On January 12th, YouTube^[8] user Nora Laaouina uploaded a compilation video to the platform (shown below).

On January 30th, Twitter^[9] user @subtlesun reuploaded a TikTok by user @girlnoise. In the TikTok, @girlnoise sits silently and avoids looking at the camera, with the caption reading "when u accidentally make eye contant w the hot cheeto girl and she says 'fuck you lookin at hillary clinton". The reupload received over 2 million views, 7,900 retweets and 55,800 likes prior to being removed (screenshot shown below, left). The video prompted similar reactions as the August 2020 video, with users describing the slang term as carrying the racial undertones and being used to mock Black and Latin American people (example tweets^[10][11][12] shown below).

On February 23rd, 2020, Twitter^[13] user @1979kian reuploaded another Hot Cheeto Girl roleplay, with the tweet going viral and prompting similar reactions.^[14][15]

In the following months, the Hot Cheeto Girl stereotype remained a popular subject of roleplays and memes on TikTok, with some users also adopting it as an aesthetic, similar to VSCO Girl and Dark Academia.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References