From TikTok videos featuring baggy outfits to the resurgence of flip phones and low-rise jeans, Gen Z is bringing back the early 2000s. The revival, known as “Faux-Stalgia,” reflects a longing for a past they never lived through. A massive wave of this has hit the world, but why?
Cultural experts say this throwback trend reflects more than just fashion. For many young people, Y2k aesthetics offer comfort, identity, and escape from a chaotic modern world.
Nostalgia has become a form of emotional self-care,” said Dr. Emily Stokes, a cultural psychologist at UCLA. “For Gen Z, who grew up in a digital world, revisiting the 2000s feels like returning to something tangible.”
Gen Z Americans, in particular, are leading the revival of our old culture. Feaux-Stalgia has become what it is because people feel more welcomed among elders if they are more similar. If you can relate to somebody, they will like you more.
The early 2000s is generally perceived to be the golden age of street fashion, as stated by Bobby Hundreds, co-founder of the streetwear brand The Hundreds – “So now, 20 years later, when we look back on that Golden Age of streetwear, we roll it all into one burrito. Even if The Hundreds wasn’t actually a part of it.” This means that he can feel the effects of this fashion style still today and understands why it was so popular.
For example, the influence of hip hop in fashion culture. Ever since the boom of rap music in the 1970s and 1980s, the world- mostly the United States- has thought about streetwear in a completely different way. The introduction of tracksuits became a defining trend where artists in the 1980s and 1990s often appeared in bold, colorful, matching sets in their music videos. These outfits symbolized confidence, status, and unity within the hip-hop community.
This nostalgia isn’t limited to music — it’s reshaping fashion too. The release of the Nike Air Jordan 1 in 1985 was massive, influencing the market for sneakers still today. This line of shoes is one of the most recognizable fashion pieces ever created. It created a massive market for shoes and started the act of collecting rare editions of sneakers and showing them off. Even now, you will see people wearing this line of sneakers everywhere.
The 1990s and 2000s are largely stylized by excessive jewelry, Timberland boots (also known as Timbs), and baggy
clothing. People would often wear all of these items together. Many famous hip-hop and rap artists wear excessive amounts of jewelry, like gold necklaces.
While hip-hop shaped streetwear’s rise, grunge offered a darker, rebellious counterpart. This contrasted the hip hop/streetwear fashion style, and that is due to the grunge style’s objective of highlighting the excessiveness of clothing at the time. Grunge can be simple or have many components to an outfit. Usually, the clothing is dark and has special textures to it, like having web lace, which is a pattern of lace resembling a chaotic spider web.
The reason that the world is reverting to how it styled itself is interesting. ‘Gen Z-ers’ are saying that they want a style “offering a simpler, more carefree vibe through bold and expressive clothing.” This reveals that nowadays, people think that the world is too complicated, and that they want a more relaxed style that still looks cool while not needing much thought.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have accelerated the rate at which these trends take over. Because of the audience that these platforms contain, there is a larger influence, as well as more people to influence others. TikTok alone has 1.9 billion users monthly, as reported by Statista, and that means that it is possible for 1.9 billion people to learn about our cultural development.
Whether it’s expensive sneakers, huge golden necklaces, or goth clothing, our new generations are bringing back the 2000s, and there is no stopping them.
