In the spring of 2021, Chet Hanks, singer, actor and son of Tom, released a series of statements and a music video with a chorus that caused confusion, not to mention a little embarrassment. He declared that it was going to be a “white boy summer.”
Whatever exactly he meant at the time, the phrase has since morphed into a catchphrase for white supremacists and other hate-speech organizations, according to a report released Tuesday by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, an organization that tracks the spread of racism.
Thousands of posts have appeared on the Telegram app this year with the slogan “white boy summer.” Far-right groups have used it to recruit new followers, organize protests and encourage violence, especially against immigrants and LGBTQ people, according to the report.
For many who use it now, the phrase represents an unapologetic acceptance of white heterosexual masculinity, often at the expense of women and people of color.
Increasingly, the meme has moved from the fringes of the Internet into the political mainstream in the United States and other parts of the world, said one of the group’s founders, Wendy Via.
Jack Posobiec, a podcaster whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has linked to white supremacists, waved a sign with the words “white boy summer” at a meeting of Turning Point USA, a conservative group, in Detroit last month. Former President Donald J. Trump was the keynote speaker at the conference, along with several members of Congress.
“What matters is the speed and the devastating impact that something like this can have,” Via said of Hanks’s phrase. Extremists, she added, “are harming people all over the world in the name of this.”
Hanks, 33, did not respond to numerous requests for comment through his social media accounts and the talent agency that represents him. He began using the phrase in a series of social media posts in 2021 about fashion and other advice for men. In one of those posts, he seemed to anticipate that the meaning of the words required some explanation.
“Take it how you want it,” he said in an Instagram post in March. “I’m not talking about Trump, the white guy from NASCAR,” he continued, saying he was referring to people like himself and two other white R&B artists, Jon B. and Jack Harlow. “Let me know if you can vibe with that. And get ready, because I will.”
Its music video, produced under the name Chet Hanx, appeared the following month. It was a sort of homage to Megan Thee Stallion’s hit from two years earlier, “Hot Girl Summer,” featuring Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign.
It is filled with profanity, sexist and racial slurs, but also ends with an image of Mr. Hanks wearing a T-shirt with the words “stop the hate.”
“White Boy Summer” is not the first art creation that white supremacists have hijacked and used online to incite hate.
Pepe the Frog, a comic book character created by Matt Furie, became so popular in racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic memes that the Anti-Defamation League classified him as a hate symbol in 2016. Furie retired the character a year later, but it still circulates in ways he never intended.
Even before the meme, Hanks had received criticism for using (and defending) a racial slur against black people. He was also accused of cultural appropriation after he began using Jamaican dialect as an affectation in public appearances, including at the 2020 Golden Globes, where Tom Hanks received the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
As a meme and hashtag, “white boy summer” has been adopted with each passing summer by groups like the Proud Boys and “active clubs,” groups that mix racist ideologies with martial arts and other activities.
Though most prevalent on fringe sites filled with extremist content, such as Gab, Rumble, and 4chan, the phrase also appears regularly on X, Instagram, Facebook, and other major social media platforms, often with Nazi imagery. The phrase and its various hashtags appear to skirt policies banning hate speech in part because it is often used euphemistically or ironically.
“While this trend/meme originated on the far right, it is definitely infiltrating more ‘mainstream’ right-wing discourse,” said Todd Gutnick, a spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League, which documented the early spread of the slogan.
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism report noted that the meme is now being used by extremist groups in countries around the world.
One group in France created stickers with the phrase — in English — for its members to distribute, while another in Finland held an annual festival last month using the phrase as its name. Writing about last year’s event, Bellingcat, an investigative organization, reported that attendees “watched far-right bands perform, took part in combat sports and mingled with other hate group members in hot tubs.”
“The far right is adept at bringing its hateful ideologies to the general public, especially through the use of social media,” the report states, “and the already viral ‘white boy summer’ has proven to be the perfect transition to spread its bigotry to a wider audience.”
Hanks, who also previously starred as Chet Haze, has had highly publicized problems with drugs and allegations of domestic abuse that have contributed to his rebellious persona as an entertainer. “He’s a grown man,” his older half-brother Colin, who is also an actor, said in a 2016 radio interview, when asked if he ever chimed in with advice. “He’s going to do what he wants to do.”
Tom Hanks does not appear to have made any public comments about his relationship with Chet Hanks, although the son recently posted an intergenerational text message exchange with him about the recent feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar. In an interview with The New York Times in 2019, the father described his experience as a father.
“At some point I realized that the only thing I think a parent can really do eventually is say, ‘I love you, there’s nothing you can do wrong, you can’t hurt my feelings, I hope you forgive me from time to time, and what do you need me to do? ’” she said.
Despite the controversy over its spread, Hanks continues to embrace the meme. “I’ve consulted the heavens, felt a westerly breeze, walked out of a strip club and seen my shadow…” he wrote on Instagram in May. “This is gonna be a #WBS.” He ended the post with a church emoji.
