The dystopian series “The Hunger Games” was released in 2008 and is still popular 15 years later. Recently on social media platforms, mostly TikTok, The Hunger Games has reappeared, taking over the app.

   This fandom continues to grow from generation to generation and it was a staple to many millennials’ childhoods. Not only has it stayed relevant over the years, The Hunger Games is reshaping kids and teens today. It is one of the most popular dystopian series, so why is it surprising to see it get another wave of adoration and attention?

   It started at the end of January and the beginning of February, when edits of the characters started popping up. These videos have continued to stay popular through four, almost five months, which is weird because on tiktok, trends only last for a month or two.

   The real questions start with the timing of these videos and how they came about. Before this, there may have been a couple of videos about the book or series on someone’s account but now, out of what seems like nowhere, there are millions of new edits and videos relating to the series. 

   Everything sort of just happened overnight and the only explanation is the prequel to this series, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is getting a movie adaptation which releases mid November. Some would think that this is a promotion for this movie, that The Hunger Games is popular again because of the new screen addition to the franchise, but that still would not make sense. The trailer and announcement for the movie were announced over the summer and it gained some attention then, so why is there another wave for the excitement of the movie?

   Another weirdly timed occurrence is all four of The Hunger Games movies were suddenly on Netflix, free to subscribed viewers. This might be what caused the TikTok blowup, but why after so many years were the movies put on a “free” streaming platform?

   To add to the suspicion, there are two tracks from the series that are written and sung by Taylor Swift. In March, she re-recorded those two songs to make them Taylor’s Version, so she owns them again. Did Swift re-record so people could use her version of the songs instead of the stolen ones, or is there another reason altogether?

   This may just be coincidental, but there are so many things that happened out of the blue for it to be coincidental. Maybe all of this is just a clever way for Susanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games series and The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, to become relevant again to make sales for the movie at the end of the year.