Summerween Redux. Summerween 2025

To follow on from 2024's social listening analysis, this is 2025's social listening analysis on all things Summerween, and why, this year, you really should care.

Transcript

1. Sorry haters, Summerween is definitely a thing now. A social listening study (with lots of charts and data points, esp. for the neurodiverse gothy social media managers).
2. Hey, remember this time last year when I told you Summerween was definitely a thing and it was going to get much bigger in 2025? Here’s the Google search data, and yep, that’s a 3133% increase over the last two years.
3. This is also happening across social: we tracked almost 350k Summerween mentions across social from June 1st to August 10th. These posts generated 93 million engagements in the same time frame. While the US dominated the chat, the conversation was global.
4. TikTok LOVES summerween. Even the AI/dropshipping-fest that Pinterest has become pales in comparison. Instagram comes third, while YouTube & Twitter have equal SOV.
5. When we look at engagements, the disparity is even more pronounced. If you’re looking for engagements then TikTok is still the only game in town. That’s almost 81 million ENGAGEMENTS in 70 days just on TikTok - and a massive 688 Million views
6. The audience that we’re able to see demographic data around skew heavily female, and are heavily concentrated in the older Gen Z/younger millennial age range.
7. Completely unsurprisingly, Halloween massively dominates the conversation, with almost half of all posts mentioning it. Autumn shows up in 12% People are more likely to talk about books than straight shopping. Movies are about as popular as food Nails are a big enough theme to sneak into the top nine this year.
8. On Reddit it’s all about Bath & Body Works (who are really trying to own Summerween this year) but on the flipside there’s a very active conversation on r/anticonsumption about doing Summerween without buying new things.
9. This chart shows #summerween data for TikTok over the last 365 days. Note there’s no peak in video being published on actual Summerween, suggesting that the holiday is really moving away from its Gravity Falls roots.
10. In a weird twist, nail art is shaping up to a good indicator for bigger mainstream fashion trends (we saw this with sardines last year) and this year Summerween nails are on the rise again.
11. There’s no one ‘must read’ Summerween book this year, but horror books and thrillers are much recommended. Publishers need to recognise that spooky season now starts in July and start releasing their horror reads accordingly. #beachreads aren’t always romantic.
12. #codeorange* is the rallying cry of all things spooky. Sorry metalcore fans, this has been completely co-opted by the Summerween/Halloween community now, and TikTok views are up nearly 800% over the last month. *Code Orange is used when the first Halloween merch is spotted in stores
13. This is how #codeorange overlapped with other tags on TikTok in the last 2 weeks. You might spot that we’re starting to see some UK hashtags here showing that the trend is beginning to spread. Code orange also intersects with the beginning of cozy season and fall decorating. Another thing for brands to pay attention to!
14. Like Halloween, when it comes to food, Summerween is all about baked goods and sweets. The unofficial symbol of Summerween, the carved watermelon, has lost SOV to the classic pumpkin (12% of all Summerween posts feature or mention a pumpkin).
15. “Halloween nails” and “book” have both seen 900% increases since early June.
16. TikTok is generally excited about Halloween Pinterest is all about cosy fall vibes Instagram wants to talk about books YouTube wants to go shopping Twitter cares about books and movies Bluesky cares signficantly more about books than anywhere else Threads is also pretty interested in books Reddit wants to chat about fall vibes and shopping Twitch is streaming about TV & Drinks Social is increasingly fragmented, and different communities gravitate towards different platforms. Here, we’ve looked at the most popular themes on each platform to understand which Summerween sub- communities live where.
17. Great stats, but why should you care about any of it, isn’t is just fun for goths?
18. Tricky answer, two things are happening here: Summerween has spread beyond the traditional horror fan community. We can tell this from the volume increases that we’re seeing across the board. Interest in horror and all things spooky/esoteric is on the rise in the west, so the traditional horror fan community is also growing. IN 2023 Horror book sales increased by 54% Y0Y In 2025 Horror movies are the fourth highest grossing genre ISeason 2 of ‘wednesday’ set records with its budget. 1. 2.
19. Summerween also ties in with Autumn beginning earlier and earlier on social (see Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Menu dates). Summerween is in many ways the kick off for cozy season, which now lasts for half of the year. Initially a very American holiday, for the first time in 2025 we’ve seen UK high street stores create Summerween displays. Bigger UK brands are not taking advantage of this. Book publishers, movie studios, and streamers are missing out on an audience primed for new media to consume during this season. Things to consider
20. Thanks for reading this far. I’ve got some availability for the end of Q3 and Q4. Drop me a DM if you wanna chat trends, culture, social strategy, research, and how to make them all fit together.