A Theory on on Gen Z fashion

Fans of the blog will know I think much of the UC Davis student body is extremely lame. In my first post on UC Davis I declared that the student body were total nerds. In my second post, I posited that perhaps they are lame because their generation as a whole don't know how to party.

The past week I was riding my bike through campus and it was freshmen orientation, so large groups of freshmen were being toured around in groups. It made me remember being a college freshmen and how going to college was a chance at a fresh start with all new people, and wanting to fit in and make friends. I knew that my first impression with my college peers was important in doing so.

However, as I rode past these kids I was a bit amazed that the outfits they were wearing were just all over the place. Like there was no overarching style or even a hipsteresque ironic approach to fashion. It was like they were given a random grab-bag from the thrift store and said "yeah, this looks good on me".

Given how disparate the apparel choices were it made me realize that there doesn't seem to be any style trends that exist in Gen Z. When I was young I think we realized the trends that were in place, and I'd say most people in school generally tried to follow the conventional wisdom of what was stylish at the time, or had defined alternate styles like the goths and hipsters. Gen Z seems to be all over the map, or simply doesn't care about following any trends in fashion. Billie Eilish is probably one of the most famous Gen Zers and her style is so extremely broad that it's almost impossible to define or even mimic.

As I rode I wondered why this might be. When I was a kid we got our style cues from a very homogenized media ecosystem where MTV and The OC told us what was cool. Now media is much more disjointed with a myriad of TV shows, Twitch streamers, indie movies, Tik-Toc trends and influencers. So it makes sense that kids may dress like their favorite influencers or base their fashion choices on an esoteric TV show that very few other people follow. 

I also wonder how much Covid had to do with things. These kids would have missed out on chunks of their freshmen and sophomore years of High School. After a year and a half of virtual learning maybe they came back and what you wore didn't matter anymore.

Every decade seems to have some defined styles associated with it. You can look at a picture of a group of high schoolers and easily tell if it's from the 70s, 80s, 90s or aughts (shoutout to cargo shorts, polo with a popped collar, puka shell necklace and upside down visor). But I wonder if it will still be that obvious for gen Z. It seems like it's not specific trends coming back en masse ala Ugg Boots, but rather every trend ever coming back in a fraction of Gen Z all at the same time. Which honestly must really take the pressure off these kids since everything is cool and everyone looks so uncool.

Feeling the Generational Divide

I've told my wife countless times and to this blog one time that I think UC Davis students don't seem to party nearly as much as I'd expect. In comparison to my recollections of Ann Arbor when I was a student, I'm still flabbergasted at how rarely I see students out drinking at the bars, and rarer still a drunken student stumbling down the sidewalk like I used to do every weekend when I was in school. Rarely do I see a lawn littered with solo cups on a Sunday morning or even a keg on a porch. I have always chalked this up to UC Davis just not having a party culture. (I asked our kid's babysitter who is a senior at UCD which were the cool student bars was and she was very unsure, but she probably also didn't want me trying to go there)

In recent months I've seen more and more reports about how Gen Z is drinking less, doing less drugs, having less sex and generally partying less. It's made me consider that when I compare Davis to Ann Arbor, I'm comparing 2022 Davis to 2008 Ann Arbor, and perhaps I'm really comparing Gen Z with my fellow Millennials. (But also based on my travels, I think the midwest state schools just drink a lot more)

I'm sure sociologists are hard at work studying why Gen Z is behaving differently than the Millennials that came before them. I suspect one of the biggest changes between when I was in college (2005-2009) and now is that the current generation came of age with the Me Too movement where society really reexamined their views on sex and appropriate sexual behaviors. (In addition to many of them being unable to party for 2 years due to COVID, and now they don't know how to throw down)

My generation came of age with movies like American Pie, Road Trip, and Old School guiding our views on sex and what high school & college should be like. It's not entirely surprising that we came to college expecting wild parties, casual hookups and wild adventures. And at least for me, my expectations for college were really shaped more than anything else by the writing of Tucker Max.

I discovered Tucker Max's website right after graduating from high school. He had these stories about wild nights spent drinking, getting into hilarious situations and scoring chicks. If 18 year old me had an idol he would have been it. I clearly was so enamored by him that no less than 5 times during college I wrote on this very blog about wanting to have a "Tucker Max Level Story". I still have his book, and I picked it up while writing this post and read back through some of it. 17 years later it really feels like those stories were from a different time and place and I'm not sure there would be the same audience for that the way there was in 2005 (both broadly, and personally).

It does make me wonder what our generation will be known for. Sure, I've heard us described as the internet generation or social media generation. But I think a generation is probably more defined by the generation that comes after it than by the those that came before it. Maybe I was part of the last carefree generation that grew up on 90s consumerism, raunchy comedies, a party culture, and before we really worried about our health, the environment or having our life ruined by a meme or misguided tweet like Gen Z does. It seems like Gen Z is under more pressure to do good and be good, and with all that pressure, I'm amazed they aren't turning to sex, drugs and alcohol to cope with it.