Rats have spent centuries with a terrible publicist. They’ve been blamed for plagues, chased out of kitchens and cast as the villains of almost every cartoon, so they rarely get to tell their side of the story. On Instagram, "Hello We Are Rats" finally hands them the microphone, and it turns out they have a lot on their minds. The account’s bio keeps things refreshingly brief: “Rats. Lots of rats.” Behind that dry introduction sits a following of more than 56,000 people who keep coming back for tiny rodents wrestling with very big, very human problems.
These rats never lecture, and they never pretend life is simpler than it is. They panic, overthink, stand up for themselves and sometimes just sit with a feeling until it passes, which is more than most of us manage before lunch. We’ve picked some of our favorites below. A few will make you laugh out loud, a few might sting a little, and at least one will probably feel as if it were drawn about you.
