For six months in 2020 I became accidentally addicted to TikTok. I would wake up haggard and dry-eyed after hours (scary quick hours) of scrolling in bed, falling face first into a world of catchy songs and dances, quick recipes and occasional, unverifiable “sage wisdom”. It felt like taking a bite of an apple from the tree of zoomer knowledge. Most of it thankfully passed in one ear and out the other, violently rocking me to sleep at night. Somehow, though, I absorbed a few things. The fashion, the haircuts, and the cheugy. When I’m back at millennial home base (Instagram) I’m fed videos from all myriad accounts with handles like “@postpunk_80” or “@newwavesocialclub”. It washes over me all the same. But then there are fleeting glimpses of old footage featuring a very prominent Englishman with very prominently peaked hair and very specific fashion and outrageous takes on sex who, dare I say, would have relished using the word cheugy in his time. In his own way, he is the accidental and unspoken patron saint of gen z.
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