Summer 2024, You Have Major Icon Potential

Not to say I told you so, but pop girlies are like so totally back…

This is a PSA to my FYP to please stop putting trucker hats with phrases like “Save Water. Drink Tequila.” stitched into them on my feed. I’m not interested. Yes, offense. This is me telling you in the nicest way that, while I hate to trend shame, please avoid wearing unironic graphic trucker hats this summer season.

Ironic ones are okay. Anyway.

Rat girl this. Tomato girl that. The girls are over girling.

Beyond the lazy Vogue articles sure to cover fashion and culture trends by literally regurgitating a TikTok word for word, I have a feeling this summer will definitely be one for the books. We try our best to make every summer iconic, sometimes without success. We’re adults now and schlep to work in the heat to earn money to pay for our mezcal margaritas on sexy rooftops. But this summer it seems like the perfect storm. It’s a convergence of pop culture, music, and politics all about to collide during what is likely to be one of the hottest summers on record.

Literally.

Not since 2016 have we had such a convergence. That summer is fondly remembered by this generation as one of the greats. Lemonade, Life of Pablo, and Blonde all in one summer. Pokémon Go. The last year of the Obama administration. It was hazy and blissful. It was the before, whereas eight years later, we live in the after. And now we are nostalgic for optimism. And excitement.

It’s early May and we’re already off to the races with one of the most iconic rap beefs in history boiling over. As I type this, I worry that Kendrick is circling overhead Drake’s Toronto mansion waiting for the perfect time to drop another nuclear missile. Taylor Swift is becoming old news as Sabrina Carpenter is poised to carry the crown of number one girly pop this summer with her global smash hit “Espresso.” And all the transplants out there are rediscovering their small town roots with each loop of “YA YA” off Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter.

But is it magic or tension in the air?

The vibe this summer according to my Pinterest.

We bury our heads in our phones, doing our best to avoid glancing up reading the dystopian headlines on our television screens. A man with 88 pending criminal charges is poised to resume his reign of the free world after what felt like a very brief four-year hiatus. I’m afraid the alternative is geriatric. It’s hard to not feel cynical. We’re fucked either way. Either way, it feels like we’re doomed, sentenced to an unknown number of years paying $5 for milk, $8 for cereal, and exponentially more for the roofs over our heads and the student debt burning our credit reports.

What else are we to do but order yet another $16 mezcal margarita?

To be totally honest with you, dear reader, I have no idea what awaits us at the end of this summer. We can be nostalgic for optimism, but that doesn’t mean we’re optimistic. For now, it seems the stars are aligned to give us one more unforgettable hurrah to aid our misery. Perhaps the only cure for now will be to put down our phones, go outside, and soak up the sun before it’s too late.

Cheers.