The Neighborhood’s “Sweater Weather” becomes bisexual anthem on TikTok
Users are sharing videos featuring the 2012 song to come out publicly as bisexual
In a recently viral trend on the popular social media video sharing app TikTok, users have been coming out as bisexual by playing the popular 2012 indie rock hit “Sweater Weather.”
Influencers including James Wright, Nessa Barrett, and Anna Shumate have each used the song to come out as bisexual to their millions of followers.
The trend is part of the reason there has been a massive increase in streams for The Neighborhood recently, with “Sweater Weather” notching a record 5 million daily streams from October 23 to 29.
Watch some of their videos below:
@jameswrightt plz don’t hate me, i have my whole life but i’m finally starting to love myself
@nessaabarrett Mhm ya
@annabananaxdddd since ppl are still confused, here
Although users with millions of followers have helped the trend gain traction, it has also been embraced by thousands of regular users as well. There are currently over 310,000 videos using the “Sweater Weather” sound on TikTok.
Users often comment that the lyrics as a subtle reference to their sexuality, or share videos of them lip syncing the lyrics in order to mark their identification with the bisexual community, Bustle reports.
A similar phenomenon has happened to the Girl in Red song “girls,” which fans celebrated as an anthem for the lesbian community.
The two songs have both served as codes for LGBTQ users to identify themselves. A video with a mention of the lyrics or hashtags #SweaterWeather or #girlinred is interpreted as a sly alignment with fellow bisexuals and lesbians, or as a platform for coming out.
Although girl in red singer Marie Ulven explicitly writes about her experiences as a queer woman in her songs, such as “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend,” it seems on the surface that there are no such mentions of bisexuality in “Sweater Weather.”
Furthermore, none of the band’s five members are part of the LGBTQ community, but according to Unpublished Magazine, the song’s immense popularity on social media platform Tumbr has lent itself well to its association with the bisexual community.
Of note as well is the section of the song that has gone viral, which specifically lacks any mention of gender pronouns: “One love, two mouths. One love, one house. No shirt, no blouse. Just us, you find out.”
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