The tabloid media has invented another way to explain people’s attraction to the actual status quo. They’re not objectively ugly dudes, they’re “sexy rat men”, and the internet is currently filled up with articles explaining their “rise”.
“Who is a rodent man?”, the New York Times asked, then, “What are they? Tiny men? Men who eat garbage? Some kind of furry science experiment gone wrong?”. The tabloids declared “The internet is lusting after hot rodent men”, and even The Guardian weighed in, “The hot rodent boyfriend: why Gen Z has gone wild for ‘sexy rat’ guys”.
A rodent man is a man who looks like a rodent.
The rat craze ostensibly started with Challengers stars Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor, who genuinely look like rats magicked into human form by a primordial curse. In spite of this, they are hot. One is a redhead who could play Stuart Little in a live-action remake and the other is a scruffy wreck, the spitting image of Roddy from Flushed Away. And yet… they are hot.
This obviously has nothing to do with the fact Faist and O’Connor are actors. Or that they are young, their faces unique, and appear on our screens draped in appealing light. They are playing fit, slim athletes and their shoulders, forearms and legs have just the right amount of definition. Their haircuts are flattering. And they are white.
“Oh my god, I’m attracted to a skinny white man?! How could this be?”
Who could ever find a white male celebrity attractive?
As culture editor at The Age Osman Faruqi pointed out in a since-expired Instagram story, it’s just the same thing we’ve seen over and over again. The zeitgeist is scrambling to justify our attraction to white dude celebrities when the very fact of their existence should be proof enough.
credit: Osman Faruqi, Instagram Story
The men listed in the New York Times sexy rat man catalogue are the same men we saw listed on the “medium ugly” lists of 2022. Rami Malek, Paul Mescal, Adam Driver – list upon list and label upon label have attempted to explain why such an objectively weird-looking dude is so hot. My god, how could Matty Healy, an actual rockstar, ever be thought of as hot? Uglier dudes have had fandoms based on the way they move their hips.
The pervasive lust for all these examples of the exact same archetype poses the question: how could we ever be attracted to exactly the person society has told us to be attracted to? It really makes you think…
Yes, there are a lot of hot men in Hollywood who happen to look like rats right now. But they’ve always been there. Hollywood is literally filled with skinny, pointy dudes. Their alleged moment in the sun has less to do with a latent lust for rodent boys and more to do with what has always been true: white men are always going to be on trend.
Arielle Richards is the multimedia reporter at VICE Australia, follow her on Instagram and TikTok.