Why being perfect when you can be a hot mess?
Lately, a new trend has arisen among young people: the so-called “clean girl” aesthetic. It portrays a type of girl who seems to live in a dimension of apparently effortless perfection. She eats healthy, pursues all her aims with discipline, goes to Pilates, drinks matcha as if it were a magic potion, and maintains a lifestyle that appears calm, tidy, and constantly productive. Above all, she seems not to know what disorder and confusion are. Her hair is always slicked back, her room spotless, her skincare routine flawless. On social media, many girls have fallen in love with this idea and have started to imitate it. But what about all those who are the opposite of this? With her pop single “Hot Mess” of her latest EP, Petunias, the rising American artist Ava Valianti captures the nemesis of this ongoing trend and gives a voice to everyone who doesn’t or simply can’t fit into the pristine “clean girl” mould.
The phenomenon began a couple of years ago, mostly on Instagram and TikTok. Suddenly, feeds were filled with beautiful, skinny girls wearing matching Pilates sets, an iced matcha latte in one hand and a laptop in the other. It was the perfect picture of a young, independent woman who has everything under control. This image spread rapidly among Gen Z, becoming a sort of visual manifesto of how a girl “should” behave and appear. As often happens with trends, everything that fell outside of this paradigm slowly began to be criticised, minimised, or treated as something to fix. Junk food, messy rooms, unbrushed hair, or simply a more relaxed, unstructured approach to life started being perceived almost as flaws, signs of a lack of discipline or, worse, a lack of self-worth. Yet what happens to all the girls who don’t feel represented by this trend? What about those who don’t wake up at 6 a.m. to journal and meditate, who sometimes forget their skincare routine? Ava Valianti gives them centre stage. She portrays a different feminine figure: a girl with bow-tied hair, with smudged makeup because she forgot to use her micellar water, someone who might not even know what a “10-step skincare regimen” is. For some traits, she may appear disorganised, impulsive, or inconsistent, but she is undoubtedly authentic.
And that, as Ava emphasises, is what makes her hot: not the imitation of a trend or the pressure to conform, but her raw, unapologetic realness. It is cool not to be “cool.” We don’t have to fit everything into rigid schemes or chase impossible standards of neatness and control. As Ava reminds us, our true friends will stay by our side, regardless of whether we look polished every day or if our life sometimes falls into a whirlwind of chaos. It’s not about neglecting ourselves; it’s about knowing when to let go, giving space to our guilty pleasures, and understanding that self-care has many different forms. It’s a shift of mentality, a declaration that we don’t have to earn our worth through perfection. This concept is deeply tied to acceptance. For who we are, of our pace, of our flaws. The “hot mess” girl does not care about other people’s judgments. She knows she is not perfect, and she embraces it. She rejects the idea that perfection must be the goal. Of course, this acceptance does not come effortlessly. People who live with a bit of chaos often battle with contradictory thoughts, high expectations, and moments of anxiety. But instead of trying to erase these imperfections, they turn them into energy, into a sort of adrenaline that spices up their lives. This is exactly what Ava celebrates: the beauty of imperfection, the charm of unpredictability, the excitement that comes with not having everything under control.
For Ava, a teenager still navigating the confusion and contradictions of adolescence, “Hot Mess” becomes a turning point. The song marks a moment of realisation: the awareness that living according to curated “clean girl” rules is not the only valid way to exist, and probably even quite difficult to stick to forever. This piece carries an incredible maturity in a world that, as Ava states, enslaves us in virtual comparisons. In fact, in a generation where we constantly perform on virtual stages, where our lives seem to revolve around approval, likes, and flawless aesthetics, being messy and original becomes a peculiarity. It is a way of reclaiming space for authenticity. This is why “Hot Mess” resonates so strongly: it disrupts a world of polished copies, of girls trying to mirror an aesthetic that tells them what is “good,” “healthy,” or “desirable.” Instead, Ava encourages us to celebrate our quirks, our chaos, and all the vibrant imperfections that make us free. As she sings: “Everything is better when we are messier”.