The latest entry in the absolutely pointless intergenerational war between Gen Z and the ancient millennials is so utterly befuddling that I feel it is necessary to address it once and for all, in an attempt to issue something close to a declarative statement on the matter. It seems that Gen Z has come for skinny jeans and, for some reason, side parts, and the millennial mamas who are the vanguard of these sartorial choices are NOT going to take this shit sitting down.
Gen Z teens on TikTok have gathered their resources to wage a war on the twin scourges of skinny jeans and side parts, two styling choices that are apparently a hallmark of millennials. These items are canceled. Middle parts and a straight-leg jean, of the sort that was popular in the ‘90s when Gen Z were toddlers being babysat by elder millennials, are the move. Burn your Madewell skinnies, throw your Old Navy Rockstar Jeans in the garbage. Part your hair down the middle like a Hanson brother. Refusal to adhere to these strict guidelines results in a fate worse than death: obsolescence and cultural irrelevancy.
It makes sense that the teens of Gen Z, who are frightening to me for many reasons, are rejecting these styling choices. Teens on TikTok dress like the Delia’s catalog, which has little to do with whether it actually looks good and more to do with the insidious ’90s-redux shit that Urban Outfitters has been peddling for some time. Fashion is cyclical and the worst of the past always comes back in some fashion or another, remixed and rejiggered slightly, and then snapped up by a generation who were literal infants when the styles first became popular. Skinny jeans and a deep side-part, still popularized by mid-tier Christian lifestyle influencers and the like, aren’t ugly per se, but they aren’t fashionable at the moment. No one likes to be told that they’re irrelevant or out of vogue, especially when they’ve spent their entire life thinking otherwise, so for the millennial mamas of Instagram still beach-waving their hair in the morning before parting it so far on the side that it looks like a combover, news of the cancelation hit hard.