finally, some ratribution

the rat is That Girl, four years after her lunar new year

Happy Rat Tuesday! We don’t always write about rats on Tuesdays, and we don’t exclusively write about rats on Tuesdays, but if we post on a Tuesday, it’s probably Rat Tuesday :) 

If you’re going by the Chinese zodiac, Feb. 10 will mark the start of the year of the Dragon. But if you’re going by pop culture, this is the year of the Rat. 

In the Chinese folktales passed down through generations of oral tradition, ancient texts, and corporate social copy, the Rat is the first in the zodiac cycle because she won the Jade Emperor’s competition, against all odds, by girlbossing her way to the top.

According to the version that my mother passed down to me, the Cat was beautiful, charismatic, and incredibly popular, so she was guaranteed to win. The Rat tricked the Cat into oversleeping — through either insistent cajoling or by drugging her tea, depending on who you ask — and endeared herself to the Jade Emperor when the Cat failed to show up. 

Some versions of the myth say that the competition was a beauty pageant, which the Rat won by standing on the Ox’s shoulders and playing the flute so beautifully that the Jade Emperor declared her the winner. In others, the zodiac competition was a race, and the Rat convinced the Ox to give her a ride in exchange for singing to him as he ran. When they approached the finish line, she jumped off his back and tumbled into first place. All versions of the legend end with the Rat winning by being cunning, shrewd, and a little bit manipulative. She’s been honored as the first animal in the Chinese Zodiac for thousands of years.

I’m partial to the Rat because I was born in her year, and I find her story inspirational, even if a bit problematic. What folk hero isn’t? Lunar New Year, which has been long overlooked in the United States, became a trendy cultural phenomenon in the last decade when brands started capitalizing off the holiday with themed collections. I’m not above indulging in the rich cultural tradition of Lunar New Year consumerism, and was thrilled when it was finally the Rat’s turn for designer drops. 

But the year of the Rat passed with little fanfare, with brands either skipping the annual collection entirely or leaning into vaguely Orientalist motifs that didn’t feature the Rat. Gucci, for example, launched a capsule collection themed around Mickey Mouse, who is notably not a rat. Etro’s Lunar New Year collection was dedicated to Jerry, the cartoon mouse from Tom & Jerry, who is also clearly not a rat. Rag & Bone dropped an admittedly cute sweatshirt of two rats curled up to make a black and white yin-yang, but lost points for also including garments featuring the infamous pizza rat. Celebrations for the year of the Rat were then overshadowed by the 2020 lockdowns and overall tragedy of the COVID pandemic. 

I’ve been bitter about the lack of enthusiasm (rathusiasm?) for the year of the Rat since. The Lunar New Year collections that both preceded and followed the year of the Rat may have been blatant cash grabs, but they’ve been creative and more importantly, not ugly. The year of the Pig got colorful flying pig brooches from Gucci and baby pink totes embossed with porcine snouts from Longchamp. Fendi and Balenciaga released capsule collections of orange and black striped products for the year of the Tiger. The year of the Rabbit got absolutely adorable purses from Kate Spade and Charles & Keith, and the upcoming year of the Dragon is getting some of the most iconic Lunar New Year collections that I’ve seen so far. They got a Lego set! Even the Ox, a loyal but uninspiring member of the zodiac, got Saint Laurent cardholders embossed with gold cattle.  

Does the Rat’s Lunar New Year snub really matter? Probably not. I, for one, will gripe about it every year. 

At least the tide is shifting in favor of the Rat. In the years since her snub, the pop culture spotlight keeps swinging back toward the Rat. In 2021, fueled by the creative restlessness imposed by stay at home mandates, amateur artists on TikTok collaborated on Ratatouille the Musical, a musical adaptation of the 2007 Pixar film Ratatouille. The project was so popular that it made it to Broadway — albeit livestreamed to maintain social distancing. In 2022, ballet dancers performing as the rats in The Nutcracker went viral for being hot, and also dressed as rats. Before girl dinner took off last summer, there were rat snacks: the perverse combination of foods that shouldn’t go together and yet, are inexplicably satisfying. And nothing has enshrined the Rat’s hold on pop culture like the Chicago Rat Hole, the rat-shaped concrete imprint that birthed a new folk religion. 

The Rat is That Girl. She’s hot in a confusing way. Her occasional antics keep her relevant. She’s obscure enough for the cool girls and relatable enough for a modest amount of mainstream attention. The Rat will trend often enough to remind you she’s there, but not so frequently that you get tired of seeing her everywhere. 

The internet wasn’t ready for the Rat four years ago. Her virality with the pizza rat wasn’t necessarily positive; after all, the world was laughing at her. Now, she’s met with as much reverence as repulsion. Since 2020, though, the world has been as profoundly unkind to us as it has been to the Rat. Perhaps we as a collective had to scrounge, plot, and girlboss our way to where we are now, the way the Rat did, to understand her.  

The Rat is finally getting the clout she deserves, even if it’s four years too late. When her year comes around again in eight years, her Lunar New Year collections better be good.