We're Having an Old Man Summer
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Hi friends!
Summer has unofficially begun, and you know what that means: It’s about to get hotter down here in hell. I enter this season having recently unlocked a new level of “truly fucking can’t,” and though I didn’t know that was even possible mere weeks ago, I feel like it’s setting me up for summertime success; I am crazy, and therefore I am free.
Two summers ago, in the wake of — trigger warning for Jake Tapper if he’s reading this — Joe Biden declaring he was running for president again, I declared that it was officially “Old Man Summer.” Instead of having a “Sad Bitch Summer” spent weeping over old dudes hoarding power in an era where we need fresh ideas and radical change, I thought it might be best to try and beat them at their own game:
Old Man Summer is the mindset we’ve been waiting for. No longer will we worry about looking hot, we can just look however we look and hit on anyone who crosses our paths. We will unapologetically be ourselves, and those selves will be wickedly stubborn and get their way. We’ll just be having a good time, eating dinner early, traveling in compression socks, blaming everyone else, and taking no prisoners. Who needs to be a bad bitch when you can be that bastard?
Because this is the Age of Unhingement™, each year, we must now put a name to the summer lest there be no grist for the seasonal content mill. Last summer was not an “Old Man Summer,” but it was very much a summer where the vibes were marred by compulsory, intermissionless political theater starring two of our most persistent old men. It was also not actually a “Brat Summer” — in my world, at least. I’m a millennial broad who barely remembers a weekend from 2007-2015, not a 23-year-old twink who has anxiety leaving my bedroom yet yearns to try cocaine for the first time tonight. And even though I made a “Substack Summer” meme that launched a vendetta to remember, I would have to compassionately euthanize myself if I ever took the idea of a “Substack Summer” seriously.
I’m still not really sure what happened last summer, aside from me writing a lot. As I said in my recap of the season, I ended it feeling like I had been ejected from John Malkovich’s brain. Honestly, it took me like six months to find my way back from Jersey, in a spiritual sense, and I’ve had enough. If the old men still insist on hogging center stage while they torture us in new and expanded ways, it’s time for us to, once again, try and beat them at their own devilish game: Old Man Summer is back, we’re going to let it all hang out, and not a single apology will be made.
This summer, I will be living the dream. And that dream is to work a lot less than I have the past two summers (semi-retirement), tinker with my personal projects (old men have hobbies), do what I want within reason, and be the realest version of me in resistance to the dual specters of authoritarianism and conformity that are currently haunting the zeitgeist.
You know what an old man doesn’t do? Say shit like, “we’re so cooked” because “everyone has main character energy” while continuing to stare at a screen for eternity. Old (white) men are still the real main characters because they are literally the patriarchy. Though they may participate in and enjoy social media (*cough* Truth Social), they do not experience the same collective internet psychodrama as the rest of us. That psychodrama, which is co-produced by algorithms, a bunch of rotten, trendwashed minds that can’t stop posting, and a frankly embarrassing level of cultural insecurity, makes too many of us buy the same shit that we don’t need, go to the same dumb places, and care way too much about what other people think.
Old men take Ozempic because they have diabetes, not because, at least for women, being frail and hungry is trending again. Old men don’t know what a fucking Labubu is. Old men don’t spill their guts to ChatGPT. Instead, they tamp their feelings down into a tiny, little cube that will probably turn into colon cancer, and yes, they’re also prone to getting tricked by AI in a different way, but we’re just taking the good here and leaving the rest behind. It’s Old Man Summer and that means we get to figure it out in motion and make the rules up as we please.
“Old Man” is an aspirational lifestyle when you really think about it. They live in a version of this world that no longer exists for younger men and they don’t have to expend as much energy as women because they weren’t programmed to take everything on from birth. I can only speak for us gals, but we are so very over it. We will be too busy cosplaying “problematic king” this summer to deal with extraneous bullshit. Unreciprocated emotional labor? Picking up everyone else’s slack at work? Cleaning up literal and figurative messes we had nothing to do with? Being gaslit when we try and have boundaries? Not in THIS insanity economy where our energy is more precious than ever. Like generations of old men before me, this summer I expect to be taken care of, and I will have not one ounce of shame about putting myself first.
Old men are certainly not the solution to our problems, especially not the problems we need to solve to keep living on this planet while they get to dip out and leave us to repair the damage. But, maybe, just maybe, the rest of us acting a bit more like them could be a start?
Who knows? Let’s try it!
Before I go, I have a fun announcement: In honor of the grand return of Old Man Summer, I am bringing back the cult hit OLD MAN SUMMER DADDY HAT as an exclusive for anyone who upgrades to a BIAD Founding Membership aka the “Old Man Gang” before Labor Day.
During the inaugural Old Man Summer, my life protégé Alex and her very fun friends embraced the ethos of the season so deeply that they simply required merch. And who was I to deny them? So I appointed Alex to CHO (Chief Hat Officer) of BIAD Inc. and she brought their vision to life wonderfully.
I don’t want to get too cocky, but I do think that the OLD MAN SUMMER DADDY HAT could be the cure to the loneliness epidemic. It almost always prompts a convo and is a big hit with Trader Joe’s employees, non-binary baristas, and hot dads out on walks in my neighborhood. And in case you were ever like, “Who does this lady think she’s writing” for?”— now you know my target demos.
So, upgrade your dealio, support me and my work in the unhingement/derangement sciences, get a cute hat (it comes in black, green, lavender, and pink as modeled by moi — more pics and details to come) and join the Old Man Summer revolution!
Less Lessons More Blessin’s™
Liz
P.S. Shoutout to my beloved Aussie readers who are actually entering Old Man Winter — I see you and I appreciate you and I love the special creatures you have over there and I acknowledge your reverse seasonal predicament. Thank you for reading and please do revisit this six months from now. ❤️
Love it. Also, "collective internet psychodrama" is the phrase I needed to remember that the online madness is not, in fact, real life.
Hilarious! Makes me think of the word 'codger'. Do you use it in America? I am in Australia and it's not a particularly flattering word. Describes the old guys you are talking about - cranky, self-important, out of touch. I think we need to revive it's usage - name what we're talking about in a specific way.