Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson’s son Chet Hanks has opened up about a controversy surrounding a meme he posted some time back. The actor and singer had coined a ‘White Boy Summer’ meme in 2021. However, the term seemingly fell into the wrong hands, and ended up becoming a problem for Chet himself.
While he initially kept quiet about the controversy, he had to address it once it got put of hands. Chet Hanks recently took to Instagram to release a statement regarding the same. Here’s how the term started getting misused and what Chet Hanks said about it in his defense.
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Chet Hanks Coined ‘White Boy Summer’
Academy Award winner Tom Hanks’ son Chet Hanks is an actor and a musician with a considerable fan following online. Back in 2021, the 33-year-old jokingly coined the “White Boy Summer” Instagram meme. This was a play off Megan Thee Stallion’s “hot girl summer” and “Christian girl autumn.”
Chet Hanks had posted, “I just got this feeling man that this summer…it’s about to be a white boy summer.” He continued, “Take it how you want, I’m not talking about Trump, Nascar-type white. I’m talking about me, [rappers] Jon B. Jack Harlow-type white boys, you know what I mean.”
However, his playful and fun term has been adapted by white supremacists to mean something else. Many white supremacists started using it to defend their problematic actions, thereby putting Chet Hanks in a puddle.
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The Controversy Surrounding The Term “White Boy Summer”
Recently, a report released by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism said the phrase coined by Chet Hanks has been co-opted by white supremacist groups. “Over the past couple months, white supremacists and neo-Nazis have been calling for the destruction of Pride flags, killing “[N-word] and communists,’ and the creation of militias all under the slogan ‘White Boy Summer,’” read the report.
This naturally drew Chet Hanks’ attention. He released a post on Instagram that addressed the issue. “White boy summer was created to be fun, playful, and a celebration of fly white boys who love beautiful queens of every race,” the ‘Empire’ star wrote.
Hanks continued, “Anything else that it has been twisted into to support any kind of hate or bigotry against any group of people is deplorable and I condemn it. I hope that we all can spread love to each other and treat each other with kindness and dignity.”
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