Gen Z’s creative cohort recycled prior aesthetics while embracing commercialism openly

Evidence

While TikTok dominated as the epicenter of Gen Z culture, the mass media made its first discovery of the generation’s creatives in a familiar place: downtown New York City. In 2021, former BuzzFeed News editor Ben Smith reported for The New York Times on “Dimes Square,” a pocket of lower Manhattan near the restaurant Dimes where a sliver of Gen Z’s creative class congregated with their elder millennial friends. This cohort drew on both hipster and post-hipster aesthetics, a sometimes-uncomfortable mix of woke and transgressive irony, all while embracing commercialism and pop. Young novelist Honor Levy captured their dogma when she quipped: “I totally understand Valerie Solanas. But I’d rather be Andy Warhol than her.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 668