July 9, 2025

When you think of Summer, what emotions do you associate with it? What memories does it bring up? And what media always comes to mind when that time of year strikes?

These questions (especially the last one), have been on my mind recently as we’ve been living through an especially hot Summer. One event over the past few weeks that’s stirred some of these thoughts was the recent release of a new season of Phineas and Ferb. This is a show I deeply love and one that I frequently revisit. However, during my annual rewatch of the Summer Special “Summer Belongs to You,” I had an interesting realization: despite the show being intrinsically tied to the Summer, I don’t really associate Phineas and Ferb that closely with it.

And that got me thinking – if Phineas and Ferb, a show quite literally set exclusively in the Summer, doesn’t really stir up many Summer vibes or memories, what does? And why is that?

Summer Media That Isn’t Very Summer

Another example of the non-Summery Summer media phenomena for me is Gravity Falls. Ironically, this is another Disney animated series that is set exclusively in the Summer, but I mostly associate it with the Fall. I love Gravity Falls, and there are certainly episodes that do bring up some Summer memories for me, but generally that’s not the connection that my mind makes.

Summer, of course, is not the only season that this phenomena affects. As an example with other seasons, many of the environments in Undertale are explicitly tied to snow or Winter – but it’s a game that I’ll always connect to the Fall.

How Our Memories Connect

Recently, I wrote about one of my favorite comics of all time, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together. The entire story in this comic is set in the Summer, and I really do connect it to that season. I try to reread it every Summer and my memories seem to be connected directly to some happy Summer days.

But, as I thought through this phenomena, I think I’ve come to the pretty simple realization that this connection has everything to do with our memories, way more so than the actual content of the media.

For an example on a much bigger scale, Universal’s Islands of Adventure is a park I nearly exclusively associate with the Summer. This is despite the fact that I have been there during the Winter and that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter part of the park is eternally themed to Winter, with snow on the buildings year-round. However, a lot of my best memories of Islands of Adventure are in the early Summer, so I associate the park with that season.

Another example of this memory connection is with Jujutsu Kaisen. One of my favorite arcs takes place on Halloween and the story jumps around different years and seasons, but I strongly associate it with the Summer because I read most of the manga and got caught up on the story last Summer.

I can think of a lot of examples like this where a piece of media takes place outside of the Summer or throughout the year, but I associate it the most with the Summer. Persona 4 Golden, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and Star Wars are just a few other examples. But ultimately, I think the connection we have to media is strongly tied to our memories. If you think about your favorite stories or art, what season do you associate them with? A question like this can help us understand what we enjoy more, and if nothing else, can help us know when we should do an annual rewatch or reread of media that is important to us.