And just like that, the rodents are all dead. Traps were successfully laid and poison was sufficiently digested. As a result, they’ve been completely wiped out, leaving nothing but droppings in their trace. I’m not talking about actual rats, by the way. The rodents in question are male, human and what you might refer to as untraditionally handsome.
And, frankly, I’m mourning their loss.
To those who missed last summer’s “hot rodent boyfriend” trend, allow me to provide some crucial context. Like most internet trends, it started deep within TikTok’s agenda-setting universe and quickly became a global talking point. All because someone somewhere decided that all of Hollywood’s hottest men had an edge to them that looked a bit on the ratty side.
First, it was The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White. Then it was Barry Keoghan. Josh O’Connor. Not even perennial pinup Timothée Chalamet was safe from being included. All of these men had aesthetic idiosyncrasies that categorised them as sexy vermin.
As one TikTok user described it: “The ‘hot rodent boyfriend’ is essentially a hot guy, but he’s skinny, scrawny, a little weird-looking… but hot. Kind of grimy, for lack of a better word.”
Let me stop you before you get carried away in a confused Ratatouille haze because, as I said, the hot rodent boyfriend is dead. At least, that was the memo delivered by the latest issue of GQ, whose cover star is a brooding, leather-clad Brad Pitt, 61, representing the classic Hollywood hunk in all his alpha-male glory.
Accompanied by a short video posted on social media showing Pitt riding a motorbike through the mountains and lying on a chaise longue in a grease-stained T-shirt, muscular arms and chest on full display, the cover portrays a type of old-school masculinity that is very much in direct opposition to the hot rodent boyfriend: it’s like Brad Pitt v Johnny Depp in the Nineties’ battle of the teen bedroom posters all over again.
Obviously, this more classic look is going to appeal to a lot of people – GQ’s Instagram posts of Pitt have elicited thousands of comments from fans. Crucially, it’s one that always comes back into favour during times of economic and political turmoil.
But it doesn’t appeal to me. Like many of the women I know, I am a hot rodent boyfriend girl to my core.
Perhaps it’s the way that their attractiveness relies on their unconventional beauty; the fact that they don’t necessarily conform to archetypes of what society typically considers attractive. They look individual, rather than straight off a gym-to-sunbed pipeline. They offer something different. It also helps that Hollywood’s hot rodent boyfriends are closer to my age (31), with many of them in their early 30s.
Not that age gets in the way of the internet’s current boyfriend, the elder statesmen of hot rodent boyfriends, Pedro Pascal (50). It’s a vibe that’s inherently more mysterious and seductive.
Conversations around male beauty standards are always fascinating, not least because of how much they differ from those around women. The latter are so shamefully narrow that there’s almost no space for anything other than one mainstream aesthetic that some women will go to great lengths to achieve, whether that’s through intensive exercise, cosmetic “tweakments” or full-on plastic surgery.
Despite all our other societal progressions, little movement seems to be happening in this area. Women aren’t allowed to look too old, overweight or scruffy, and be in the public eye. We can’t dress too modestly without being labelled prim or flash too much flesh without being slut-shamed. Meanwhile, men can be nicknamed “rodents” (said with love, I promise) and still be considered gorgeous.
I realise I’m part of the problem here. But if ever there was a trend for “hot frog man”, I’d probably like that one too (mmm, such soulful eyes). For now, in a toss-up between the tribal alpha males and the individualistic hot rodent boyfriends, I know which side I’m on.
