'I thought I knew what it meant to be "hot". One video changed everything.'

When Carrie Fisher wore a gold bikini in Star Wars, men everywhere collectively lost their minds.

Princess Leia was the straight man's perfect cocktail — hot, fearless, and leading a galactic rebellion. It's no wonder teenagers of the '80s adorned their walls with posters of the princess.

The gold bikini scene, while understandably wildly criticised now, cemented Leia in the zeitgeist for good. Hell, even Ross from Friends suggested Rachel dress up in the costume to fulfil his sexual fantasy.

Leia was hot. Plain and simple.

Watch: Carrie Fisher appears in 'Sex and the City'. Post continues after video.

Now, four decades on, Leia's 'hotness' is being viewed through the lens of 2025. And it's sparked a viral discussion on TikTok.

"Hear me out, I feel like hot people used to look so normal," content creator Jordan Stacey said in a video.

"I just re-watched Empire Strikes Back, and I was looking at Princess Leia, and obviously she's so hot, but she looks so normal.

"Men who grew up watching Star Wars would be like, 'Oh my God, Princess Leia is so hot', and she is. But if she walked past me on the street [today], I wouldn't do a double-take."

Expanding further to Mamamia, Jordan said Fisher's beauty felt "like a very normal, human, kind of stunning". One, she suggests, is seldom sought after in the digital age.

"I wouldn't assume that she would have to be an influencer," she put simply.

"The normal, human, kind of stunning is no longer the maximum that we are subliminally told to aim for these days.

"I feel it is ingrained in women that, until you are the hottest person in the grocery store, until you are making people double-take, you haven't made it."

Princess Leia in the gold bikini. Image: Lucasfilm

Her thought-provoking video was soon inundated with comments.

One user suggested that today's beauty standard is something called 'Instagram face' — a filtered, often surgically-influenced, ideal that we see on our screens.

"There's no more 'girl-next-door' kinda hot because hot has become 'Instagram face'," they wrote.

Many others agreed, with some going so far as to argue that certain actors with said 'Instagram face' shouldn't be cast in period dramas, as they look inauthentic to the era.

"No way she can pull off an 1812 spinster. She screams Botox and ring lights."

Another suggested that the problem with 'Instagram face' is that "a lot of value now is placed on how good someone looks in a photo, whereas for someone like Carrie Fisher, her energy and expressiveness made her next level".

'We forget most people really do just look like regular people'

It's undeniable that Instagram and social media are warping how we see 'hotness', and how we measure our own appearance by comparison.

"We are exposed to so many people and faces that we forget that most people really do just look like regular people," Jordan told Mamamia.

"A realisation I had while watching [Star Wars] was that it took me a long time to realise that I'm hot because I look like a normal person. My teenage self somehow convinced herself that she was unattractive because she felt so many miles removed from what popular hot people look like."

The TikToker clarified that "being hot" doesn't matter to her, but she finds it concerning that "women are so blind to how they look because of this brainwashing".

"The number of beautiful friends I have that are riddled with insecurity because they are only 'normal hot' is insane."

While a lot of people felt validated by Jordan's claim that "normal hot is enough", others disagreed.

"There are, unfortunately, a lot of people using [the video] to say how "Princess Leia is mid" or "I never found her pretty" as if that isn't exactly the problem," Jordan told us.

"Even if a woman was 'mid', as the internet incels like to claim, why on earth would that even mean that they aren't attractive?

"'Normal hot' has become 'mid' and even extremely attractive people, people in the tier of Princess Leia, don't feel good enough."

The irony is, Carrie Fisher bloody hated that gold bikini, describing it as something "supermodels will eventually wear in the seventh ring of hell" in a 1999 essay for Newsweek.

So apologies to the late, great actress for dragging the 'kini back into discourse. But as a feminist icon, I'm hoping she'd let it slide.

In fact, I'll leave you with one of her many quotes about the standards we place on women, particularly when it comes to looks.

"We treat beauty like an accomplishment, and that is insane."

Feature Image: Supplied.