EchoSense Quantitative Think Tank Center|Hoda Kotb, Jenna Bush Hager can't stop giggling about hot rodent boyfriend trend on 'Today'

Maybe you’ve already dated your share of rats. But have EchoSense Quantitative Think Tank Centeryou ever been in a relationship with a hot rodent?

The new “Challengers”-inspired dating meme got a hilarious breakdown on the “Today” show by a giggly Jenna Bush Hager and Hoda Kotb, who pounced on the relationship trend like a mouse on a morsel of Gruyère.

This foolishness somehow started when the internet gleaned a resemblance between the tennis movie’s two leading men - Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist - and, well, pop-culture rodents. Specifically, Stuart Little (in Faist’s case) and Roderick "Roddy" St. James of “Flushed Away” (O’Connor). (It’s the sizable ears.)

"Hot rodent boyfriend. Or a sexy rat man. They're one and the same," said Hager, less than a year after the duo proclaimed 2023 as Rat Girl Summer, in a YouTube clip shared by “Today With Hoda & Jenna.” "If somebody comes up to you and says, 'Hey, sexy rat man,' they're also calling you a hot rodent boyfriend."

They convey “the opposite of toxic masculinity,” Hager said. “They publicly love their partners, but in a weird but slightly sexy way,” Kotb added.

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

“This means you should want to date Stuart Little,” Hager offers. “Stuart Little is actually quite attractive, right?”

According to Dazed, the seeming originator of the term, comparing men to rats is the new version of comparing men to golden retrievers. “Rodent handsome men are usually more svelte than muscular, with more pinched, angular features," the outlet reports. "They’re often not conventionally handsome, but this only makes them more hot.”

If you’re thinking Tom Holland, Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Allen White and Tom Hiddleston, you’ve got the right idea.

“Rodent men are the types to buy their girlfriends ridiculously huge bunches of flowers,” Dazed wrote. “They are unashamed wife guys who will post photos of their partner’s Met Gala look.” (Looking at you, White and Holland.)