TikTok made Taylor Swift’s “august” the soundtrack for an annual summer-memory trend.
The trend uses the song under quick montages of summer photographs, videos, trips, friendships, and other memories saved in a phone camera roll. The format suits the song’s nostalgic lyrics and its imagery of a brief romance fading as August ends.
TikTok’s own newsroom described the trend in 2021, noting that creators used “august” for memory-focused edits, cleaning montages, and photo-based love stories. Swift also participated in the trend with a video featuring a bottle of wine.
The trend is sometimes described as an August meme, but TikTok is the platform most directly associated with its recurring annual format. The song itself was released in 2020, while the platform trend became especially visible in the following years.