HOT NOSTALGIA SCENE-KID FASHION
Why Gen Z is dressing like it’s 2008 all over again
Nostalgia these days moves at the speed of lightning, so naturally the late aughts are already back in fashion. Circa 2008, millennial emo teens — a.k.a. scene kids — loved either neon-bright or pitch-black swoopy hair, raiding Hot Topic’s Invader Zim collection, and blasting angsty bands like My Chemical Romance, All Time Low, and Pierce the Veil. Now, these fashions have sparked a scene-kid revival on TikTok and Instagram among Gen Z’ers who may or may not remember that “RAWR means ‘I love you’ in dinosaur.”
When teens these days aren’t calling pre2012 footage of high schools and screamo shows “vintage,” they’re dancing to Metro Station and Gym Class Heroes, or doing highly contoured alt-girl makeup and fashion tutorials that have brought the black, white, and red color palette of your local all-ages shows back en vogue. This time, however, the scene-kid revolution is not led by the white MySpace influencers of yesteryear: There’s a bigger push for black and POC emo kids to be at the front of the crowd, thanks to tags like #altblackgirl thriving on TikTok.