Full On: What is Rat Girl Summer?
The Muse Letter No. 130
Two years ago in the midst of the pandemic and the first summer after the big lockdown, I wrote about “The Rot Girl Summer” a subversion to the infamous Hot Girl Summer.
“Wait a second till I find my joy. It must be here somewhere.”
I wrote, contemplating the idea of forced happiness. Of this feeling that the Hot Girl Summer demands, that things need to happen. NOW! That summer has this manic energy of more, more, more. How do you like it? How do you like it? As if we’d need to break out into song every day the sun makes an entrance.
Back then a lot of the apathy had to do with the immediate and ongoing effects of the pandemic:
“Last night I was out for dinner with a friend, the first time since November (?) that I’ve entered a restaurant and sat down and had a meal without alcohol but that’s going to change next week when that will be possible again in Scotland and we sat there, shouting at each other because: wow was it loud in here, was everybody just…