The other day I was scrolling through my reels (as I usually do, you know, to avoid the crushing weight of ever working on this newsletter), and I saw something that gave me a war-style flashback. One mention of ‘Loving autumn #JustGirlyThings’ and I was transported back to September 2012 — I’m on my tiny Asus laptop after school, creating a “deep” Tumblr mood-board with gems like this one:
I’m practicing doing my Kylie Jenner makeup in front of my bathroom mirror, putting a ‘DND - Off.’ status on my BBM hoping someone messages me asking me what’s wrong, trying to learn what’s cool on Vine and recreate it. I’m shooting pictures on Retrica and CamWow, posting a $waggy (yes, spelt like that) album on Facebook (2023’s photodumps have nothing on this), shuttling between scoffing at and adoring One Direction. All of these things that definitely helped me build my interest in cultural happenings.
And as I listen to Olivia Rodrigo’s genre of scream-o girl-pop that is at par with my once-upon-a-time Avril Lavigne obsession, blog furiously over the weekends (or try to, anyway), and witness the multitudes of girlhood wherever I look, I’m quickly realising that in the collective cultural regression we’re experiencing, the latest era to succumb to a Gen Z and Alpha yass-ification is the late ‘00s and early ‘10s.
📺 Teen TV is back
While most of us lived through the peak of Comedy Central and Star World as TV TV where weekdays 8-10 were dedicated to Suits, Boston Legal, House, and Gossip Girl (am I missing something? Drop yours in the comments below!), Gen Z and Alpha are now discovering the sheer chokehold these shows had on us via streaming. This means memes, fan edits, and reels featuring random snippets of these shows that I remember as a distant fever dream. If only ‘go-piss girl’ had existed ten years ago.
Now that the writers’ strike is over — studios are capitalising on this, with a Mean Girls musical-movie adaptation, and a new Suits show reportedly joining the reboot hall-of-lame, possibly to join the same graveyard where Gossip Girl 2.0 rests. But running in parallel is a fresh intake of teen TV, à la Euphoria, Sex Education, and Never Have I Ever, captivating ages millennial to younger, and defining fashion, lifestyle, even wellness trends globally. But can either of these compete with the original gangsters of primetime TV when it comes to cultural influence? Not just yet, but ask me again in the next 10 years (although I do think it’s unlikely).
🫀 Teenage angst returns
If your 13 year old self (like mine) enjoyed stomping their foot and storming off with a passion, snapped at the slightest inflection in someone’s voice, and spontaneously burst into tears at any given moment, do I have news for you. While it’s hard to classify teen angst as a cultural trend (or as anything really. What even is that?) but if there was ever a moment it felt relevant (which has nothing to do with you screaming into a pillow because someone pointed out a stray hair on your chin), it’s now. Somewhere between a Euphoria-addled haze and romanticising the past, suddenly one day, being a teenage girl — or at least identifying as one — even if you’re in your mid-twenties) became cool again.
One revival of Tumblr blogs, two Olivia Rodrigo albums (She basically sounds like my high school diary brought to life!), and three coming of age films later — the trend cycle overlords have spoken, and the forecast feels angsty with a hint of I also have a grown up full-time job. Expect a whole bunch of teen familiarity, especially if you grew up in the ‘00s, swathed in a layer of crying and screaming — with a deeper trend of authenticity making its way through the noise.
🧢 Teen fashion is having a moment
Did you even live through the ‘00s if you weren’t subject to the era of teenybopper Disney stars wearing skirts-over-pants (AKA Skants)?
Whether it’s the resurgence of the infamous ‘Going Out Top,’ a post-Y2K staple that made its name by being perfect for, well, going out and is now having a slightly grown-up renaissance, or a Skant-revival seen in the latest Fashion Weeks, we’ve moved past the ‘90s to have a full-blown ‘00s fashion comeback on our hands.
Whether it’s sneakers (it’s good to see Converse back again!), accessories (just no on the giant belts. No.), even expressive graphic tees — after a blanding of its own, fashion is quickly becoming all about loud, and more importantly, unique self expression of fluid, different identities — all the hallmarks of being a teen, packaged in an expensive H&M haul that I wistfully glance through every now and then.
🙋🏻♂️ And even the boys are getting into it!
Completely digressing from one of the most astute observations (I think) that I’ve ever made, one of the most major critiques of this newsletter has been that it ✨ feels too girly ✨ — whatever that means because it’s 2023, and this is irrelevant. But for once, I do have something that’s completely boy-centric to add to the conversation. ICYMI, the internet has a new favourite historic craze, tailored solely to, and brought to life solely by men. I am, of course, talking about Napoleon and The Roman Empire.
Whether it’s the “there’s nothing we can do” Napoleonic give-upper energy or ‘we casually think about the Roman Empire twice-a-day’ idiosyncrasy, history lessons from the eight grade seem to have left a deeper impact on the boys than we realised, now coming out in strange ways. It’s fascinating to see that this is the trend contribution to the overall teenage revival of it all, but what I’d really like to know is what do you actually think when you think of The Roman Empire? (No, seriously. Tell me about it!).
🧺 Laundry pickup
The bottomline is — being a teen and doing/consuming the things you did when you were a teen has never been cooler than it is now. As teens come into their own digitally, and Gen Alpha starts carving its own niche across channels — more than half of them are already active users — it’s no surprise that the winds of the trend cycle shift in their direction.
We’re in a trend cycle of coming of age, because a majority of internet users are coming of age, trying to make sense of the world around them. This coming of age, however, is a little different. It’s a lot more visible for one, so everything we consume becomes a lot more targeted as brands scramble to relate, and teens scramble to express. Two, an authentic and expressive identity is becoming a key trend surrounding all of the conversations we’re having online.
People are realising that if they are recording their every thought and every take (which, BTW, is not a necessity, just saying) — it needs to come from a place of genuineness, so they can be heard and stand out from the overcrowd. Which brings me to my final point — teenage angst. Notions of rebellion, being different, feeling misunderstood have never been more relevant than they are now with the way the world is. If social media’s a high school, right about now is when we realise we’re all basically the same when it comes to, say, things like influencing, and are lashing out because we’re different and no one gets us. Or maybe I’m reading in-between the lines. That’s what they teach you in ninth grade English, right?