In the spring of 2021, Chet Hanks, the singer, actor, and son of Tom, released a series of statements and a music video with a confusing chorus, not to mention that he declared it would be a “white boy summer.”
Whatever its exact meaning at the time, the phrase has since morphed into a slogan for white supremacists and other forms of hate, according to a report released Tuesday by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, an organization that tracks the spread of racism.
Thousands of posts using the slogan “white boy summer” have appeared on the Telegram app this year. The slogan has been used by far-right groups to recruit new followers, organize protests and encourage violence, particularly against immigrants and LGBTQ people, the report said.
For many who use it today, the phrase represents an uncritical embrace of white heterosexual masculinity, often at the expense of women and people of color.
Increasingly, the meme has moved from the fringes of the internet into the political mainstream in the United States and elsewhere, said one of the group’s founders, Wendy Via.
Jack Posobiec, a podcaster whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has linked to white supremacists, held up a banner reading “White Boy Summer” at a rally organized by Turning Point USA, a conservative group, in Detroit last month. Former President Donald J. Trump was the keynote speaker at the conference, along with several members of Congress.
“What really matters is the speed and the magnitude of the devastating consequences of this,” Via said of the phrase coined by Hanks. Extremists, she added, “are hurting people all over the world in the name of this cause.”
Mr. Hanks, 33, did not respond to multiple requests for comment through his social media accounts and the talent agency that represents him. He began using the phrase in a series of social media posts 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 explanation.
“Take it any way you want,” he said in an Instagram post in March. “I’m not talking about Trump, NASCAR-type white people,” he continued, clarifying that he was talking about people like himself and two other white R&B artists, Jon B. and Jack Harlow. “Tell me if you can feel comfortable with that. And brace yourself, because I am.”
Its music video, produced under the name Chet Hanx, was released the following month. It was an homage of sorts to Megan Thee Stallion’s hit “Hot Girl Summer,” featuring Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign, released two years earlier.
The message is filled with profanity, sexist and racial slurs, but it also ends with an image of Mr. Hanks wearing a T-shirt that says “Stop Hate.”
“White Boy Summer” is not the first artistic creation that white supremacists have hijacked and used online in hate speech.
Pepe the Frog, a cartoon character created by Matt Furie, became so popular in racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic memes that the Anti-Defamation League classified him as a hate symbol in 2016. Mr. Furie deleted the character a year later, but he still circulates in ways he never intended.
Even before the meme, Tom Hanks had been criticized for using — and defending the use of — a racial slur against Black people. He was also accused of cultural appropriation after he began affectations of using Jamaican patois in public appearances, including at the 2020 Golden Globe Awards, where Hanks accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award.
As a meme and hashtag, “white boy summer” has been adopted each summer by groups like the Proud Boys and “active clubs,” groups that mix racist ideologies with martial arts and other activities.
While most prevalent on fringe sites populated with extremist content, including Gab, Rumble, and 4chan, the phrase also appears regularly on X, Instagram, Facebook, and other major social media platforms, often accompanied by Nazi imagery. The phrase and its various hashtags appear to circumvent policies prohibiting hate speech in part because it is often used euphemistically or ironically.
“While this trend/meme originated on the far right, it is undoubtedly seeping into more ‘mainstream’ right-wing discourse,” said Todd Gutnick, a spokesperson for the Anti-Defamation League, which has documented the spread of the slogan early on.
The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism report noted that the meme was now being used by extremist groups in countries around the world.
In France, one group created stickers with the phrase — in English — that its members handed out, while another in Finland held an annual festival last month using the phrase as its name. Of last year’s event, Bellingcat, a research organization, reported that attendees “watched far-right groups perform, participated in combat sports, and mingled with other hate group members in hot tubs.”
“The far right is adept at spreading its hateful ideologies to the general public, particularly through social media,” the report said, “and the already viral ‘White Boy Summer’ proved to be the perfect vehicle for spreading its bigotry to a wider audience.”
Mr. Hanks, who once played Chet Haze, has struggled with drug problems and high-profile allegations of domestic violence that have contributed to his rebellious persona as an entertainer. “He’s a grown man,” his older half-brother, Colin, who is also an actor, said in a 2016 radio interview when asked if he ever stepped in to give him advice. “He’ll do what he wants.”
Tom Hanks doesn’t appear to have publicly commented on his relationship with Chet Hanks, though the son recently posted an intergenerational text message exchange with him about the recent feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar. In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, the father described his experience as a parent.
“Somewhere along the way, I realized that the only thing a parent can really do is say, ‘I love you, you can’t do anything wrong, you can’t hurt me, I hope you forgive me sometimes, and what do you want me to do?'” he said.
Despite the controversy surrounding its release, Hanks continues to embrace the meme. “I looked to the heavens, felt a western breeze, walked out of a strip club and saw my shadow…” he wrote on Instagram in May. “This is gonna be a #WBS.” He ended his post with a church emoji.