The performative smoking is the least cool thing of the moment He smokes as well. You just need someone to photograph you. Too bad coolness doesn't work like that
Late 90's. Lyceum. Recreation. Fire escape. That's where the really cool people gathered. Burning cigarettes, lighters that changed hands, packages of Diana Blu that came out of the pockets, endless discussions. I watched everything from a safe distance. Actually, I've always liked everything about smoking that isn't about smoking. Not the smell. Not the flavor. But the language. The cigarette squeezed between my fingers, the ash shaken nonchalantly. From James Dean to Kate Moss, through Kurt Cobain and Nick Cave, I was convinced that the most interesting people in the world always had a cigarette in their hands. On the other hand, I always said no. No alcohol, no cigarettes, no meat. I tried to smoke a couple of times, more out of curiosity than out of conviction. But a Marlboro package doesn't include charisma in the price. That illusion, however, has never gone away. The idea that you only need to light a cigarette to automatically seem more fascinating has survived very well. Except that today he no longer lives behind the school. He lives on Instagram and TikTok. Smoking has gone from being a vice to becoming an aesthetic. Flash shot, glass in hand, look lost in the void, cigarette in plain sight. It doesn't even matter if it's actually smoked. Just let it end up in the picture. Welcome to the era of performative smoking, the cigarette transformed into a styling accessory, a prop, an extension of the feed.
The return of the cigarette (and the cigfluencers)
Cigarettes are back everywhere. In fashion campaigns, in video clips, on magazine covers and in Instagram reels. Charli XCX has made them an integral part of the brat universe (“a pack of cigarettes, a Bic lighter and a white top with thin straps without a bra”). At the wedding she served Vogue Essence Bleue Slims on silver trays, for her birthday she received a bouquet of cigarettes and on the front row of Saint Laurent she shared a clove Djarum Black with Madonna. Then there's Hailey Bieber on the cover of Interview, Addison Rae smoking two cigarettes at the same time in the Aquamarine video, Kylie Jenner, Rosalía, Dua Lipa, Jeremy Allen White, Odessa A'Zion, Paul Mescal. The list is long. But talking about the return of smoking is almost misleading. Above all, his image has returned. The cigarette, today, works like a mini Kelly, a pair of Miu Miu or a lipstick smudged after a party. It doesn't tell a habit. Tell a character. The unmanageable girl. The cursed musician. The fashion insider who lives on espresso, sleepless nights and terrible decisions. And maybe that's the point. In an era of ten-step skincare, water with electrolytes, smartwatches that monitor sleep and obsession with the clean girl aesthetic, the cigarette becomes the perfect accessory to communicate just one thing: “I don't give a damn about the rules.” Or, at least, that's what he would like us to believe.
If the cigarette is a content, the coolness has already left the room
Performative smoking isn't so much about who smokes. It's about those who feel the need to turn every cigarette into content. The scene is now recognizable: blurry photo with a flash, a cigarette burning in front of the room, the caption of a single word ('mood', of course) and the certainty that that moment will end online before the butt even touches the ashtray. It doesn't matter if you get poisoned. The important thing is that someone sees you. The cigarette becomes an analog filter. A narrative accessory. A shortcut to build the image of the emotionally unreachable boy or the fashion girl who seems to have just come out of an independent film distributed in three arthouse rooms. But coolness has always had a very simple rule: the moment you do everything to look cool, you've already stopped being cool. And this is where the performative tuxedo gets stuck. It's not a break. It's not a vice. It's not even rebellion. It's personal branding with a cigarette in hand. And, ironically, it's probably the least rock'n'roll thing you can do.
