Hot Tub Video

The Hot Tub Video is a private recording of Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky that becomes a public spectacle after an anonymous Instagram account posts it. Its repeated circulation, including after the original post is removed, makes the recording a persistent source of humiliation and harassment rather than a single, contained incident.

Origin and Discovery

The recording appears on Anonybitch, an anonymous account that publishes images and videos submitted from parties around town. The account is known for posting hot-tub footage, and its content can be copied and redistributed by others. Chris alerts Lara Jean to a new post while Lara Jean is with Kitty Covey. She opens the account and sees a grainy video of a couple in a hot tub. The girl’s face is obscured, but Lara Jean recognizes herself from the way she touches the boy’s cheek: the recording is of her and Peter during their ski trip. Kitty has also seen the screen before Lara Jean can shield her from it. The post’s caption falsely presents the encounter as sex, and the comments turn the video into an occasion for sexual shaming. Lara Jean is shocked by the exposure and fears that her father will see it. Margot Song Covey tries to report the post for removal, while Lara Jean’s immediate distress makes clear how abruptly a private memory has been recast for an anonymous audience.

Removal and Continued Circulation

Peter Kavinsky contacts Lara Jean after seeing the post, then acts to get it removed. When Lara Jean checks Anonybitch from Peter’s account, the video has disappeared from the feed. Peter explains that he messaged the account and threatened legal action, pointing out that both he and Lara Jean are underage and that his uncle is a lawyer. The removal offers immediate relief, but it does not retrieve copies that have already been saved or shared.

The recording resurfaces in altered forms at school. In the computer lab, Lara Jean and Peter find still images from the video set as computer wallpapers, each paired with a mocking caption. Later, during a junior-class assembly, an edited version plays on the auditorium projector, sped up and set to music. The incident turns a post viewed privately online into a public spectacle before their classmates. Peter runs to the stage and tells the audience that he and Lara Jean did not have sex, then condemns whoever circulated the clip. His intervention challenges the rumor directly, but the room’s laughter and attention also show how little control either of them has over the recording’s meaning once others have copied and reframed it.

Persistence, Accountability, and Institutional Response

The video’s removal from Anonybitch does not end its circulation. Later, in the school library, Lara Jean Song Covey sees two sophomore girls sharing earbuds and watching another version. Rather than follow Margot Song Covey’s advice to act as if the incident is beneath her, she approaches them, opens their laptop, and discovers that the clip has been spliced with scenes from The Little Mermaid. She tells the girls that because she and Peter Kavinsky are underage, watching and forwarding the recording could carry serious consequences. Her confrontation turns her from the person being watched into someone who names the viewers’ responsibility for keeping the material in circulation.

The school’s response also extends beyond Peter Kavinsky’s attempt to have the original post removed. Lara Jean’s guidance counselor has contacted her father, who tells her he had known she was struggling but did not want to push her. He acknowledges that she had not felt able to confide in him, and she embraces him as he reassures her that she can come to him. He has spoken with Principal Lochlan, who will announce that students who watch or distribute the video will be suspended. The promised policy gives the school a concrete way to address circulation, while Lara Jean’s relief is joined by the recognition that she could have sought her father’s help sooner.

The episode also exposes an unequal judgment of the couple. Margot points out that commenters condemn Lara Jean while leaving Peter largely uncriticized, although both appear in the same recording. Chris adds that several people have already sent her the video. Together, these details show how the clip’s harm is amplified by copying and by a sexual double standard: removal of one post cannot undo either the spread of the image or the public meanings imposed on the girl in it.

Earlier Precedent and Perceived Risk

The threat surrounding the Hot Tub Video is sharpened by the account’s earlier history: Lara Jean knows of a post about a student at another high school that went viral, and has heard that the student was expelled. The account’s operator remains unidentified, while submitted material can reach a wide audience without the people depicted controlling its circulation. That precedent helps explain why the new post feels consequential beyond the immediate shock of being exposed: in this online environment, a private image can acquire an audience and consequences far beyond its original setting.