Hot Take

Submission 39,050

About

Hot Take is a slang term used to describe short, oftentimes controversial opinions online both in journalism and tweets.

Origin

Merriam-Webster^[1] says that while term began appearing online in the mid-2010s, it saw use as early as 1993. Merriam-Webster points to an article in Rolling Stone which quotes political pundit and advisor James Carville:

"The hot take on Clinton by the electorate is that this guy's out there busting his can. The BosNyWash puke-funnel view of the world is entirely different and entirely wrong."

According to New Yorker web producer Caitlin Kelly, as quoted in an article on the term in The New Republic,^[2] the term began being used in reference to sportswriting about Tim Tebow around 2012. On November 2nd, 2012, sportswriter Eric Koreen tweeted one of the first known uses of the phrase "hot take" (shown below).^[3]

Spread

In August of 2013, Tomas Rios in the Pacific Standard^[6] wrote that the "hot take" is a piece "usually written on tight deadlines with little research or reporting, and even less thought." In September of 2013, Gawker^[4] wrote a piece defining "Smart Take," which, similar to the "hot take" was used on Twitter to "inform one's social circle that one disdains a banal essay or article likely to be promoted as a smart take by one's intellectual inferiors." On June 19th, 2014, a definition for "Hot Take" was posted to Urban Dictionary by user Penis Armada (shown below).^[5] In September of 2014, The Awl^[11] wrote that the "hot take" in media was a product of economic pressure on young journalists to quickly create content on current events.

The term "hot take" became a subject of media articles in April of 2015 when Buzzfeed deleted two posts from their web which were critical of their advertising partners.^[7] In defense of the decision, Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith^[8] tweeted that the site was "not trying to do hot takes."

This led writers at Slate,^[9] Jezebel,^[10] and New Republic^[2] to write articles defining the term "hot take." Slate argued that the term was a put-down which indicated that an opinion piece was not worth reading, though that was not always the case.

Online, the term is often used to announce a controversial opinion or to sarcastically announce a banal opinion (examples shown below). Other iterations of include "Spicy Take" or "Nuclear Take," depending on the type of joke the poster wishes to make. An account dedicated to retweeting "hot takes," @NuclearTakes,^[12] has over 54,000 followers. Other accounts include @UltraHotTakes^[13] and @HotMetalTakes.^[14]