Ed Hardy and Hard Seltzer Ice Cream

Your daily digest of youth culture

Jun 22, 2021

Telfar Clemens is designing uniforms for Liberia’s 2020 Olympic team, this is the best photo example of the sartorial generational divide I’ve ever seen, Coors is making a hard seltzer ice cream (I wonder what their target audience is???), Ed Hardy is back in style, and…

DON’T BOTHER LOOKING FOR THE NEXT SHEIN

Why? Gen Z shops Shein not because of brand loyalty, but rather because it’s cheap and they’re broke. But as they earn more discretionary income — and as they begin to increasingly value sustainability — the demand for fast fashion will dissipate. (Tbd on whether it’ll dissipate before or after Shein copycats like Cider, which Andreessen Horowitz’s recently poured $22 million into, take off.) jingdaily

GEN Z IS REIMAGINING MASCULINITY. BRANDS ARE, TOO

“We need to stop seeing men as two-dimensional creatures who care about sports and grilling.” bof

A VENTURE CAPITALIST TOLD GEN Z TO WORK WEEKENDS IF THEY WANTED TO BE SUCCESSFUL

And Gen Z — a generation that is staunchly anti-hustle culture — told her to go f*ck herself. vice //Related: TikTok, pink stationery, and crowded planners: Gen Z's toxic productivity. vox

WHY DO MOVIES ABOUT INFLUENCERS KEEP GETTING INFLUENCER CULTURE WRONG?

On Sweat, Mainstream, and Zola. vanityfair // Speaking of on-screen influencers: The next-generation Gossip Girl is more diverse, more self-aware, and far more lavishly produced. vulture

TIKTOK HAS ALREADY SURPASSED SNAPCHAT IN THE EYES OF BRANDS AND AGENCIES

TikTok is proving to be more valuable for both brand-building and for driving revenue. digiday // Also: What retailers need to know to turn heads on TikTok. morningbrew // Related: Is fashion too obsessed with TikTok?, asks Rachel Tashjian. (The answer is, ofc, yes.) gq

Some thoughts on Gen Z x Prime Day

Prime Day is utterly inescapable this year — in the last 24 hours, I’ve debated whether I need (“need”) a stationary bike (I’ve never been to a spin class), expensive vitamin C serum (I have a medicine cabinet full of serums), Levi’s Wedgie jeans (I have 7 pairs of Levi’s Wedgie jeans), and a new set of pots and pans (I don’t cook).

So far I have yet to actually purchase anything, but prime mania got me thinking: Do teens give a shit about Prime Day? Amazon, obviously, would like them to. They even went so far as to tap Billie Eilish, Kid Cudi (Gen Z loves Kid Cudi), and noted industry plant H.E.R. for a special Prime concert leading up to the sales event, but…an Amazon Prime concert stream alone is not going to make teens give a shit. Still, as we learned yesterday, Amazon has been aggressively recruiting Gen Z Amazon influencers, many of whom are moving lots of product (and making serious cash). Furthermore, one recent study found that 62% of 16-34-year-olds plan on buying something from Amazon during Prime Day this year — tech gear, primarly — but they didn’t offer a breakdown by age, so I’m going to assume the millennials polled are a little more enthusiastic about it than the high schoolers.

My guess: Gen Z will likely opportunistically buy something during Prime Day if they see it on TikTok (the #primeday hashtag has 186.9M views), but they’re probably not maniacally refreshing Lightning Deals on air purifiers, blue-light blocking glasses, and bulk Tang like their Gen X parents.

Would love to hear what you think.

One last thought: