Smoking Is Back, Baby!
Cancer sticks are having a moment in NYC—and I may or may not have bummed one
Hey everyone,
Exciting news: cigarettes are officially back in style in New York City! Aside from the cancer, emphysema, heart disease, stroke, bad skin, bad teeth, bad breath, phlegm, chronic cough, pungent smell of stale smoke that never leaves your clothes, wrinkles, yellowed fingers, heavy bags under your eyes, fatigue, irritability, lack of taste and diminishing sense of smell, withdrawal shakes, and the fact a pack costs $20 now, there is just so much to love about cigarettes and I, for one, am so glad Gen Z has decided to ignore the pleas from David Lynch’s deathbed begging them to never start because they look so cool. Fran Lebowitz must be so proud right now.
Technically, cigarette usage is at its lowest as Elf Bars and other vapes have become the norm. But that isn’t stopping the multiple people I saw lighting up just this afternoon as I left my dentist appointment in Chelsea (with terrible news that I need to start an aggressive teeth cleaning regimen to prevent periodontal disease, by the way—ugh! Go schedule your cleaning!), nor the unabashed celebrity cig lovers like Lily-Rose Depp, Jeremy Allen White, Rosalia, Paul Mescal, Nicholas Alexander Chavez, Anya-Taylor Joy and all of these other people who have recently been snapped with their super cool cigcessories.
Good for you! You all look so cool and I hope that every time you light up, it makes you a little less stressed out (until one day you realize that it’s probably contributing to it more than relieving it—but at least you’ll have some cool photos and memories). Nothing says “I’m a tormented creative and intellectual” like sucking down the heaviest breath of carcinogens while praying for death (preferably over a Diet Coke). That’s why you should only maintain a cigarette habit until 35. After that, who are you really proving anything to?
As someone who started smoking in high school before eventually trading loosies for joints, I absolutely understand the appeal. In fact, I have full eras of cigarettes:
Marlboro Greens
Marlboro Milds
Marlboro Lights
Marlboro 27s
Parliament Lights ("Tobacco tastes best when the filter's recessed!”)
Virginia Slims
Misty
Capri
Camel Lights (multiple eras throughout this list, and probably the go-to for me)
American Spirits Yellow (The milkshakes of cigarettes)
American Spirits Orange
American Spirit Light Blues (rolling tobacco, but also packs)
Lucky Strikes
Marlboro Reds
Gauloises Blue (I bought a carton as I arrived for my semester abroad in Prague and have no regrets)
Gauloises Red (I buy these every time I’m in France, but usually kind of regret it)
Gauloises Blonde
Davidoff
Dutch Shag
Fortunas
Ducados
Clove cigarettes (Did you even go to art school if you didn’t smoke cloves?)
California Dreams
Camel Crush (I wasn’t really into these, but everyone else was, so I was by proxy)
Newports (These don’t really count because they’re absolutely disgusting and the only time I would smoke them was when I was drunk or it was the only option available—but that also happened more times than I can remember, so I guess it counts).
JUUL (Mango. That delicious, delicious mango)
That’s a lot of cigarettes! And I’ve only written one book, can you believe it? Maybe I should pick up the habit again!
I can’t specifically remember when I quit cigarettes for real-real (again), but was probably around 2019. At first, I tried keeping a pack in my freezer for some non-emergency situation, like a nice day or a not-so-nice day or drinking a Diet Coke (who doesn’t love a Coke ‘n’ smoke?), but it turns out that smoking a half-thawed stale cigarette isn’t actually that satisfying. Eventually, I cut back to the rare loosie from the corner store, a place where beggars can’t be choosers for only $1 each, until stopping altogether.
Quitting wasn’t so hard because there was no one to tempt me. Smoking has become so obsolete and socially unacceptable that there’s almost never anyone to bum from—not to mention that it’s a little presumptuous, if not totally passe, to ask a stranger for a free cigarette in this economy. Ultimately, my lungs thanked me and I no longer craved them, so cigarettes mostly became a symbol from a life I no longer lived.
That is until last week when I experienced the sweet taste of bad-for-you nostalgia in the most fitting place for regrettable decisions: Bushwick. I met up with a friend for a ‘Y2K Skate Night’ at Xanadu, a newer-ish roller rink that is also the only roller rink in New York City (delightful, by the way). Seeing how I spent most of 2000 wearing ironic t-shirts and flannels, and also didn’t save my Mudd jeans from high school, I had to ask the internet how kids who are 15 years younger than me are interpreting this era.
Those of us who lived through it remember Y2K as shorthand for a moment of collective digital hysteria: when everyone wondered whether Windows 99 could evolve with the times or just self-implode at midnight, sending banks into chaos and rendering Minesweeper and Solitaire unplayable (scary!). For Gen Z, Y2K is more of an aesthetic and excuse to wear butterfly clips and low-rise jeans having never experienced what it was like to receive a Delia’s catalog in the mail or beg your mom to go to LimitedToo at the mall.
Sticking to theme, I threw on a crop top because I had no interest in buying a Juicy Couture velvet tracksuit, even ironically, and hit the rink. After three hours of skating, including face planting about 30 seconds after skating onto the floor (safety is cool!), we decided to head towards her car where she informed me that she was toting a pack of Camels—a habit she decided to pick up again because staying sober during the Trump administration is hard enough; somehow, cigarettes feel like a reasonable vice.
I bummed a smoke and lit up, hitting me with a delicious wave of nostalgia from so many eras of cigarettes I had known before—the hours spent downing bottomless cups of coffee and slices of pie at Greek diners that still sold cigarettes from self-serve machines and had smoking sections, looking disaffected at punk concerts, putting coasters on my drinks to step outside, staying up way too late on stoops and rooftops, long drives to nowhere. Yummy.
The thing is, it just doesn’t do it for me anymore. About halfway through, I forgot I was even smoking it, stuck with this tedious little privilege until kindly offered a half-drunk Diet Pepsi to ash in. My throat felt a little raw, my hands a little stale. My legs ached and my body begged for water. For a moment, I wondered if that cigarette was about to fuck up my 200-step skincare routine. Am I old?
Anyway, this is one trend I won’t be picking back up. But I get it. Some things just taste better when you know they’re bad for you. I’ll probably stick to joints and coconut water. But thanks for the flashback, Camel Lights. My gums may never forgive me, but my therapist will be thrilled.
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