“It’s Not That Deep”: The Hot Cheetos Girl and Modern Stereotypes of Black/Hispanic Women
A few months ago, I was in my school cafeteria, sitting at a table with some friends and acquaintances. I quietly observed their conversation and somewhere in the dialogue, “Hot Cheeto Girls” came up. The girls at my table discussed how they disliked “Hot Cheeto Girls” and how rude, disruptive, and annoying they are. In case you are unaware, “Hot Cheeto Girls” are girls who typically wear Thrasher tees, have laid baby hairs, long false lashes, long acrylics, hoop earrings, and typically talk with an accent. The name of this stereotype derives from these girls eating some type of hot chips like Hot Cheetos or Takis. Their personality traits usually include being loud, lazy, academically inferior, and, most notably, “ghetto.”
I first heard people using the term in late 2018/early 2019 and my stance has always been clear on what the background of this stereotype is. It is a coded stereotype for Black and Latina women. This is blatantly obvious to me, but to others, it seems to be a stretch. Every other time I expressed my discomfort with the term, I was told that I was over-exaggerating. One instance occurred in school when a White boy was doing an exaggerated impression of a “Hot Cheeto Girl” and calling himself ratchet. He was fully committed to this role that made all of his friends laugh. I expressed my discomfort. He dropped the act, looked me dead in the eye, and said “it’s not that deep.”
I searched the term “Hot Cheeto Girl” on TikTok to see what type of videos came up. Some videos were POVs of women and men dressing up like HCGs and speaking like them. I focused on their hairstyles. Some were women of color profiting in views for acting in this exaggerated caricature, but a good amount of these videos were White people. They all had varying hairstyles, from Eco-Style-slicked buns to colorful synthetic wigs. But they ALL had exaggerated edges. If they didn’t have the edges to pull that off, they would often draw them on with Sharpie. I also noticed a different trend. Girls who seemed to present themselves as soft-spoken or well-mannered would show off their “retired Hot Cheeto Girl” phase and refer to it as “embarrassing.” What did almost all these videos have in common? The caption of these videos had “#ghetto” or “#ratchet” in it.
Let me restate that the “Hot Cheeto Girl” stereotype is a repackaged and sneaky way to insult/act like Black and Hispanic women. The only difference is that they are not “Hot Cheeto Girls,” they are them. Black and Hispanic women are diverse in the way they dress and act. However, the HCG stereotype perpetuates that they are all the same and that said “same” is negative. The stereotype also allows any woman to fit it; no matter what race they are. But Black and Hispanic women commonly have all the visual descriptors I referenced earlier.
In fact, they pioneered it. Throughout history, Black and Hispanic women have both shared similar cultural fashion statements. Black women began slicking their edges in the 20s to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards that preferred straight over kinky hair but turned it into a symbol of black pride. The Chola movement, brought up from Mexican-American street culture, made laid edges popular amongst Hispanic women. Black and Latina women like Florence Griffith-Joyner and Koko of SWV pioneered wearing acrylic nails. Black and Latin cultures cherish hoop earrings as a transition to womanhood and women like Selena Quintanilla and Sade popularized them. These are just some origins of HCG descriptors, but ALL of them originate from Black and Hispanic women who still embrace the style to this day. The most damning evidence of HCG being a caricature of these women is the way these non-Black/Hispanic women speak. Almost any non-Black/Hispanic person who is an HCG speaks with either forced AAVE (African American Vernacular English), a Mexican-American Accent, or both. HCGs use words like “period,” “sis,” “slay,” and “chile” while also gesticulating with their hands while they speak for emphasis. (It is debated whether AAVE originates from how indentured servants and African Slaves communicated or from mixing West African languages with English; better known as Creolization.)
Historically, if Black and Hispanic women displayed any of these descriptors; the public would scrutinize them. That’s where that word comes in again: “ghetto.” These women are no stranger to this word as it follows them if they dare to display or portray any of these descriptors. When Olympic runner Florence Griffith-Joyner broke the women’s record for a 100-meter sprint for the third time in 1988 (which she still holds to this day!), the media was not giving her as many flowers as hell for her long acrylic nails. Joyner, who was a nail tech, showed off her athletic and beauty skills but the media portrayed her as a jezebel, a slavery-era stereotype of Black women that is over-sexualized to gain the approval of white men. Black/Hispanic women felt heard after seeing Bronx-born Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Puerto-Rican woman, being sworn into office wearing hoop earrings after years of hearing that hoops are unprofessional.
Another thing considered unprofessional was AAVE and Mexican-American accents. Hispanic people in workplaces often recall being discriminated against if they had an accent because it made them seem more “foreign.” Some Texas schools have been reported to put their Mexican/Mexican-American students in speech classes to “fix” their accents. The same disrespect flies with AAVE. In 1996, an Oakland school district decided that AAVE should be recognized and appreciated as its own language and be used to teach students “standard” English and this caused a media frenzy. Then-President Clinton’s Secretary of Education, Richard W. Riley, commented on the situation, saying: “Elevating black English to the status of a language is not the way to raise standards of achievement in our schools and for our students.’’
These are just a few examples of the hardships these women had to face if they embraced their culture. In pop culture, non-Black/Hispanic women will usually wear these styles outside of the HCG stereotype. However, White women are notorious for wearing these cultural markers. *Insert famous White woman here* will be seen on Instagram with *Insert POC cultural symbol here* and beauty/fashion outlets will declare it the next trend. Next thing you know, you see it on the runways during Fashion Week. Everything you need to dress up like us will be on a popular fast-fashion site in the next two weeks or at a luxury retailer selling at a disgustingly high price. The same luxury retailer that considered us “ghetto” about a decade ago. HCG descriptors, along with cornrows, bandana tops, locks, box braids, bonnets, and durags have all been through this vicious cycle. AAVE has also made a mass presence online within the last few years; being known as “Gen Z slang.” Little to no words or phrases in “Gen Z slang” are original and are exclusively AAVE. The only difference is that it is being called that by people who have probably never interacted with a black person in their life.
Debates about if wearing other cultures’ hairstyles, clothing, etc. are disrespectful are usually common within POC communities. I respect anyone’s opinion on the matter if they are speaking for their specific culture. However, for me, as a Black woman, seeing non-Black/Hispanic women hide behind the label of HCG is extremely disrespectful to me. Especially when they proudly associate the word “ghetto” with it in a negative light. The whole stereotype is a backhanded compliment. You try to dress like us, talk like us, and act like us, but you won’t acknowledge that there is an us. We were and still are bullied for how we choose to express our heritage. Now it’s a big joke where people can express their misogyny and racism. So to respond to that one boy’s comment: yes, it is that deep.