In the storied tradition of American summers, from the nostalgia-laced ‘Summer of Love’ to the more contemporary ‘Hot Girl Summer,’ each season usually bears a captivating theme. However, in the year 2025, it seems that we Americans have failed to designate a defining theme to encapsulate the spirit of the season. Despite the abundance of potential themes, including ‘Labubus,’ ‘Coldplay Cheaters,’ the much-awaited TV series ‘And Just Like That,’ and the election of a new American Pope, nothing stood out enough for us to rally behind.
This isn’t due to a lack of effort. After all, the collective American zeitgeist revels in the ritual of translating a season into a shared theme, often enjoying the ironic overtones this activity inevitably brings along. Yet, this summer had a rather distinct, and far from enjoyable, theme of overwhelming apathy.
A testament to this sentiment was the notable absence of a universally acclaimed ‘song of the summer.’ This is a revered tradition, marking our summer days with memorable soundtracks blaring from cars en route to sunny beaches and festive hangouts. But this year, despite the presence of hit songs from Netflix’s endearing animated feature ‘K-Pop Demon Hunters,’ Addison Rae’s compelling tribute to an illusory princess fantasy, and a flood of Christian-themed rock music, not a single song managed to capture the essence of this summer.
Indeed, it wasn’t any of these potentially immersive themes that encapsulated the summer of 2025, but instead a theme reflected through the lens of resounding contempt. In this cynicism-drenched climate, discussions gravitated towards subjects such as ‘Dubai Chocolate,’ the unusual popularity of pickles, the stylish ‘West Village Girls,’ advancements in AI like ‘ChatGPT’, or the exorbitantly priced $19 Erewhon strawberry. Bizarrely, even Sydney Sweeney’s choice of jeans became a subject of much debate.
Paradoxically though, it seemed these trending, yet controversial themes, were fueled more by collective distaste than by authentic enthusiasm. The increasingly unavoidable ‘Labubus,’ for example, was memorable more for the widespread resentment it invoked than any profound affection it attracted.
Though it might seem reductionist to label this pervasive negativity as mere ‘burn out,’ there likely exists some truth in bundling these feelings of fatigue under that simplistic term. The concept of investing energy into celebrating a particular period of the year has seemingly become a Herculean task, one that we seem less and less capable of accomplishing.
In this tired climate, even the once-enticing cultural monoliths have begun to lose their appeal, their once inspiring presence eliciting feelings of weariness more than excitement. This pervasive fatigue has rendered our obsessions not only tiresome but also at times, outright repulsive.
The volatile climate today has transformed nearly everything into potential ammunition for a political culture war. And this certainly hasn’t been helped by the infuriatingly pointless debates surrounding political figures like Harris. The fact that this is now intrinsic to our online discourse is as exhausting as it is divisively unproductive.
The ludicrous question of whether the Cracker Barrel logo becoming ‘woke’ due to the new visual identity sans the man and his barrel is another testament to these seemingly never-ending culture war skirmishes. It raises the question of where the line will be drawn, and perhaps, more importantly, when will we collectively grow tired enough of these battles to call for a cease-fire?
In this sociopolitically charged atmosphere, it seems improbable that any single entity could weave a narrative strong enough to unite us all under a single, shared cultural umbrella. This exhaustion isn’t just confined to the summer season but appears to be seeping into other aspects of our shared existence as well.
Fall wasn’t spared from this universal apathy either. For ardent ‘fall-lovers,’ the prevailing sense of exhaustion could be likened to watching their hero, Achilles, meet his fatal end in the Trojan War. The public confession of fatigue by Covington, far from being met with shock, resonated with many, reflective of the collective exhaustion weighing heavily on us all.
Ambiguous trends like ‘Christian Girl Autumn’ did little to lift the collective spirits, as the ensuing discourse inevitably shifted towards traditional wife roles and gender norms. The thought of attempting to enjoy such a trend simply added to the prevailing exhaustion.
Ultimately, the daunting task of forging a united summer celebration felt like a task too colossal, further feeding into our collective apathy. As we head into fall, it seems this broiling summer lethargy may well continue to overshadow everything, insulating us in a blanket of numbness that even the purported ‘Christian Girl Autumn’ theme might fail to penetrate.
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