Gen Z seems to be on a mission to make cigarettes cool again. On social media, they they joke about cigs that “don’t count” (drunk cig, vacation cig, casino cig, girls cry sesh sig, boat cig) and how good it feels to give in to your cravings.
“Sometimes you just need a cigarette (It’s 8:14 am on a Thursday) (idc),” one TikToker says in a clip showing her walking around the city.
Then there’s the “cigfluencers.” Instagram accounts like @Cigfluencers curate photos of pop stars and actors smoking in candid shots or while filming: Hailey Bieber, Addison Rae, Lily-Rose Depp, Jenna Ortega and Hudson Williams (the rising star of “Heated Rivalry”) have all made appearances on the page.
Celebrities have long smoked, of course. Still, unless they were European, they mostly kept it under wraps as smoking became more culturally taboo. But as the existence of cigfluencers shows, Gen Z actors and pop stars are increasingly unafraid of getting papped with a Parliament.
Smoking is becoming a casual signifier of “cool” in film, TV and music, too: When Sabrina Carpenter headlined Coachella earlier this month, a prop cigarette dangled from her lips as drove off-set in a vintage 1950s Ford Thunderbird. (The 26-year-old pop star “smokes” in music videos for her songs “Manchild” and “House Tour,” too.)
