Are you a Messy Hot Aunt?
And honestly I fell a bit in love with her, part of me wanted to be her and the day she came into my world I dug out my denim cut-off shorts (I’m 54 in July) and revived my All Saints style combat trousers from 1999.
The Tik Toker who created her described her thus for Glamour magazine: ‘The messy hot aunt is still drunk from last night, but she’ll always share the last piece of gum in her purse. She drives a car full of garbage, swears fluently, and makes jokes about taking your kid to get a tattoo. You’d leave your child with the messy hot aunt, but with white-hot fear in your heart. She’s effortlessly cool but she’s also a work in progress. She may not have everything together, but she at least wants to look like she does’.
Watch her here: TIK TOK
I was drawn to the description of this imaginary character immediately, the childless by choice aunt, the one who is carefree, chaotic but fearless. She would make a brilliant sitcom character, sort of Samantha from Sex & The City but more dishevelled, less forthright and softer. I feel sure she exists, I know a few women somewhere along the Messy Hot Aunt spectrum. Certainly those drunk form the night before and driving a car full of crap. She’s kind of flamboyant, don’t you think, and that is not a word I use too often to describe women.
She’s more Winona Ryder than Cameron Diaz perhaps and I see the MHA as a Gen X’er. She’s probably over 45 and wears slip dresses without a bra, smart blazers without the sleeves rolled up and maybe, as the Tik Toker mentions, occasionally opts for 1990s cycling shorts (I used to wear a black pair with a blazer).
I guess I liked her because she reminds me of the past, she makes me nostalgic for a time of life (mid 1990s) I enjoyed very much, the time I had a huge group of single girlfriends and we’d go out Friday night after work and come home Sunday morning. We’d laugh until our cheeks hurt in The Pitcher and Piano in Soho, and dance for hours downstairs at The Dog House.
I also like the hot messy aunt because she is the antidote to that annoying description Gen Z’ers often use around us Gen X’ers : calling us ‘Karens’.
The MHA also has a ‘no f**ks given” attitude which is very common in midlife I feel, when we may feel able to say No more often to doing things for others and we begin to care less about what people think.
Summer is the MHA’s season, there she is with her huge sunglasses on, hair full of dry shampoo looking for her lighter in the bottom of a giant bucket bag, her black nail varnish all cracked. She’s listening to Nirvana on her air pod and her mascara is still good from Tuesday.
The MHA is a light hearted distraction, a reminder that popular culture likes a hot mess of a woman, she’s been around for years actually in various forms and I choose to see the humour and warmth of her imperfections and vulnerabilities. If you see her around give her my love. She’s living her best life.
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