It was also a notable staple on Tumblr, where The Neighbourhood had similar soft-grunge notoriety to artists like Arctic Monkeys, The 1975 and Lana Del Rey.
But the song didn’t only find success on pop radio. To today’s adolescents, it’s a piece of music that evokes nostalgia. “Sweater Weather” boomed in popularity in 2013, reaching Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart. So then, how did “Sweater Weather” become the definite shorthand for identifying as bisexual? But it’s there, in all the “bisexual” playlists on Spotify, and in all the TikTok, Tumblr and Twitter comments. The song isn’t explicitly about being bisexual, either. “Sweater Weather” is by The Neighbourhood, a band that does not have any members that are openly a part of the LGBTQ+ community. But the case for this song is a bit different. The song “Sweater Weather” has also become a code, one for identifying fellow bisexuals. She is openly gay and has penned several wlw (woman loving women) anthems, including a song called “i wanna be your girlfriend.” A notable line from her song “girls” includes: “They’re so pretty it hurts / I’m not talking ‘bout boys / I’m talking ‘bout girls / They’re so pretty with their button up shirts.” She’s fully cemented herself as a queer icon why she’s lesbian shorthand is pretty self explanatory.
The artist girl in red has become the online code for being a lesbian.
This shorthand through music has been emerging for a while now. It’s not uncommon to log onto a platform like TikTok, go into a person’s comments, and see an exchange along the lines of: Lines like “friends of Dorothy” or noted ring placement have been swapped out with a different way of finding out if a person is another member of the LGBTQ+ community. There’s a new kind of language forming in today’s queer comunities.