Whether it’s Brat, White Boy, Hot Girl, Barbenheimer or way back to the Summer of Love, Americans love to give summer a theme.
Yet, in 2025, we just couldn’t get it together to make this summer anything.
It’s not for a lack of options to get excited about — we had Labubus, Coldplay cheaters, And Just Like That, Jet2 Holidays, and a new American pope to choose from. Nor is it a lack of trying, because there’s few things Americans love more than turning a season into a shared experience, even if participation is somewhat ironic.
But this summer, the only real shared theme was our unstoppable apathy.
Take, for instance, the lack of a “song of the summer,” a tradition that goes back decades if not centuries. These days, we can usually identify it as the song blasting from car stereos as they head to the beach or similar. Despite super popular tunes from Netflix’s impossibly charming, animated feature K-Pop Demon Hunters, the best efforts from Addison Rae’s paean to passenger princess romance, and the barrage of interchangeable Christian-coded rock, there wasn’t one inexorable, summertime smash that defined the last few months. Charli XCX, whose Brat summer finally ended after over a year, attempted to pass the mantle to 26 or so artists (including the aforementioned Rae). Like the others, none of these options took hold.
The closest thing we got to a song of summer was actually an eight second soundbyte cut from the low-cost UK airline Jet2. People shared and posted their personal bloopers (falling, flailing, failing, flopping) with the opening intro, “Nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday…” But that trend was more about looking back at our embarrassing moments with sardonic glee, not a rallying cry for this summer’s parties. The only thing it made clear was that the public yearns for America’s Funniest Home Videos.
It’s not like there weren’t other dominating trends either. But no one has been brave or unhinged enough to dub the last few months “Hot Labubu summer.”
This summer wasn’t about what we loved, it was about what we obsessed with but — like the tiny mythical elf turned plastic trinket that is Labubu — kind of hated. Whether it was Dubai Chocolate, pickles, West Village Girls, ChatGPT and AI, the $19 Erewhon strawberry, or Sydney Sweeney’s jeans, everything we talked about this summer (and for the past year) seemed to be fueled by disdain. If everyone genuinely liked Labubus, they wouldn’t be nearly as inescapable as they are now.
The truth may be that we’re all burnt out and the idea of putting in the work to make the time of year we’re in “fun” is impossible. Everything somehow became exhausting. Perhaps monoculture didn’t die as much as we found a way to tire it out, making even our obsessions loathsome. These days, everything is one minute away from becoming a political culture war.
Charli XCX’s “Brat summer,” for instance, was never really invented to be made into a Kamala Harris endorsement, so when that happened, it did seem to siphon the joy out of it. There is nothing fun about being made to think about whether Harris is or is not Brat, and it was inexorably worse listening to wonks parse out the question online. It’s not unlike watching the White House’s social media account vaporize the delight out of a Jet2 Holiday trend. Apparently, there are now people upset over the Cracker Barrel logo because it removed the man and his barrel.
Is Kamala still Brat? Is Cracker Barrel woke? Will Jet2 disavow the White House?
These questions feel like cruel punishments. When will the United Nations step in? The battles are constant, and in this time of great sociopolitical upheaval, no entity truly has the level of culture dominance necessary to “declare” anything that feels truly mass.
There are signs that this American exhaustion is not bound to summer.
Apple orchard aficionados and corn maze maestros across the country were briefly plunged into a pre-seasonal panic when it was announced that Christian Girl Autumn was not happening this year, according to the most important Christian Girl who celebrates Autumn.
“I just — I’m not going to be able to post fall videos this year,” said influencer Caitlin Covington, who has been the earnest and ironic avatar for the fall season and all of its aesthetics (cider doughnuts, chunky knitwear, leaves changing, Vermont, pumpkins, etc.) since 2019.
Her reasoning? It was just too much. “It’s just a lot of pressure to make each video better than the last, make each fall trip better, and I just really need a break this year,” she added.
To all the 63-degree-loving fall girlies, this must’ve been what it felt like to watch Achilles fall in the last moments of the Trojan war. Unlike Achilles, however, Covington, with a fresh blowout, announced that she was “just kidding” a few hours later.
When Covington mentioned that she was tired, the public reaction wasn’t shock or admonishment, but relatability. We’re drained, too. Enjoying a trend called “Christian Girl Autumn” as the comments talk about trad wives and gender roles? Pass, too hard.
We can’t even cobble together a summer celebration that we can all agree on. The only thing we may all actually share in this fall is a continuation of our hot weather apathy, a burnt out numbness that not even a Christian Girl Autumn may fix.
That is, unless Covington’s fall photoshoot is really, really good.
