Is Messy Hot Aunt the New Coastal Grandmother?

A third identity group is sloshing Franzia and Drunk Uncles among the Coastal Grandmothers. It is the Messy Hot Aunt contingent. 

American parents are up against a lot—a society obsessed with hyperindividualism, a childcare crisis, and Republicans in Congress blocking plans for free pre-K and paid family leave. We need a cultural overhaul. We can still have aunts. Aunts of blood and aunts of choice. Aunts who send a birthday greeting once a year and aunts who FaceTime every single day. 

A group that is indispensable, but not new, has a new name and TikTok fame. Cat Ward: The Messy hot aunt.  

Ward was inspired by conversations around “rich mom culture” and coastal grandmothers. “I saw those as more aspirational, but the messy hot aunt is definitely more realistic,” she tells Glamour. The messy hot aunt is “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,” she says. The coastal grandmother enjoys fresh, seasonal food and indulges in a few Bloody Marys. The messy hot aunt is still drunk from last night, but she’ll always share the last piece of gum in her purse. She swears fluently and drives a car stuffed with garbage. You’d leave your child with the messy hot aunt, but with white-hot fear in your heart. 

The messy hot aunt is another subcategory of the well-known character the cool aunt. This is a woman who isn’t a parent and still provides a youthful smile to beleaguered siblings and parents. The cool aunt might not change your baby’s diaper, but she will take your teenagers for the weekend when they become so feral and hormonal that you’re worried they’ll kill you in your sleep. TikTok creator Alexia Del Valle’s cool aunt videos regularly go viral. She comes from a big Puerto Rican family on the East Coast and bases her character on many of her real aunts, particularly the “five or six” to whom she’s especially close. 

“One of my aunts—she needs to be the center of attention,” Del Valle says with a laugh. “She’s in her 50s, and she does not care: Everyone needs to look at her when she walks in the room. She knew she looked good, and she would say it.” Another aunt “was the one, if you were to get in trouble, she would defend you. She was ready to talk about boys or relationships, things you wouldn’t typically talk to your mom about.” The cool aunt, she says, is somewhere between a sister and a mom. She’s a role model for her younger relatives, helping to bridge the gap between girlhood and womanhood. 

Ward’s version, the messy hot aunt, is child-free by choice. She’s complete, content. Ward, who is in her 30s, isn’t actually an aunt or a parent and has never aspired to have her own kids. “I think the messy hot aunt represents that invisible demographic that we really don’t see a lot in media—she doesn’t want children, she doesn’t want to get married, and she’s totally fine with that,” she says. The messy hot aunt is wealthy, has free time, and believes in living, not creating.