How Hollywood star Tom Hanks’ son Chet Hanks spawned a hateful meme online

NEW YORK – In the spring of 2021, American singer-actor Chet Hanks, the son of Hollywood star Tom Hanks, posted a series of statements and a music video with a refrain that caused confusion, not to mention a fair bit of cringing.

He declared it was going to be a “white boy summer”.

Whatever he meant at the time, the phrase has since mutated into a slogan for white supremacists and other hate, according to a report published on Tuesday by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, an organisation that tracks the spread of racism.

Thousands of posts using the slogan “white boy summer” have appeared on the Telegram app in 2024. It has been used by far-right groups to recruit new followers, organise protests and encourage violence, especially against immigrants and LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) people, the report said.

For many of those who use it now, the phrase represents an unapologetic embrace of white heterosexual masculinity, often at the expense of women and people of colour.

Increasingly, the meme has moved from the fringes of the internet into the political mainstream around the world, said Ms Wendy Via, one of the group’s founders.

Podcaster Jack Posobiec, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has linked to white supremacists, waved a banner with the words “white boy summer” on it at a gathering for Turning Point USA, a conservative group, in Detroit in June. Former president Donald Trump was the conference’s keynote speaker, along with several members of Congress.

“It’s really about how quickly and how devastatingly something like this can go viral, and the impact it has,” Ms Via said of the phrase that Chet Hanks coined. Extremists, she added, “are hurting people all over the world in the name of this thing”.

But Hanks, 33, does not want his words to be misconstrued. He shared in a July 3 Instagram post: “White boy summer was created to be fun, playful, and a celebration of fly white boys who love beautiful queens of every race. 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.”

He added: “I hope that we all can spread love to one another and treat one another with kindness and dignity.”

He started using the phrase in a series of posts on social media 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 a post on Instagram that March. “I’m not talking about, like, Trump, Nascar-type white,” he went on, saying he meant people like himself and two other white American R&B artistes, Jon B and Jack Harlow. “Let me know if you guys can vibe with that. And get ready, ’cuz I am.”

His music video – produced under the name Chet Hanx – appeared the month after. It is a homage of sorts to the 2019 hit by American rapper Megan Thee Stallion, Hot Girl Summer, featuring Trinidadian rapper-singer Nicki Minaj and American singer Ty Dolla $ign.

It is replete with profanity, as well as sexist and racial slurs, but ends with an image of Hanks wearing a shirt with the words “stop hate” on it.

Even before the meme, Hanks faced criticism for using – and defending the use of – a racial slur against black people. He has also been accused of cultural appropriation after he started using, as an affectation, Jamaican patois in public appearances, including at the 2020 Golden Globes, where Tom Hanks, 67, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award.

As a meme and a hashtag, “white boy summer” has with each passing summer been embraced by groups like the Proud Boys and “active clubs”, groups that blend racist ideologies with martial arts and other activities.

While more prevalent on fringe sites populated by extremist content, including Gab, Rumble and 4chan, the phrase also appears regularly on X, Instagram, Facebook and other major social media platforms, often with nazi images. The phrase and its various hashtags appear to skirt policies that prohibit hate speech, in part because they are often used euphemistically or ironically.

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism report noted that the meme is now being used by extremist groups in countries around the world.

Chet Hanks, who also previously performed as Chet Haze, has had much-publicised struggles with drugs and accusations of domestic abuse that have contributed to his rebellious persona as a performer.

“He’s a grown man,” his older half-brother, actor Colin Hanks, said in a radio interview in 2016, when asked if he had ever intervened with advice. “He’s going to do what he wants to do.”

Tom Hanks does not appear to have commented publicly on his relationship with Chet Hanks, whose mother is American actress Rita Wilson, 67.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2019, Tom Hanks described his experience as a parent.

“Somewhere along the line, I figured out, the only thing really, I think, eventually, a parent can do is say, ‘I love you, there’s nothing you can do wrong, you cannot hurt my feelings, I hope you will forgive me on occasion, and what do you need me to do?’” he said. NYTIMES