Why the internet latches on to seasonal themes [and how you can own this summer]
Learning from patron saints of summers past: Barbie, Charli XCX & Megan the Stallion
In this Thursday’s email we’re sharing:
How brands can win the cultural conversation this summer
In the full article, available for paying members, we detail:
3 content tactics brands must deploy to own the summer online
How to own the summer
Summer officially starts on June 20th, but culturally it starts Memorial Day Weekend.
Each year, when the season kicks off so too does the discourse. The extremely online and the brands looking to gain their favor participate in the future nostalgia exercise of trying to anticipate what the summer will be called. Last year we had “brat summer” in celebration of our collective cultural obsession with Charli XCX’s hyperpop magnum opus brat. The summer before that we had “Barbie Summer” inspired by the Barbie movie’s cultural dominance, and in 2019 we had “hot girl summer” inspired by a then up-and-coming Megan Thee Stallion.
In her piece for Yahoo! “Summer 2025 is coming. It needs a name.” notable Internet Culture Reporter Kelsey Weekman dissects the internet’s history of branding the summer. She points out that it’s not entirely monocultural and, “depending on your social media algorithms, which have become more personalized over the years, you might have seen a different trend get anointed.” In 2023 for instance she points to three distinct “summers” that emerge: Barbie Girl, Tomato Girl, & Rat Girl.
Looking back, it’s clear that 2023 was the Summer of Barbie. While Tomato Girl Summer and Rat Girl Summer were more organic (both literally & that they derived from UGC) in order to truly own the summer, it seems beneficial to be tied to a piece of (commercial) art. Ideally, this piece of art is also being pushed by a large corporation who will give the artist a huge budget to play with. But beyond the inescapability of the capitalist machine, these pieces of art stick and dominate the summer because they truly win their spot in the zeitgeist.
In order to own the summer, your content must do three things well:
✅ Correctly capture the vibe
Pop culture phenomenons like brat and Barbie get credit for setting off massive trends. But actually what they’re doing is masterfully capturing the emergent vibe and putting it into art that can be digested by the mainstream. This art strikes a cord and ignites a larger conversation in the monoculture inviting literally everyone to participate in it. It’s a way to publicly work through the things we’re all thinking and feeling without actually talking about the deeper issues:
brat summer was embracing messiness: brat summer was marked by an obnoxious green color and a general celebration of being messy and partying. This was a reaction to the hyper-femininity of the summer before and aesthetics like “clean girl” and “trad wives” dominating the trending discourse.
Barbie summer was pro-women: Barbie didn’t resonate because it was time for pink to be in trend again, Barbie resonated because we as a culture were finally ready to grapple with the things said in America Ferrera’s speech. Remember how feminists found it to be just scratching the surface while Shakira found it to be controversial? But both saw it and talked about it!
Hot Girl Summer was pro-confidence: Despite Old Town Road being the official Billboard song of the summer in 2019, culturally we look back on 2019 as Hot Girl Summer™. Megan the Stallion gets naming credit because “Hot Girl Summer™” more accurately encapsulated the vibe than Old Town Road did. (Though Old Town Road foreshadowed country music’s rise in relevance, so props to Lil Nas)
"It has to come naturally. It has to be magic. You can't force it, you have to live it. For example, song of the summer just has to happen and we have to live the summer in order to find it.”
–
, Internet Librarian***
Things are just getting interesting! Unlock the rest of the article and our complete archive of digital strategy resources for just $8/month. (Yes, you can expense it using our template here).
In the paid portion of this email,
breaks out 2 more content must-haves for brands looking to capitalize on the summer with notable examples from years past. Stay tuned for later this month where will be diving into her major prediction for the summer 👀But in the meantime, we want to hear from you! Drop your summer trend predictions in the comments [and please tag us!] 😎
The next time your in a meeting and someone is trying to figure out how to action on this summer’s trends or is trying to predict the theme of the summer, here’s what you say…
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