Analysing everything our teenage selves deemed as cool
If you’re a geriatric Gen Z like me, you’ll vividly remember the chaos that was the 2010s. From planking, colourful skinny jeans, Vine, fidget spinners, British beauty vloggers, to Tide Pod consuming—the decade that marked our adolescence was full of some truly strange and unforgettable trends. As the low-rise jeans and butterfly clip filled Y2K craze begins to flicker, it’s both startling and nostalgic to see some of the 2010s’ fads trickle into society again. Before you scavenge for your tattoo chokers and ripped jeans from the back of your closet, let’s analyse the decade’s trends and collectively decide whether or not they should make a comeback in the 2020s.
2013 Instagram
Instagram was at its prime between 2012 and 2014, and you can’t convince me otherwise. The app was fun: people posted grainy photos and thick-bordered collages of whatever their heart desired, like their lunch, an image galaxy-print unicorn you stole from Pinterest or We Heart It, or a cool building. You could put your hobbies in your bio, or to start drama, the names of all of your bestest friends in your bio with strategically-chosen coloured hearts. Life was simple. Bring back low-res, sepia-toned Instagram!
Sharpie Eyebrows
This is a trend we all wish we could erase from our collective memory. All evidence of my 2016 Angry Bird brows, which were etched on with jet black eyebrow pencil and outlined in minion yellow concealer, has been scrubbed clean from my camera roll. I also think that James Charles, Anastasia Beverly Hills, and all of my friends that had the audacity to let me walk around with Nike ticks for eyebrows deserve to be held accountable in criminal court for their actions. Let’s not let this injustice repeat itself in the 2020s.
Jeggings
This genius invention was genuinely the only type of pants I wore until about age 15 and for very good reason. They blend the best of both worlds: the chic aesthetic of denim jeans and the function and comfortable embrace of leggings. Gone are the days of chafing, fretting about your fly being open, or having to loosen a few buttons after eating good—with jeggings, you can transition from the office to the gym in mere moments, and if the occasion arises, these bad boys can be whipped off in seconds. I can’t wait to see Kaia Gerber strutting in these on the catwalk next season.
“Superfoods”
The 2010s was the peak of weird health food crazes, filling the pockets of Gwyneth Paltrow and green-juice-powder-promoting YouTubers. Every month, a new “superfood” would arrive on supermarket shelves, claiming to provide some secret healing power, from quinoa, spirulina, acai, goji berries, to blueberry kombucha. I think we can agree that society has moved past idolising kale, and just accepted that food is food, and everyone should just eat whatever they feel is best for them.
Ombré Hair
Every girlie went feral for this trend. We would spend our weekends dipping the ends of our hair in lemon juice, before sitting underneath the sun so that they could become naturally “bleached” with varying levels of success. Since Olaplex hadn’t yet been invented, everyone’s hair would be left crunchy and oddly scare-crow like, especially when paired with a flannel—the 2014 Tumblr Girl essential. You know what? Having healthy hair that’s not the texture of instant noodles is pretty nice, let’s keep it that way.
Silly Bandz
I had a friend who had a jar the size of my head full of these things. What sacrificial rituals did the marketing genius behind these glorified rubber bands perform to get children, and even celebrities like the Kardashians, hooked on these things? These violations of consumer law should be eternally barred from ever becoming cool again.
Dystopian Fiction
Before the BookTok and Colleen Hoover era, there was YA Fiction, which saw the skyrocketing of Whitcoulls’ dystopian novels and nearly every film production company cashing in on the craze. This era gave us the masterpiece that is The Hunger Games, decent works like The Maze Runner and The Selection, and cash-grab flops like Divergent. If you weren’t religiously wearing your mockingjay pin or Katniss’ side braid, you were missing out big time. With the upcoming release of The Ballad of the Songbirds and Snakes, I’m unashamedly ecstatic to be reliving my Hunger Games obsession along with everyone else that grew up on Suzanne Collins.
Moustaches
Why were we all collectively possessed by this form of facial hair and the need to plaster it on every form of merchandise possible? I’m still waiting for an academic to explain the reasons behind this absurd sociological phenomenon.
Tumblr
This microblogging and social networking platform was not only the crossover between Millennials and elderly Gen Z, but also the foundation of the 2010s Tumblr culture and aesthetic. Think Acacia Brinley, holographic aliens, Halsey’s blue hair, Lana Del Rey flower crown edits, and re-blogs of “inspirational” quotes like “normal people scare me.”
Beyond its cultivation of a distinct aesthetic many of us look fondly back on, there were many great qualities of this platform. It served as an important hub for young people and marginalised communities to connect and express their identity, as well as advocate for important political issues. Many Tumblr users utilised their blog as a moodboard, curating and representing their identity anonymously. The platform was also the birthplace of the absurdist qualities of late Millennial and Gen Z humour, even if we think the memes are cringy in retrospect.
But I’m also not surprised that Tumblr eventually fizzled out of the mainstream. While its relaxed moderation of content allowed for the posting of NSFW content, which was often beneficial in promoting healthy conversations about sexuality and sex work, the platform also saw the circulation of hate speech, bullying, and child pornography. Let’s not forget that a significant chunk of Tumblr’s content romanticised mental illness both overtly and subtly. Blogs that glorified eating disorders and self-harm were often unregulated and allowed to maintain a significant presence on the platform, harmfully portraying mental health struggles as desirable, deep or beautiful. Niches like the Lolita aesthetic fetishised grooming and violence, with the circulation of content featuring italicised quotes from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel and “dreamy” stills from film adaptations of Lolita. Considering that most of Tumblr’s users were young and impressionable adolescents, this type of content was especially impactful and detrimental, and not something I hope will return anytime soon.
