Millennials are getting an unexpected, yet overdue, rebrand. We’re a generation frequently derided by Gen Z, along with our cultural signifiers: millennial pink, Mason jars, avocado toast...
But Gen Z has finally come on side, following what seems to be an endearing TikTok from 20-year-old @romulusedits. Her post, which has 1.4m views, blasts out Robyn’s 2010 anthem Dancing On My Own to stills from iconic Millennial TV shows like Girls, Fleabag and Broad City, alongside photos of Millennial icons Alexa Chung and Chloë Sevigny, and a GIF of someone spelling ‘love is stupid’ with Scrabble pieces, ie, the kind of content that would have absolutely flown on Instagram in the early 2010s.
The top comment, with more than 9,000 likes, says, ‘Realising we hate on Millennials because their twenties actually had a spark of hope and joy.’ It’s ignited a shift in the ether – and numerous viral videos from Gen Z admitting the error of their judging ways. After years of being mocked (you might remember the term ‘cheugy’, coined to encompass how embarrassing they found us), something has changed. That’s right, Gen Z think Millennials are cool now.
Another video, with 700k views, from @_monica_alexandra_ offers some explanation for how this shift happened. ‘I’m watching Girls on HBO for the first time and I realise I wasn’t meant to be 23 in this age,’ her video text reads. ‘I was meant to be a 23-year-old hipster living in Brooklyn in 2012 wearing too many floral patterns, listening to Vampire Weekend and writing absurd listicles on Buzzfeed while it was at its peak.’ She concludes that she’s now ‘a converted Millennial apologist’. Another admits, ‘Millennials are cooler than us.’
We’re also seeing a revival of Millennial culture play out in the sales of ‘old’ technology, such as digital cameras, once considered an essential for a night out. Google searches for the Canon G7 X peaked in December last year, causing the price of the decade-old camera to skyrocket to £1,200 on Amazon and eBay. The latest version of it sits at the £700 price point, for context. Meanwhile, Timothée Chalamet’s baby pink Chrome Hearts hoodie ensemble at the Berlin premiere of A Complete Unknown hinted at millennial pink’s come-back. And Chanel, Valentino and Ferragamo all incorporated the pale hue in their spring/summer 2025 collections.
Perhaps the key to this U-turn lies in Gen Z’s nostalgia for a time on the internet that was shame-free. Once a punchline, many of them are now realising we were the last group to exist without fear of being cringe, even though our behaviour was categorically mortifying. We took selfies with a drawn-on moustache on our index finger, uploaded them on to Facebook and felt good about it. In hindsight, we were joyously unbound.
Compare this to today’s youth; being young today means living with constant anxiety about how you’re perceived and never-ending feedback thanks to the choke- hold of social media. It’s a huge weight with little or no relief. Is it any wonder they are romanticising the 2010s? When you look back, our embarrassing ways did have an air of innocence about them. So from cringe to cool: let’s see what Millennial clichés Gen Z are helping revive...
Upbeat music
Millennials have been mocked mercilessly for loving songs like We Are Young by Fun or bands such as Mumford and Sons and Vampire Weekend. They’ve come to characterise the hipster era – a kind of Mason jar aesthetic, all man buns and barn yard chic. Now Gen Z are realising it’s actually not that bad to listen to a song that makes you kind of happy.
Skinny jeans
The once Millennial-fave-before-they-were- banished-to-the-fashion-bins are back! Loewe, Prada and Marni showcased the drainpipe styles during their spring/summer 2025 catwalk shows. Whether you’re going to dig yours out again or not, they’re absolutely back with a bang.
Pointless online listicles and quizzes
We know the internet has become a bin for AI summaries and bizarre memes. Back in the late 2010s, it was littered with silliness – listicles and quizzes to be precise. And now Gen Z are nostalgic for a time where ‘brainrot’ meant doing quizzes about ‘What your cocktail choice says about your romantic future’, instead of today’s brainrot, where phrases like ‘very demure’ become trendy for a month before brands co-opt it.
HBO’s Girls
Lena Dunham’s sitcom about four insufferable, privileged American friends was beyond divisive when it first dropped in 2012, right until its final episode in 2017. But a new generation is discovering the series now – perhaps because Gen Z are now the age of the characters in the show. It’s being reassessed and understood to be satire – some- thing many critics failed to grasp at the time. Much like Millennials loved to identify as a Carrie or a Miranda while watching Sex And The City, the HBO Girls Rewatch Podcast, a series hosted by two comedians in their early/mid-twenties, starts every episode with ‘Girl, which girl are you?’