From brat summer to hot rodent men: why Gen Z love a label

The proliferation of “-core” style nicknames reminds me of what Kaitlyn Tiffany described as a staple of digital life, dating back to MySpace, Tumblr, and BuzzFeed quizzes: the urge to identify with esoteric aesthetic subcultures such as “cottagecore” and “romantic academia” and “pastel goth” because you want to locate your niche and belong somewhe... See more

It makes sense that norms are shifting in this direction as Gen Z’s influence spreads. Raised on social media, with access to once illicit bad-taste touchstones like Rocky Horror just a click away, they’ve largely replaced IRL subcultures with a constellation of aesthetics—cottagecore, dark academia, Y2K—to be performed, then discarded or demoted t... See more

Some More Insight Into The Gen Z Coolness Crisis

There are four sort of low-level generational discourses circulating the web right now that I want to try and synthesize into a larger idea. There’s the weird backlash around the word “demure” going viral after a trans TikToker popularized it. There are millennials panicking that Gen Z thinks we all ... See more