Indie Sleaze, Please
The 2014 Tumblr Girl is back. On Sunday, a Vogue article written by Maria Santa Poggi declared it’s time to dust off our American Apparel disco pants because soft-grunge is staging a comeback. It’s been a gradual rise for the return of the 2014 Tumblr Girl since the start of the pandemic (this train of thought previously went viral two years ago), when stay-at-home orders forced us to imagine we were anywhere else but 2020.
As a former 2014 Tumblr Girl myself, I could not be happier that my prime years have become a source of nostalgia for others (okay, I might be gatekeeping it from the new generation just a little bit). Don’t believe me? Well, lucky for you, I dug up these bits from my past to prove it:
Embarrassing, I know. What’s noteworthy about this revival, however, is how it doesn’t just stop at the “2014 Tumblr Girl” trope. Now users on TikTok have discovered its subcultures like indie sleaze and twee. Are you kidding, there’s more? Yes! And it’s so cool.
Indie sleaze graced the scene just as Y2K, low-rise jeans, Juicy tracksuit culture was at the end of its trend cycle (don’t worry, we shall see it again). Indie sleaze materialized on social networking sites like MySpace and Tumblr, with flashy photography showcasing maximalist fashion and a hyperactive, hedonistic lifestyle. It’s like if Skins UK were real life. The music wasn’t half-bad either. With any song from the indie sleaze genre, you can find being danced to at an underground rave in some-guy-your-cousin-knows’ basement, where everyone is drinking Four Lokos. Artists like Crystal Castles, Daft Punk, and basically any Soulwax remix are characteristic of the indie sleaze movement because they were electric and nobody cared. Listen to some classics here.
Around the same time, on another side of Tumblr, was the revival of twee pop. Yes, this is the third time that twee has entered our consciousness. In fact, twee itself began during the mid-1980s into the 1990s and early 2000s. If you were twee during this time, you would think the punks were too hardcore for you — and you’d be right, because you’re a nerd! The main difference between indie sleaze and twee is that everyone who was indie sleaze was cool, but everyone who was twee knew that they were uncool.
However, the music to come out of twee was anything but. Yes, you have your givens like The Smiths, but the underground twee artists were even better. They were young and scrappy and making music was their means to an end. According to this 2014 A.V. Club article, the focus on love in twee differs from other indie genres. Twee doesn’t “capitalize on sadness, but sheds the mask of constant happiness that our society demands of us.” It was innocent, pretty, and sweet. Weirdly enough, the word “twee” comes from a mispronunciation of the word “sweet.” I’ve made a playlist of all of my favorite twee songs and artists that you can check out here.
The twee that we’ve more famously come to know and love is twee pop revival – a.k.a. Zooey Deschanel core. The second-coming of twee, in the 2010s, had a major impact on fashion — Peter pan collars, cardigans, ukuleles, and everyone used typewriters for some reason. Arguably the queen of twee, Zooey Deschanel joined in on twee pop revival with her band She & Him and rocked twee fashion in movies like (500) Days of Summer. Yes, twee is also in film! Hello, Wes Anderson? Nevermind, just go through this list of my favorite twee movies.
It’s always fun to see an old trend that informed who you are today return to the mainstream, like a walk down memory lane. But the indie sleaze and twee revival movements were over a decade ago. Since then, a lot has changed. We’ve had VSCO girls, pastel goths, Y2K (again), and even art hoes (it took me so long to remember that this trend from 2018 was called ‘art hoe’)!
But is it necessary to bring back almost everything that was popular on Tumblr? I mean, you guys remember how bad Tumblr was, right? Or have we all just forgotten how Tumblr was a haven for body dysmorphia, also known on the website as “thinspo.” These accounts promoted weight loss through unhealthy means and idolized models or pixie-like features (cough manic pixie dream girl cough). Thinspo permeated its way through every Tumblr subculture, including twee. As alluded to by this TikTok user who is weary of its return, twee was dominated by thin, white, cisgender women. To be twee was to be dissociative. It was only a few months ago that the last major trend was Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) surgery, and became one of the fastest growing cosmetic surgeries in 2021. Yes, any and every social media trend that centers women’s bodies is damaging. We shouldn’t jump from one beauty standard to the next; we should dismantle them altogether. But “The BBL Effect” became one of the only trends in recent history that didn’t promote stick-thin figures. Of course, BBL’s are also unattainable — it’s literally a cosmetic procedure. But my question is how did we go so quickly from one extreme to the next? Seriously, where is Gen Z digging up all these micro-trends…I’m tired.
The indie sleaze and twee movements gave us some of the best music of the 21st century, hilarious flash photography, and even some cringey fashion. It’s fun to look back at these moments where social media wasn’t taken as seriously as it is now, and subculture movements were being created from the most ultimate forms of self-expression. The danger of reviving trends from the past, even as recently as 2010, is that they existed during a time when baseline inclusivity just wasn’t the norm. If twee is to come back, then it must cater its resurgence to those who aren’t white, cisgender, thin women. But if indie sleaze and twee are to be just another blip in the microtrend wave, then I say let’s all watch The Royal Tenenbaums once and move on. By next month, we’ll have a new aesthetic to write about anyways. My prediction? French new wave.