‘Feels Like Summer’ Music Video is Childish Gambino’s Animated Self Insert Feel Good Fanfic

It’s the beginning of September so naturally, just as I’m getting ready to abandon this godforsaken summer and its myriad of eclipses and retrogrades gracefully transition into autumn aka Halloween season, Childish Gambino drops the music video for “Feels Like Summer” and suddenly I’m back to craving popsicles and poolside. Thanks, Donald. While this isn’t the first time that character designer Justin Richburg has collaborated with a Glover project (you can see evidence as early as this year’s episodes of Atlanta), it’s definitely the most ambitious. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise at this point that the “officially untethered” Glover would continue to push the creative envelope after “This is America,” and returning to his Black nerd roots with an animated music video feels right on time with the back-to-school vibe in the air. No, it’s not the greatest Blerd music video you never saw but hell, I’m here for a trend of big name musicians putting dollars in the pockets of lesser known visual artists. Actually, let’s call the video what it is: an exercise in self-insert AU fanart. I don’t even mean that in a bad way. I’m excited—more than excited. I damn near developed like 50 different fanfiction prompts from one viewing alone. There’s something about the alternate dimensional possibilities that reminds me of Raven “raveyrai” White’s Poke Celebs Series (a project that reimagines various Black creatives as Pokemon gym leaders and trainers) or Asia “asieybarbie” Kendri…