For a long time, the coolest possible thing to be was unbothered. You didn’t post too much. You didn’t seem to try too hard. You didn’t gush about the things you loved, because gushing was cringe. The perfect online persona was effortless, a little ironic, and always one step back from caring. If you got excited about something in public, someone, somewhere, was probably making fun of you for it.
I think that era is ending. And I could not be happier about it.
How “cringe” took over
To understand why excitement is coming back, we have to understand why it disappeared. A generation grew up online, where every awkward moment could be recorded, shared and mocked forever. Liking the wrong band, crying at a TV finale, posting a heartfelt poem. All of it was a risk. So people protected themselves with irony and detachment. If you never look like you care, nobody can make fun of you for caring.
The cost of this was huge. A Yahoo and YouGov study found that more than half of Gen Z said they avoid expressing themselves freely online because they fear seeming cringe. Think about what that means. Half of young people holding back their real thoughts and feelings, not because they have nothing to say, but because they’re scared of how it’ll look.
And it bled into fashion too. Personal style got quieter. Everyone dressed in a safe, slightly bored way. The aim was to look good without looking like you’d made an effort, which is honestly one of the most exhausting things to fake.
The shift: caring is cool again
But something has been shifting. Gen Z has started reclaiming cringe and embracing what some trend researchers call “post-cringe”: being earnest on purpose. They’re reviving millennial things they used to mock, from side parts to blogs to sincere captions. YPulse noted in January that Gen Z had spent years mocking millennial cringe, and was now fully embracing it, not just the aesthetic but the mindset.
This month, it went even further. Google searches for “millennial optimism” ticked up through late October and peaked in early November, and the term “WhimZ”, a sort of whimsical, hopeful Gen Z mood, suddenly spiked. Young people are openly talking about hope, about trying, about caring. As one youth-culture writer framed it, the Obama-era optimism many of them were too young to feel first time round is suddenly appealing.
Even Taylor Swift said it years ago, in her NYU commencement speech: learn to live alongside cringe. She was right. Cringe is unavoidable. Hiding from it just means hiding from life.
What excitement looks like in fashion
I love seeing this in clothes. People are dressing like they care again. Big bows. Colour clashes. Statement coats. The over-the-top outfit for a regular Tuesday. Costume-y dressing for concerts and films, where fans go all out because the joy is the point. Method dressing on press tours, where actors dress like their characters and everyone online cheers them on instead of rolling their eyes.
Even maximalism coming back on the runways feels connected. After years of minimal, beige, “effortless”, people want to see effort again. They want to see a dress that clearly took someone months. They want to see personality. Trying hard has become stylish.
And I think that’s brilliant, because fashion was never meant to be effortless. Fashion is effort. It’s choosing, styling, playing, experimenting, getting it wrong, trying again. The idea that the best-dressed person should look like they didn’t think about it was always a bit of a lie.
Why being excited is actually brave
Here’s what I really believe. It takes far more courage to love something openly than to sneer at it. Anyone can be cynical. Cynicism is easy and safe. It protects you from disappointment. But it also protects you from joy, connection and the chance to build anything new.
The people I admire most in fashion are the deeply excited ones. The designer who talks about a fabric like it’s a love affair. The stylist who sends you twelve voice notes about one jacket. The friend who gets genuinely giddy about a new collection and wants to tell you everything. That enthusiasm is contagious. It makes the whole industry feel alive. Nobody ever made something great by being too cool to care.
The fear of cringe costs us more than cringe
There’s research suggesting fear of seeming cringe has stopped many young people from opening up emotionally, asking someone on a date, or trying new things in public. That’s a real loss. Think of all the outfits not worn, the posts not shared, the projects not started, the people not approached, all because someone was afraid of looking a little silly.
I’d honestly rather be cringe and alive than cool and invisible. And I think more and more people feel that way. When the world feels heavy, the effort of pretending you don’t care becomes too much. As a Daily Dot writer put it, life’s too messy right now to pretend not to care.
Let’s not swing too far
One small note. I don’t want earnestness to become another performance. “Look how excited and authentic I am” can be just as staged as “look how unbothered I am”. The goal isn’t to fake enthusiasm for content. It’s to stop hiding the enthusiasm you already have. Real excitement doesn’t need to be loud. Sometimes it’s just saying “I loved this” without adding a joke to protect yourself.
So, permission granted
If nobody’s told you lately, here it is. You’re allowed to be excited. About a dress, a show, a book, a designer, a colour, a new hobby, a person. You’re allowed to dress up for no reason. You’re allowed to write the long caption. You’re allowed to cry at the runway video. You’re allowed to love something more than is fashionable.
The internet spent a decade teaching us that caring was embarrassing. I think we’re finally unlearning it. And I’m thrilled, genuinely, unironically, maybe even cringe-ily thrilled. Because a world where people are excited again is a world where good things can actually get made.
Leave a Reply