Jumping Off the Hot Girl Hamster Wheel
A psychological inquiry into a skin-deep lifestyle
My fiancé created a barometer to gauge my well-being.
The more packages that arrive at our doorstep, the more worried he becomes. Are you okay?
I’m fine, I reply as we break down the cardboard boxes. It’s nothing. I dodge his raised eyebrows and swiftly tuck away a new beauty product.
In my late twenties, amidst the pandemic, I took charge of my financial future and started investing in long-term goals. But despite my disciplined saving habits, I still grapple with the seductive urge to splurge.
Truth be told, it’s hard to resist investing in my physical appearance (ha). From fitness classes and tailored clothing to skincare, cosmetics, and manicures, I get a dopamine rush every time I indulge. It's equal parts exhilarating & naughty.
I want to stop, but I’m caught in the Hot Girl Hamster Wheel.
The Hot Girl Hamster Wheel is a financially taxing cycle that we hot girls tend to find ourselves in, in an effort to be conventionally attractive. – Katie Gatti Tassin, personal finance writer.
I'm guilty of "de-monetizing my appearance," as Katie says. I've stopped bleaching my hair and sworn off ever trying Botox. Yet, I still feel pressure to perpetually become a better woman: poised, elegant, confident, and energetic.
Jumping off the Hot Girl Wheel isn't just about cutting back on spending - it requires a shift in mindset about the value of physical appearance and one’s relationship with money. To ground myself, I must relinquish my preoccupation with how I’m externally perceived and focus on the things that truly fulfill me.
Getting On the Wheel
Imagine you’re a girl walking through the grocery store, adults smiling at you. As you become a pre-teen, you notice more men lurking at you. Grown men, strangers, making comments about your physical appearance. Maybe the boys at school start to say odd things, too.
You begin seeing yourself in their eyes. It’s like walking down the street with spotlights and microscopes aimed at you. You become hyperaware of how you look, and how you look influences how you feel.
So the process of aesthetic aestheticizing begins. I must find and fix everything that’s wrong with me. Money is a means of controlling my body and appearance, and spending money to fix these “issues” creates an ephemeral sense of comfort & satisfaction, often making it difficult to distinguish if this feminine upkeep is actually improving my quality of life.
A woman can believe that she herself is the architect of the exquisite, constant, and often pleasurable type of power that this image holds over her time, her money, her decisions, her selfhood, and her soul. - Jia Tolentino
Spinning on the Hamster Wheel, I run through the highs and lows of feeling powerful and powerless. You can compare the Hamster Wheel to other tropes of consumerism: the rat race, keeping up with the Joneses, the hedonistic treadmill.
But what distinguishes the Hamster Wheel is that even when you choose to stop spending money on your physical appearance, there’s still the pressure to be a better woman and seek validation from our roles and relationships. To attach our worth to external sources.
Staying On the Wheel
Paradoxical forces keep spinning my hamster wheel.
The act of managing money is a paradox. I can be a mindful or spontaneous woman – how liberating, right? I can be a Frugal Goddess (I keep my purse strings tight!) or Luxe Lady (I spend it how I want, that’s right!)
Last year, I developed an infatuation with the Clean Girl aesthetic & “That Girl” lifestyle. This type of woman wakes up for a 5am workout followed by drinking celery juice and coffee from her fancy espresso machine. She lights a candle and meditates and journals. Then she listens to a personal development podcast while doing her makeup. She puts on dainty gold jewelry & fine clothes set in a neutral-colored palette. Now she’s ready to conquer the day with a dewy face and glowing smile.
Spending money feels deceptively empowering because I can design & curate my appearance & home to convey the qualities the marketplace tells me to value:
Discipline: Physically fit ➡️ gym access & athleisure
Elegance: Looking put-together ➡️ clean makeup & tailored clothes
Warmth: Physically pleasant ➡️ sweet perfume & soft hair
Glossy marketing convinces women that these things enable us to move through the world with ease. That money & physical appearance equate to happiness & success. We cling to the assurance that it’s okay to buy it because it makes you feel good. However, buying into this notion is a rationalized delusion marketed as self-care.
Jumping Off the Wheel
Here’s a simple yet impactful mindset shift:
I lack discipline with my spending ➡️ I am filling a void with my spending.
There’s something wrong with me ➡️ There’s something lacking in my life that money cannot fulfill.
What, alternatively, can we do to fill the void?
Money is often equated with options, choice, and agency, but for many of us, it's also linked to our sense of competence. We obsess over managing our appearance, not just physically but also the outward essence we present. But this is all just an illusion - we can never really know how others perceive us. So why do we care so much about pleasing others?
We should ground ourselves in the things that enrich our souls. Spirituality, unconditional love, nature, and knowledge keep me grounded.
Pillars of Fulfillment:
Spirituality, for me, is about connecting to something grander, something unknown that anchors me in the present.
Unconditional Love is simply loving & being loved without insecurity.
Nature, whether it's swimming in the ocean or hiking a mountain, helps me exist in the moment and revel in the wonder of our world.
Knowledge expands my awareness, not for the sake of competence or validation, but for the sake of learning & growing.
Inner security is the glue that holds these pillars together.
That’s priceless.
I’m still working on grounding myself in these pillars. Perhaps I’ll become more grounded as the Hot Girl Hamster Wheel slows with age. So why waste money and energy trying to fight against it? Beauty treatments don’t stop time; they only feign youth & immortality.
And I don’t want to live beneath the veil of delusional immortality. When I see that woman on the hamster wheel, heart racing, smiling through the pain, I think…
What is she running from? What is she running towards?
She’s going nowhere.
I accept the passing of time and the inevitably of age, of death, coming towards us.
I will stop running. I will stand in place.
I will breathe in all of life's richness, my fulfilling mortality.
Thank you for reading; I love responding to your comments ♡
Related post: Is Body Positivity Just Body Image Chatter?
Oh such a great essay Rachael. Gave me so much to think about and I'm taking the liberty to share some of it here.
I think I had the reverse problem - of rejecting all self-care because it meant indulgent market-based notions of looking good and feeling pretty, which was easy for me to do because I was never formally in the market. This piece cracks open how both ends of the pendulum are not ideal for connecting with the self. There is a way to internally anchor - your offering is the four pillars - that avoids externally validating ourselves either against the market, or against our own notions of virtuous posturing as being beyond the market. :)
PS: Your Jia Tolentino quote reminded me also of her whole thing on performing for the world (in her context, via the internet and social media), and then finding our backstage to just *be* who we are. :)
Love this Rachel. Really hit the nail on the head about the indulgence as self care trend.