Feral Girl Summer

2019Slang / lifestyle trendsemi-active

Published March 10, 2026 · Updated March 18, 2026

Also known as: Feral Summer · Feral Rat Summer

Feral Girl Summer is a slang term and lifestyle trend celebrating a chaotic, carefree approach to summer where girls party hard, act unhinged, and reject the pressure to be polished or optimized. Coined on Twitter in 2019 as a counterpoint to Megan Thee Stallion's "Hot Girl Summer," the phrase blew up on TikTok in early 2022 and crossed into mainstream media when Rebel Wilson and the hosts of the Today show championed it on air1.

summer trend memesera format memesfemale solidarity memescountertrend memeslifestyle motto memes

Overview

Feral Girl Summer is about ditching the curated, wellness-optimized version of yourself and leaning into mess. Where Hot Girl Summer was about confidence and looking good, Feral Girl Summer flips that script: skip the 5 AM green juice routine, do your cardio on the dance floor with a drink in hand, and subsist on toast and takeaway because cooking requires too much structure3. The aesthetic borrows heavily from rat and raccoon imagery, positioning the "feral girl" as a party rodent rummaging through life's trash cans with zero shame1.

The concept functions as a more energized cousin of goblin mode. Both reject productivity culture and the pressure to perform a polished lifestyle on social media, but where goblin mode is about staying in bed and doing nothing, Feral Girl Summer sends you out the door to wreak havoc at the club1.

The earliest known use of the phrase appeared on Twitter on July 6, 2019, when user @CU22PBBY posted "hot girl summer is over and feral girl summer is just beginning"2. The tweet riffed directly on Megan Thee Stallion's "Hot Girl Summer," which had dominated online discourse that year. Vice picked up on the term in June 2021, publishing an article titled "The Freedom of 'Feral Girl Summer'" and linking to an August 2019 tweet that also used the phrase2.

But the term stayed relatively niche until early 2022, when TikTok gave it rocket fuel.

Origin & Background

Platform
Twitter (coinage), TikTok (viral spread)
Key People
@CU22PBBY, @__mull
Date
2019

The earliest known use of the phrase appeared on Twitter on July 6, 2019, when user @CU22PBBY posted "hot girl summer is over and feral girl summer is just beginning"2. The tweet riffed directly on Megan Thee Stallion's "Hot Girl Summer," which had dominated online discourse that year. Vice picked up on the term in June 2021, publishing an article titled "The Freedom of 'Feral Girl Summer'" and linking to an August 2019 tweet that also used the phrase2.

But the term stayed relatively niche until early 2022, when TikTok gave it rocket fuel.

How It Spread

On January 10, 2022, TikToker @__mull posted a video judging people who refuse to act like a "feral rodent" on weekends, picking up over 65,000 views2. She kept posting feral girl content through the winter and spring, including a March 6 upload that pulled 612,000 views and a March 16 video predicting Summer 2022 would officially be "feral girl summer," which hit 300,000 views2.

Other TikTokers piled on. On February 23, @horrible.glitter posted a feral girl summer video that reached 189,000 views2. By April, the trend was everywhere on the platform. TikToker @kirakosarin posted about it on April 19, gaining 291,000 views, and @russhmagazine shared feral girl summer icons on the same day2.

The mainstream media crossover came on May 5, 2022, when Rebel Wilson appeared on the Today show and was asked about Hot Girl Summer. Wilson pivoted: "I heard this thing called feral girl summer. It's when you don't care"1. The clip was posted to TikTok and pulled another 30,000 views2.

Later that month, Today hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager fully embraced the trend. At a red carpet event, Jenna told Entertainment Tonight: "It's a feral girl summer and we're leading the charge!" They later discussed it on a segment called "Trend or Pretend," where Jenna described it as speaking to "the wild child that lives inside all of us"1. The Today show published a full explainer article on May 241.

On the same day, the official Twitter account for The Office posted an image of Kelly Kapoor with the caption "Kelly Kapoor: The feral girl summer inspo," picking up over 1,600 likes2.

Platforms

TikTokRedditTwitter
View on Google Trends

How to Use This Meme

Feral Girl Summer is less a meme template and more a vibe declaration. People typically use it in a few ways:

1

Lifestyle manifesto videos on TikTok where you list your feral summer plans: no hair brushing, cheap beer, sunscreen-scented shirts, repeat1.

2

Contrast format where you compare a structured weekday self with a chaotic weekend self. As one TikToker put it: "My body is a temple on the weekdays, and a watering hole for vodka sodas on the weekends"1.

3

Anti-wellness posts rejecting 5 AM routines and green juices in favor of 4 AM Reddit holes and Diet Coke for breakfast1.

4

Rat/raccoon edits pairing feral animal imagery with party footage or going-out content1.

Create Your Own

Cultural Impact

Feral Girl Summer hit a nerve because it arrived after two years of pandemic-era restrictions followed by a hyper-curated "that girl" wellness aesthetic dominating TikTok. The trend gave people permission to reject the optimization treadmill without guilt.

The Today show coverage was significant. Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager didn't just report on the trend; they endorsed it. Hoda connected it to an Anne Lamott essay about body acceptance, recalling Lamott's message about wanting "to be free and feel the water on your body" without worrying what anyone thinks1. Jenna cited the Mary Oliver poem "I Worried," linking the feral mindset to a broader philosophy of letting go of self-consciousness1.

Lorde also aligned herself with the concept, describing her album on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert as "a little bit feral"1.

The trend's media adoption by figures spanning Gen Z TikTokers, millennial comedians like Rebel Wilson, and Boomer-generation TV hosts like Hoda showed that the "feral" impulse crossed generational lines, even if the language was distinctly Gen Z1.

Fun Facts

The concept predates its TikTok virality by nearly three years. The first tweet using the phrase appeared in July 2019, the same summer Hot Girl Summer was at its peak2.

Vice wrote about Feral Girl Summer in June 2021, a full seven months before TikTok made it mainstream2.

Urban Dictionary defines the feral girl as someone "too busy having fun to cook," subsisting on "a diet of toast and takeaways"3.

The Today show hosts got surprisingly literary about the trend, citing Anne Lamott and Mary Oliver to explain its appeal1.

The Office's official Twitter account named Kelly Kapoor as a feral girl summer icon, retroactively fitting the character into the trend2.

Derivatives & Variations

Feral Girl Summer Variations

Different takes on the Feral Girl Summer format with modified content

(2022)

Feral Girl Summer Mashups

Combinations of Feral Girl Summer with other popular memes

(2023)

Feral Girl Summer Remixes

Updated versions with current events and references

(2023)

Frequently Asked Questions