Summer's Anti-Heroes

It’s high summer and the season’s archetypes are out in force. First, identify them. Then steer clear…

- Amy Grier

Maybe it’s the heat. Or the sudden blast of vitamin D. Or maybe it’s that some clever dick at Urban Outfitters HQ has reimagined a new range of ‘nostalgia’ picnicware for people to lose their sh*t over. Whatever the (highly unscientific) formula, the result is always the same: summer brings with it a whole cast of characters who will be cropping up on train platforms and in parks near you very soon. Approach at your peril…

1 The MAD party guy

This guy was THE BOMB back in secondary school. Literally, that was his name. The. Bomb. He was the guy who threw his school dinner out of the refectory window in an act of solidarity with the Big Brother contestants who were on rations that week. People used to stop and whisper his name in the school corridors. Weirdly, not one of them has actually looked at him since 2004. He cannot understand why this is. “Summer...” he tells himself as he drifts off to sleep at night. “In the summer, I will become The Bomb again.” He goes about this by buying a giant inflatable shaped like a hot dog. Because nothing says ‘This guy doesn’t just bring the party, this guy IS the party’ like turning up to a land-locked event with a 7ft float. He takes it to pay-day drinks. People look at him. He likes this feeling. He orders a round of shots. Later, he forces the intern to snort one. When his boss intervenes, he decides now is the time to ‘stick it to the man’ and spews forth ill-formed ideas about ‘the corporation’. He doesn’t remember much after this. Apart from someone stepping over him and his deflated float saying, “Man, you really bombed.”

2 The self-conscious woman with a hat