The 2020s’ biggest trend recycled early-2000s indie sleaze.

Evidence

Trend analyst Sean Monahan, who had helped create the normcore concept, speculated in 2021 about an impending “vibe shift,” predicting a revival of “indie sleaze” aesthetics from the early 2000s. This look—“American Apparel, flash photography at parties, and messy hair and messy makeup”—found its muse in Charli XCX’s Brat. The music was supported by the Cobrasnake’s nostalgic photography and collaborators like Dimes Square musician the Dare, whose persona and sound was a post-9/11 downtown NYC throwback. The result was a culture of retromania feeding on retromania. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 679

Categorization

• XREF: Retromania feeding on retromania is direct evidence for the book’s omnivore-monoculture blankness argument — the era’s signature is nostalgia.
• SEED: The ‘vibe shift’ cycles so fast it can only loop backward — a strong angle for the counter-case on what aesthetic signature the era actually has (retromania).