The Gen Z Gift Guide 2022
after school weekend edition
Welcome back to After School ✨weekend edition✨, an extra long and extra opinionated youth culture digest for paid subscribers.
This is quite a long email — so many good TikToks, so little time! — so I recommend reading it in a browser if you can.
After taking a brief break from TikTok following my Black Friday haul binge, I bravely reopened the app earlier this week and have spent no fewer than 6 hours watching holiday wishlist TikToks. (Hard work, but someone’s gotta do it, etc., etc.)
I did a version of this last year, too, and it’s fascinating to see what has and hasn’t changed. Sharing one’s Christmas wishlist has always been a popular thing on TikTok, but it seems bigger than ever this year. The #christmaslist2022 has 34.5M views, #christmaswishlist2022 has 33.8M views, and #christmas2022 has a whopping 3.7B views. One trend I noticed this year that didn’t come up last year in my research: Gen Zers are turning their Christmas lists into decks to share on TikTok. They put my Powerpoint skills to shame. I didn’t know what a deck was until I was 25; these young TikTokers will be nothing if not prepared for the workforce!
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
In addition to Gen Z gifts, today we’re talking about:
Consensual doxxing
Romcom core
“Aesthetic” OOOs
Rotting in my room szn
Spiritual misogyny
Beezin’
The red beret girl dance > the Wednesday dance
My new ESWB
And so, sooo much more.