What is 'rodent hot' and why Gen Z is swooning over it

The Internet is a strange place And the most recent absurdity has been the term ldquorodent hotrdquo You know the ones with beady eyes more svelte than muscular with pinched angular features and messy hair They are not conventionally handsome but that is exactly what makes them more desirable And as the spectrum of rodents is wide a man could be a rat a beaver a hamster or even a capybaraGenZ is swooning over this hyperspecific type calling these rodenthandsome men the hot boyfriends of the season It started with a tweet that compared Challengers 2024 costars Josh OrsquoConnor and Mike Faist to Roddy St James the rat from Flushed Away and Stuart Little respectively In the Indian context celebrities including Rajkumar Rao Kartik Aryan Siddhant Chaturvedi Babil Khan or even Ibrahim Ali Khan could all be considered hot rodents Their angular features coupled with unkempt hair and a slender physique make themhellip ldquorodent handsomerdquoIt all started when Dazed a digital publication headquartered in London and New York made up the terms ldquohot rodent manrdquo or ldquohot rodent boyfriendrdquo or ldquohot rat summerrdquo Thanks to the unique times we live in it snowballed onto the Internet comparing men to rodents the new version of comparing men to golden retrieversKartik Aryan Babil and Siddhant Chaturvedi have been termed as hot rodent men along with Ibrahim Ali Khan Kartik Aryan Babil KhanBut who are these rat men and should you be scurrying away from them On the contrary fans of hot rodent men argue that a celebrityrsquos charm comes from the rodent qualities A hot rodent boyfriend is not dirty He is the guy who will bring you a ridiculously large number of flowers or is a husband eager to post his wifersquos photos all over his social media Unlike the golden retriever boyfriend whom the Internet describes as upbeat goofy and wholly devoted to their partner rat men are a little weird but in a funny witty sexy way Perhaps rodent men are simply hot because they have what women really find attractive To be fair who wouldnrsquot want to date someone like the rat from Ratatouille Remy was after all idealistic clever and determinedWhatrsquos sexy about Rajkumar Rao and all the rodent men It depends on whom you ask as it ultimately boils down to whom our brains find attractive ldquoEach individual perceives attraction differentlyrdquo says Dr Dayal Mirchandani a psychiatrist ldquoAttraction is more culturalrdquo he says explaining how some tribes in Africa find large buttocks attractive or that in the 1960s slimmer women were considered attractive ldquoWhen you are attracted to someone you establish a connection try to get to know them As you grow the love map you have built also changesrdquo he says referring to the ldquolove maprdquo concept by American psychiatrist Dr John Gottman which is the deep understanding partners have about each otherrsquos inner worldsItrsquos no mystery then that the chemicals in your brain create feelings of desire Neurotransmitters like dopamine serotonin and norepinephrine determine if you are attracted to someone ldquoItrsquos similar to how your sympathetic nervous system responds to fear When you are attracted to someone your heart rate goes up too Itrsquos an adrenaline rushrdquo says Dr Renu Sheth psychiatrist and psychotherapistDr Rakesh Lalla consultantneurology Fortis HospitalDoes this mean rodent men are increasing heart rates and causing feelings of butterflies in the stomach Dr Sheth says ldquoAttraction happens at a subconscious level It happens because you hear or see something and it seeps into your mind A lot of it stems from social perceptionrdquo So itrsquos not as if Kartik Aryan and other celebrities who are being called rodent handsome have not had female gaze on them before the term was invented ldquoThe female brain is wired to be more attracted to men with higher testosterone a chiselled face lower body fat broader jaw and shoulders These attributes have always been traditionally more attractive to womenrdquo says Dr Rakesh Lalla consultantneurology Fortis Hospital Kalyan And like Dr Sheth he says ldquoThe human mind can be trained to like something In the 60s and 70s people preferred a cute face With Amitabh Bachchan the lsquoangry manrsquo look was attractive What is bombarded at you your mind gets influenced by that stereotypical appearance In layman terms lsquoyeh aaj kal fashion mein hairsquo this is now in voguerdquo Looking back itrsquos not surprising that after the million capybara memes that flooded the internet earlier this year we are now finding their reflection in men we find hotRodent or not the slender men with youngish looks seem to be the object of desire in 2024mdashWhether they are KPop stars Hollywood celebrities or the ones rocking Hindi cinema And men donrsquot mind the attention In fact they are happy to comply to the female gaze Mahzbin a makeup artist says that working on such faces is a challenge but itrsquos fun at the same time ldquoWorking on goodlooking faces that are fair or have smooth skin is easy Itrsquos always a challenge to work on unhealthy skin or an uneven skin tone And I enjoy a good challengerdquo