J8gM0Zz5zZM

Friends' Rachel Green, Monica Geller, and Phoebe Buffay are all beautiful – but the show singled out only one as the "hot one". For a long time, there was a trend on screen where, within any group of female friends – regardless of what any of them looked like – one was always upheld as the hot friend (pretty much always because she was the main love object of the story.) But this trope split off from other ‘hot girl’ tropes for one key reason: her friendships. So where did the ‘hot one’ trope even come from, and how did Rachel (with the help of Monica and Phoebe) change it for the better? (And have we finally gotten rid of it altogether?) Let’s take a deeper look at the ‘hot one’ trope!

CHAPTERS

00:00 Intro
00:37 Why stories choose the "hot" one
02:32 How the "hot friend" & general "hot girl" tropes differ
04:22 Thank you to Factor!
05:25 Friends' framing
06:16 Phoebe vs Ursula
07:32 Friends' 'hot one' switch up
08:15 The freedom of not being the hot one
09:06 Growth through friendship without competition
10:11 Everyone's hot now!