The Style Cycle
Feeling old?! The kids are making MySpace apps and wearing JNCOs.
The Cycle Continues
I have previously written about the joys of getting older and my appreciation for the wisdom that comes with lived experience.
Although I knew it would happen one day, I still wasn’t fully prepared to confront the harsh reality that the styles I loved as a young person would cycle back around and become cool and retro for the younger generation. Well, here we are!
I was born in 1985 and “grew up” predominantly in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Scientists, sociologists, and everyone in between largely agree that core features of your taste and personality form in your early teen years, and so I found myself coming of age at a curious time.
The widespread use of the internet opened up the world to me and everyone I knew. Reality could be whatever you wanted it to be, and I was interested in many things. I self-identified as a mall goth, an emo kid, a gamer, a nerd…adopting many aspects of subcultures and internet personas through my experiences gaming online, listening to nu-metal, and playing in bands.
We want the wide legs!
Because it was one of the first identities that really felt like my own, the mall goth/nu-metal fan/weirdo kid remains one of the strongest that I remember fondly. It’s back, baby!
Big pants and big shirts are everywhere. After fifteen or twenty years on top, skinny jeans are now a sure sign that you are OLD. I don’t particularly care about being seen as old, but I have recently been moving away from my formerly beloved skinnies, and am much happier for it. Truthfully, they never were super comfortable anyway, and I am finding new wants and needs in my clothes.
For the record, I will not be going back to the super wide leg! I do see a lot of teenagers and young adults wearing them, though.
Styles change constantly, partly because of the crushing and overbearing weight of the fashion industry juggernaut’s persistence in keeping us buying, buying, buying, and partly because kids generally rebel against what their parents are doing. I am a bit baffled that this style of JNCO and UFO wide pants and jeans has returned, but it’s very interesting to watch styles change.
I’ve even been seeing eyebrow piercings more frequently over the last few years, and that is just bonkers.
A MySpace copycat has entered the chat.
The cycle does not only embrace clothing.
I recently learned about Noplace, a new social app that has become increasingly popular among Gen Z and Gen Alpha. It was created by Tiffany Zhong, who was notably born in 2005, around the time I started to wind down my initial MySpace use. The app plays into the current trend for Y2K nostalgia and opened to the public this week.
It is keen on capturing the nostalgic feel of the earlier internet and the dawn of social media, finding influence in MySpace, Livejournal, and the early days of Twitter. You can set what music you’re listening to, your mood, and name your Top Ten friends (remember when MySpace updated to allow you to do 24 from its initial 8?)
I was curious, so I made an account.
There are plenty of easy customization options for your profile, so I won’t need my self-taught HTML skills from 2003. It’s a cool app, and definitely harkens back to an earlier time.
However, it feels…sterile? Colorful, yes, but devoid of the community that I remember finding when I was younger. The main feed shows, in real-time, everyone’s posts. From my understanding, people are friending and following whomever to build their communities, and I hope that works for them, but it’s not for me.
And maybe that’s just it—I no longer need to seek this type of online-only community that appealed to me when I was a teenager. I am happy that this exists and happy that young people are finding joy in simpler expressions of digital connection. Instagram and Twitter were great, but all have lost their magic due to brands, bots, and advertisements.
I don’t foresee myself staying on Noplace; it was more of an experiment than anything else. But I hope the kids like it!
The Old Internet
I appreciate that younger people are finding an appreciation for simpler times. One of Tabatha’s favorite things to say about just about anything is, “It’s too much!”
There is too much abundance. Too much noise. Too much waste. Too much mess. Too much excess. Too many things. I appreciate that the younger generations have realized this and have been adopting it.
Except for the pants. They will stay big and abundant for the foreseeable future.
What Excites Me
1994 and 1999 were big years for music, so we have lots of anniversaries and special events in 2024. Here is a partial list of my super-cool-retro concert list for the remainder of the year:
8/17: System of a Down + Deftones | San Francisco, CA
9/13: Slipknot’s 25th Anniversary | Los Angeles, CA
10/5: KoRn’s 30th Anniversary, w/ Evanescence | Los Angeles, CA
Unsolicited Recommendations
Great Articles I Read This Week
What I’m Listening To Right Now
Nothing More is a band I found through Instagram. Their music definitely has a nu-metal feel, and this new album just came out a few weeks ago. I think I like the album that came out before this a bit more, but this has been on my rotation this week.
Listen here:
Which Books Have Had My Attention
An Internet for the People, by Jessa Lingel
I See By My Outfit, by Peter S. Beagle
I’ve already read both of these books, but this week’s theme makes them feel relevant.
An Internet for the People definitely reads like an academic paper bound and published. It tracks the history and development of the Craigslist website, most interestingly detailing its initial intention: the Internet should be an open place for the free exchange of ideas and information.
I See By My Outfit is a beautifully written account of a cross-country motorbike trip in 1964. I haven’t read many travel journals, but I’ve written my own, and this one is an absolute joy to read. It handles the description of experiences in such a magical way.
Resource of the Week
Find your local indie bookstores and support them! Stop going to Barnes & Noble.
I hope you’re all staying cool as the planet burns up.