White Boy Summer

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Part of a series on Hot Girl Summer. [View Related Entries]

About

White Boy Summer is a mock movement started by the son of the actor Tom Hanks Chet Hanks. Many interpreted this as a call for social liberation of caucasian men, allowing them to act and dress in ways that make them feel most comfortable, similar to Hot Girl Summer and Christian Girl Autumn. After posting a video in which he launched the idea, many mocked the idea, arguing that white men are not in need of liberation and joking about stereotypes about white culture, focusing on the fashions and attitudes of white men.

Origin

On March 26th, 2021, Chet Hanks published a video on Instagram in which he said that has "this feeling that this summer is about to be a 'white boy summer.'" He clarified that this was not meant in connection to American conservatism. "I'm not talking about Trump, you know, NASCAR type white," he said. "I'm talking about me, Jon B, Jack Harlow type white boy summer. Let me know if you guys can vibe with that and get ready, because I am." The post received more than 330,000 views and 57,000 likes in less than three days (shown below).

Spread

That day, Twitter user @KaraBTweets tweeted the video, receiving more than 4.9 million views, 94,000 likes and 24,000 retweets in less than three days (shown below).

Following the post, people began making jokes about the "White Boy Summer" idea, particularly on Twitter where people theorized what a "White Boy Summer" would look like. On March 27th, 2021, for example, Twitter user @itsthereal tweeted a TikTok video of a white man dancing like Michael Jackson to Jackson's song "Smooth Criminal."

Throughout the day, people posted images and jokes about White Boy Summer. For example, Twitter^[1] user @DylanTop5 posted a photo of Hanks and comedian Larry David wearing revolutionary war costumes on the set of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The post received more than 29,000 likes and 2,300 retweets in less than two days (shown below, left). Twitter^[2] user @gaysex420 posted an image of actors Glenn Howerton and Christina Hendricks with the caption, "putting this on my vision board for white boy summer." The tweet received more than 13,000 likes and 900 retweets in less than two days (shown below, center).

Others posted images of other celebrities speaking Hanks' words. On March 27th, Twitter^[3] user @jacob__posts tweeted a photo of director David Lynch with the chyron featuring Hanks words from the original video. The post received more than 9,000 likes and 900 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below, right).

On March 27th, Twitter user @neurotard shared a series of Instagram Stories from Hanks, in which he lays out the rules and regulations for "White Boy Summer." In the video, Hanks says that salmon-colored clothes, no plaid shirts, Sperry Top-sider boat shoes and no calling women "smokeshows." The post received more than 2.4 million views, 46,000 likes and 10,000 retweets in less than 24 hours (shown below).

Several media outlets covered the videos and reaction, including PopBuzz,^[4] The Daily Dot, ^[5] The Cut,^[6] BET,^[7] The Wrap^[8] and more.

White Boy Summer 2024

On the evening of May 20th, 2024, Chet Hanks posted to his official Instagram account that he believed 2024 would be another "WBS," or "White Boy Summer" due to his interpretation of a series of mystical signs including seeing his shadow, perhaps in reference to superstitions in American culture about groundhogs that can predict the length of seasons. The post (seen below) received over 28,000 likes in less than a day.^[9]

In response to Chet Hanks' forecast of a White Boy Summer, people online began commenting on the white boy summer idea and making memes. For example, @KalTopius016 (seen below) posted a George Bush Learning About 9/11 meme about the oncoming White Boy Summer, earning over 440 likes in less than a day on May 21st.^[12]

Earlier, on April 19th, 2024, a memecoin called $WBS, representing White Boy Summer, began trading on crypto marketplaces. At the time of the Hanks tweet a month later, the coin was worth just over one cent for each with a total market cap of $14 million with just under a billion White Boy Summer meme coins in circulation.^[10] Fans of the meme coin promoted it with edits posted to social media that combined clips of meme footage with clips of cars, weaponry and Caucasian people, including the one (seen below) by @thuleluca on X, which received over 180 likes in six days.^[11] @thuleluca's username and other content posted on their pages makes references to the esoteric and white supremacist Hyperborea edits tradition.