It’s decided: This is the summer we all turned thirsty for a very questionable love triangle. That’s right, we’re talking about The Summer I Turned Pretty — the Gen-Z soap opera that has everyone from grown-ass women (*raises hands*) to Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai in a choke hold. Super Bowl-level watch parties have taken over homes (this woman’s dedication to the TSITP theme is…something), bars, and NYC’s Bryant Park. College-level dissertations on The Microscopic Engagement Ring Seen Round the World have flooded feeds. Fans have tracked down — and ostensibly bought — Belly’s exact wedding dress. Even NFL players have pledged allegiance to Team Conrad or Team Jeremiah (Travis Kelce, we find your answer highly suspicious).
All of which brings us to the obvious question. No, not why anyone over the age of 7 would voluntarily go by the name Belly. But, as one TikTok cruelly highlighted, why those of us north of the target demo are practically living for the next episode of a YA drama. Not to get too deep, but a few theories. Sure, who wouldn’t want to cosplay as a 20-something without any commitments or bills, you know, given…everything? Or it could be that TSITP is both aspirational (after all, Conrad and Jeremiah are two of Cousins Beach’s most eligible bachelors) and absurd (we’ll forever feel secondhand embarrassment over these scenes). But our money is on the fact that showrunner and author Jenny Han is spiritually an elder millennial, so TSITP has more in common with Dawson’s Creek and One Tree Hill than the mindfu*k that is Euphoria. There’s a soundtrack that our middle-school selves would’ve burned onto a CD, a vision board-worthy setting (the filming location is surprisingly familiar), a scene as formative as that Blair Waldorf striptease, and two very divisive love interests — fitting for the the generation that made male heartthrobs our entire personality (Team Seth, assemble). Though, for the record, we’re Team Date Someone Outside the Family.