Humans tend to attach a lot of importance to seasons. Our holidays, activities, and even our mythologies usually revolve around the dependable cycle of winter, spring, summer and fall. But every so often, a season comes around that feels different. Special. Worthy of, perhaps, a particular name. I’m not talking about tomato girl summer, or short king spring. I’m not even talking about the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson. I’m talking about brat summer.
[girl, so confusing]
Brat summer gets its name and its signature neon green aesthetic from the album of the same name by Charli XCX, which was released on June 7, 2024, and quickly became a cultural phenomenon, debuting at number 3 on the Billboard 200 in America. The album cover was iconic and extremely copyable, which could have been one of the reasons it went so viral, so quickly. But brat summer was more than just the music or the album cover.
Eleni Tecos: I feel like Brat Summer is unhinged, like, Female Rage. It’s like angry but sexy.
Brat summer started as a celebration of club classics and pop music, but it quickly became something more. Brat summer is a philosophy, an album, an ethos, and a rallying cry all at once. It was so popular, Charli XCX released an entire album of remixes on October 11, featuring artists like Ariana Grande and Caroline Polachek.
[Sympathy is a knife]
So that begs the question: are we headed for a remix of brat summer, but autumnal? Or is there a new cultural commodity on the horizon, poised to take over? To answer, I asked Northwestern students to pitch me the sequel to brat summer. Would it be a pesto fall? A gregory alan isakov autumn? Here’s what they said:
[music here too tbh]
Aashna Rai: I believe it’s democracy fall. Because the American election is on everybody’s minds and we only hope that democracy succeeds this one time.
That was junior Aashna Rai, whose practical suggestion evoked the sense of a rather frenetic fall season, full of mail-in ballots for students far from home. But Medill junior Eleni Tecos had a much different vision for the coming season.
Eleni Tecos: But I feel like it’s like enlightenment fall. Like, I feel like we’re coming back to our roots. Like we’re, it’s not quite dark academia, but I feel like it’s like reflective of like brat summer of like what just happened. I feel, I feel like it’s thoughtful.
Unlike Tecos’ more philosophical interpretation of the prompt, Librarian Assistant Peggah Ghoreishi gave her pitch a slogan. And hers was a little more connected to pop culture, invoking a certain iconic baby hippo.
Peggah Ghoreishi: I think that it’s Moo Deng Fall. I think we should all be moist, plump and ungovernable.
Of course, none of these suggestions are mutually exclusive – it can be Moo Deng fall and Brat autumn.
Other students, like Weinberg senior Peter Ryan and McCormick junior Victoria Laguerre, had much more practical reasons for their picks.
Peter Ryan: This is baseball fall. Baseball is on the up, Shohei Ohtani and the Dodgers I think are as popular a baseball team as there’s been in a few years, both teams from New York are still in.
Peter Ryan: So I think there are probably more people watching the baseball playoffs this year and there have been a long time.
Victoria Laguerre: Formula Fall because I’m on Formula One race club at Northwestern. We make a electric vehicle from scratch every year.
Weinberg senior Grace Knickrehm didn’t have a name for her fall, but she did have a goal, and the sense that this particular season, for her at least, was more significant than others.
Grace Knickrehm: This fall is all about enjoying little things like watching the leaves fall off the trees and making apple cider because it’s senior year and we have to take it all in. Yay!
So maybe it’s frazzled Englishwoman fall. Perhaps audiobook autumn! Whatever you decide to make the focus of your season, it should be something that lets you appreciate the little things. And perhaps also female rage.
[club classics]
For WNUR News, I’m Mika Ellison
