Feral Girl Summer

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About

Feral Girl Summer is a slang term used in reference to a summer season where girls act carelessly and "feral" in the name of having a good time by partying, acting chaotic, drinking and generally not caring what others think of your behavior. The term was coined in 2019 and became popularized on TikTok in February 2022 in videos celebrating the "feral party rat" lifestyle.

Origin

It's unclear when the term "feral girl summer" was first coined, but is likely inspired by the term "Hot Girl Summer." The first available tweet using the phrase was posted by Twitter^[11] user @CU22PBBY on July 6th, 2019, writing, "hot girl summer is over and feral girl summer is just beginning" (shown below). On June 23rd, 2021, Vice^[9] published an article titled "The Freedom of ‘Feral Girl Summer,’" linking to a tweet^[10] from August 2019 using the term.

Spread

2022 Resurgence

On January 10th, 2022, TikToker^[1] @__mull posted a video judging people who don't want to act like a "feral rodent" on the weekends to balance out their normal lifestyle, gaining over 65,000 views in four months (shown below, left). She continued to post videos espousing the feral girl lifestyle over the following months, including an upload on March 6th that gained over 612,000 views in two months (shown below, right).

On February 23rd, TikToker^[8] @horrible.glitter posted a video using the term, gaining over 189,000 views in three months (shown below).

On March 16th, @__mull posted a video to TikTok^[2] where she predicts that Summer 2022 will be a "feral girl summer," gaining over 300,000 views in two months (shown below).

The term spread over the following months as TikTokers made videos about Summer 2022 being a "feral girl summer." On April 19th, 2022, TikToker^[6] @kirakosarin posted a video about feral girl summer, gaining over 291,000 views in a month (shown below, left). On the same day, TikToker^[7] @russhmagazine posted a video showing off feral girl summer icons, gaining over 30,000 views in the same span of time (shown below, right).

On May 5th, Rebel Wilson talked about it being a feral girl summer on the Today show in a clip posted to TikTok,^[4] gaining over 30,000 views in three weeks (shown below). On May 24th, Today^[3] posted an article about feral girl summer and the Today show discussion.

On May 24th, Twitter^[5] @theofficetv, the official Twitter account for The Office, posted an image of Kelly Kapoor, writing, "Kelly Kapoor: The feral girl summer inspo," gaining over 1,600 likes in a day (shown below).