If you’ve never heard of “coastal grandmother’s aesthetics,” consider yourself lucky.
Or “Blueberry Milk Claws,” or “The Aesthetics of the Mob Wife,” or 100 other blinking mistake fanatics cycle online with the ferociousness of a centrifuge. These microtrends tend to be related to Gen Z, as they are known. But members of that generation say they are exhausted by the onslaught of new phrases they encounter every time they pick up their phones.
I have spent the last few months asking young people about fashion and social media trends they actually sign up for offline life. More than any trend, I wanted to talk about what the teenagers and 20 people I spoke about, and how overwhelming it is.
All generations feel pressure to keep up with trends, especially young people. However, many members of Gen Z seem to be under certain stresses. Social media fire hoses offer endless opportunities to feel left behind. Others say they can’t afford to keep up, both mentally and financially.
For the new storyline in the Style section of the Times, we talked to young people about the trending ecosystem that is passionate.
catch up
Short form video platforms like Tiktok are fertile territory of microtrends. They have received intense assistance from fast fashion companies like Temu and Shein selling inexpensive but inadequate clothing and accessories.
On the first day of sixth grade, Nina Atkins noticed several girls from middle school wearing shrews on her wrists. She was looking for Schke in Tiktok, but in the later era she provided more videos of hair tie worn as a bracelet.
“I remember clearly going to be like, ‘Wow, am I strange?'” said Nina, now 16. “Repeats and over again, it really penetrates your brain.”
Tiktok’s algorithm is designed to show viewers more of what they already like, allowing viewers to feel they’ve gone through the same billboard hundreds of times, rather than once or twice a day. It’s pretty convincing, especially in combination with the old teenage desires.
Nina bought a 30-pack of Shruity from Amazon, but eventually the girl in her bait got hooked on something else. The cycle has started anew.
“We’ve had the last two months where the cheetah prints are everywhere,” Nina added.
dropout
Many young people I spoke to said they felt stuck in the cycle of chasing, buying and disposing to chase. But others are trying to move beyond that. Some people swear from fast fashion or limit their clothing to similar uniforms every day. Some people have deleted social media.
Before buying anything, Manhattan student Abner Gordan, 21, tries to ask himself whether he appeals to his sense of style or if he wants something because he is emulating what he sees online.
He was encouraging when I saw a Tiktok user pressing “Under -Coundption Core.”
However, he was disappointed when he saw the trend lose steam just a few months later. “It’s very trendy to be anti-trend in a strange way,” he said.
Latest News
Government overhaul
Other big stories
A wildfire erupted on Long Island, causing at least one firefighter to injure.
The legal services company has created a hotline to gather allegations of sexual assault on music mogul Shawn Combs, formerly known as Diddy. It says that it received about 26,000 contact details.
Newark police arrested a 14-year-old boy in connection with a shooting that killed one of the detectives and wounded another officer.
Trump’s actions
It may be hard to keep up with the huge flood of news from the White House. The Times created a page to track the Trump administration. Includes its major executive orders, memos, litigation and social media posts. Here are some of the last week:
Military: He restored the name of another base, named after Fort Benning, a Confederate leader, but said it was named after a previously obscure soldier who shared his surname.
Cryptocurrency: Signed an executive order to create a national stockpile of Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
Government Overhaul: Posting and then deleting a list of more than 440 federal property that can be sold, including the FBI and Department of Justice headquarters.
Ukraine: Ukraine has stopped access to US satellite images that track Russian military movements.
See the full list here.
Sunday discussion
Was Andrew Cuomo wise to join the race of New York City mayor?
yes. Cuomo has government experience and oversaw the creation of a new terminal at Laguardia Airport. “It can be argued that Cuomo has far more experience than his rivals, not to mention four years as governor, four years as HUD secretary and four years as state attorney general,” writes Errol Lewis of New York Magazine.
no. During the pandemic, Cuomo has hidden the real death toll at the nursing home and has since denied fraud. “As Cuomo is looking for a return to the High Office, it is worth revisiting how he handled the most important leadership test of his career,” Bill Hammond wrote for the Wall Street Journal.
From the opinion
Mask risk-taking works in business. However, in government, these strategies can lead to death, the editorial committee wrote.
Ariona Sinenko sang two years after the war in Ukraine. Having a goal can endure life during conflict, she writes.
Here is Ross D’Autat’s column on French leadership in Europe and Nicholas Christophe on Trump’s recklessness.
“Dream Count” by Chimamanda Ngoji Adichie: It’s been 12 years since Adichie published “American.” Since then, she has delivered a pocket-sized, non-fiction trio of feminism and sadness. Now, Adichie has returned to “Dream Count,” a novel about the weaving life of four African women: lawyer, banker, travel writer and housekeeper. In the author’s note, she explains that one character was inspired by Nafisatu Diallo, a hotel employee who accused French politician and economist Dominique Strauss Khan of sexual assault. She wrote that Adichie wanted to be “wrong” with the “returned gesture of dignity.” Our critics described this book, which was registered as a pros for the 2025 Women’s Awards Fiction Award. Read the review.
Book details
Before Harper Lee published “To Kill the Mockingbird,” she wrote a short story exploring some of the themes that made her famous: father and daughter, race relations, small town gossip. These stories will be released this fall.
Interview
The subject of this week’s interview is Lady Gaga, who is currently releasing her new album, Mayhem.
Your partner, Michael Polanski, is the album’s executive producer. How did he have an impact on music?
He oversaw the entire process of creating records and completing them, helping to creatively shape the sound of the records. When I began to doubt myself, I’m not going to call it better to me than he, so it was amazing that it had something to do with your partner.
I could imagine the relationship being difficult in your position as there might be questions about whether someone’s feelings are real or not. How did you realize that Michael is the real thing?
From the moment I met Michael, he had the warmest temperament. Yes, he was impressive, but what I cared most was that he wanted to know about my family. (Pause) Sorry for crying.
No, it’s okay.
What I’m trying to say is that Michael wanted to be my friend, so I think he knew that Michael was the real thing. He wanted to go for a walk with me. He took me rock climbing. I also have a state of pain (fibromyalgia), but he has this belief that I can get better and urged him to have more hopes about it. So, yeah, I think you know Michael is the real thing because he’s my friend.
For more information about the interview, please see here.
The New York Times Magazine
In this week’s 5-week evening cooking newsletter, Emily Weinstein suggests that maple and flavored salmon, and Eviam fried rice soak in yam yum sauce and make spice chicken and rice along with cardamom and cinnamon.
