Golden retrievers, soft jocks, begone. The summer of 2024 is all about the hot rodent. While “handsome rat” might sound like a backhanded slight, it is anything but.
The idea of anthropomorphizing animals in this way has been around since at least 2023 when this tweet went viral: “Men are either eagle handsome, bear handsome, dog handsome, or reptilian handsome,” with photos of Ryan Gosling, Henry Cavill, Heath Ledger, and Timothée Chalamet, respectively. Thanks to Challengers, the 2024 movie starring Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor, we’re all talking about hot rat boys.
Hot rodent boys are known for their fine, pinched facial features; not usually muscular but slender, sometimes wiry. Often, they’re not considered conventionally hot but are intriguing in appearance. There’s a mystery to them, it’s almost like we have to earn their affection (which, some may argue, is way sexier than the slobber-all-over-you kind of love you get from a Golden Retriever but I’m not here to yuck somebody else’s yum). Who are these hot rodent boyfriend celebrities?
Without further ado…
When Challengers came out, it didn’t take long for the internet to lose their minds over Mike Faist, who serves up hot rodent energy in droves. “mike faist is what i imagine stuart little would look like as a human,” tweeted one. Indeed.
Another from Challengers, Josh O’Connor “looks like a very kindhearted mouse who got turned into a prince,” observed one fan. Why yes, yes he does.
Adorable and an agent of chaos. Rodent energy distilled.
While playing a show in Australia, Matty Healy (1975 frontman, perhaps more famously Taylor Swift’s ex) told the crowd: “There’s a meme that I’m a specific rat, which, is it the kid from Flushed Away? This is actually doing me damage. I’m not cashing in on anything there. But we’re all friends, and I’ve seen that meme so many times, and it’s made me laugh.”
OK, Lando Norris is definitely teetering on conventional hot territory but then when a friend of a friend called him a squirrel, I paid attention.
He’s dating Challengers star Zendaya so he’s a hot rat boy by association at the very least. Maybe a guinea pig?
He might star in The Bear, but Jeremy Allen White is a textbook hot rodent.
OK, he’s not our hot rodent boyfriend, he’s Sabrina Carpenter’s. They were rumored to be linked in December 2023 after reportedly meeting at the Givenchy show during Paris Fashion Week, now he’s in her music video.
If you ask us, Top Gun‘s Hangman is a bit too conventionally hot for this list, but then, again, rodents come in all shapes and sizes. When we overheard someone on the subway say “capybara”, it all made sense.
