While I was out for drinks with friends, our debrief was rudely interrupted by the table of adults behind us, exclaiming how teens these days are so boring compared to how they were in their youth. After listening to them go on about how no one parties anymore, we had had enough. My friends and I proceeded to loudly swap stories of messy drunken nights from our second year of university, even ordering another round of drinks to calm the next table over’s condescending qualms concerning our generation. Nonetheless, I went home livid.
We, Gen Z, are the generation who are constantly told by Millennials and Gen X that we have killed the dance floor, that we drink less and date less than any generation before, that AI will be taking over our pointless degrees, and that climate change will kill us before we can have children or own a home. When we do go clubbing to seize the supposedly fleeting days we have left, we open social media the next morning only to be asphyxiated by hundreds of reels with people advising us to go to the gym, hit our protein goals, stay home, and make zero-calorie-low-fat-oat-milk-chia-seed slop for a sweet treat (as you’re watching these reels, you’ve done none of these things). The irony and the pressure are discouraging.
Wellness Anarchism is a term coined by British award winning brand strategist and entrepreneur Tom Garland in 2025. Garland is an expert with over twelve years of experience in consumer research and trend forecasting, and founder of the brand consultancy edition+partners. Garland’s Wellness Anarchist is someone who strives to lead a balanced yet uninhibited lifestyle, ultimately rejecting the overbearing health and life optimization peddled by the mainstream wellness industry. For example, the Wellness Anarchist could be found at their run club, but always finishing it off with celebratory drinks. A term that began as a consumer archetype has evolved into less of an identity and more a
wide range of daily habits. These habits are particularly enacted by Gen Z for a sense of control over the futurity that has been taken from us. Wellness culture, with its traditionally strict, all-or-nothing framework, has thus been met with Wellness Anarchist resistance. The practices Gen Z appear to be using to combat it include, but are not limited to a notable surge in: smoking; short-term and noncommittal relationships; and making frequent, smaller purchases rather than large savings and investments.
Of course, there is something to be said about seeking instant gratification and rebellion, and their historical connection to youth. Disobeying parents’ wishes, sneaking out, or impulsively changing one’s appearance, to name a few examples, have long been staples of youth culture and the tendency to prioritize our immediate desires over future consequences. Wellness Anarchism, even before the term was coined, has always been a means for young adults to manage the stresses and anxieties of being in such a transitional stage of life. But in the year of 2026, we all have much more on our plates than we ever bargained for — and online discourse of Gen Z’s doom, combined with wellness culture being pushed down our throats, certainly isn’t lightening the load.
Two years ago, Substacker Sarah Noack published her article, “Dump your matcha and have a cigarette, bitch,” that now has over 22.5K likes and 4.5K reposts. Despite the conviction in her title, Noack highlights how the Ikarians, inhabitants of one of the world’s Blue Zones (regions with high population longevity), have never engaged in what we know to be wellness practices. Rather, they simply walk or swim instead of going for spin class, they also nap, eat locally produced food, and most importantly, enjoy substances like alcohol and tobacco for pleasure rather than as vices. A portion of Gen Z is arguably no longer just following in the footsteps of our predecessors’ reckless youth but also using these habits as what Noack describes as a “necessary escape.”
The latest Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey from 2022 shows young adult smokers (20-24) decreased from 10 per cent in 2021 to 8 per cent in 2022, and smoking reached generational lows worldwide. However, we do not yet have data from the past year, when smoking cigarettes made a dramatic resurgence online. Whether it’s Kylie Jenner lighting one on the cover of Vanity Fair or countless images of Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams with cigarettes in hand, we’ve all watched the revival of the cigarette as a symbol of rebellion, an aesthetic, and, for some, an escape from everyday pressures.
Earlier this year, the CBC released an article titled “Smoking is making a pop culture comeback (even if the risks haven’t changed),” which fully explains how smoking has made a large return to mainstream media. In the article, Jared Oviatt, who runs the popular Instagram account @cigfluencers, said he saw the pop culture resurgence of smoking as separate from other mundane daily habits. However, through his social media presence, Oviatt has expended time, effort, and energy towards the aestheticization of the cigarette. It works directly in his favour to argue that the pop culture spotlight on smoking has no real effects, hence avoiding culpability for perpetuating smoking as an aesthetic, while maintaining his own habit guilt-free. Oviatt’s prediction of the ultimate demise of the trend ignores the fact that cigarettes are an addictive chemical substance, not something as innocent as a polka dot top from Brandy Melville. While we do not yet have the data to assess the real-world impacts of the cigarette’s cultural renaissance, celebrities can influence what we find cool, what we purchase, and where we go. Hence, it would be naive to say their actions are totally distinct from our own and have no impact on our individual choices.
Where I can agree with Oviatt is his theory on why young people smoke. Oviatt acknowledges that broader economic and social pressures are at play: “The anxiety over climate change, general burnout … it’s all part of it.” There has always been a traditional appeal to doing something taboo, recreationally sharing substances to foster a sense of community, and emulating your idols. Still, smoking has been on the decline for decades now. What’s different today is the pressure our generation faces, and a resulting inability to conceptualize our futures.
What’s more, Gen Z is notably dating less than previous generations, notoriously choosing more low-commitment, non-exclusive romantic relationships. The Atlantic declared that we are in a “Great Romance Slump”, with declining marriage rates and exclusive relationships, with 42 per cent of single adults under 40 in 2019 having never been in a committed relationship. Moreover, Gen Z has been spending more on everyday, smaller purchases to make their day-to-day lives easier, rather than saving for large future purchases. I would argue that the loss of our capacities to imagine a successful and secure future, and our consequent sense of general despair, contribute to a lack of commitment present both in romantic relationships and in the fruits of our spending power. Of course, low-commitment, non-exclusive romantic relationships have always existed. Gen Z has only legitimized this dynamic by giving it a name: the “situationship.” Even then, it appears to be more present than ever before.
Alongside a discernible revival of the cigarette, a decline in committed exclusive romantic relationships and an increase in short-term spending, it seems paradoxical that sobriety is on the rise. A World Finance Report found that Gen Z averages around 20 per cent less alcohol consumption than millennials. There are many possible reasons for this: a better understanding of the dangers of drinking, inflated prices, wellness culture, to name a few. If all of this data is factual, then why do we throw caution to the wind with our wallets, lungs, and love lives, but not alcohol?
No matter how one looks at the data, Gen Z appears to take the hit. We are smoking more, meaning we suck; dating less, meaning we suck; and drinking less. Though supposedly healthier, the narrative remains that we are less fun, and thus suck. In contention, I would argue that it is not Gen Z who is responsible for the death of the dance floor, but our predecessors. With their wellness culture and talk of doom and despair, they have made us the generation of Wellness Anarchism: the same generation that has brought back smoking and rejects commitment more than ever, who will always buy the overpriced latte.
I don’t speak from a place of judgement, but of deep understanding. I am proud to be a Gen Z, so it is hard to be unbiased. But I believe our actions, individual and collective, are valid responses to the state of global affairs, to the overbearing influencers on our phones, and to the way we have been treated by older generations, which has altered our perception of what the future holds and its meaning.
However, as much as these small patterns can bring great relief, we are far from as anarchistic as we may believe. Even if we are using these habits as fleeting escapes from the precarity we face, they are still merely attempts to cope; not, as we saw with Noack’s article, a sign of genuine, carefree living. There is power in Wellness Anarchism, but we are engaging in it out of necessity, not real interest. The $10 matchas are not just simple pleasures, but pinpricks of light amidst a seemingly dreary present and future.
Documentary photographer and poet Sophia Borzilleri articulated it best in an Instagram post, where she described her smoking habit as a means of reminding herself that life doesn’t always have to be taken so seriously, that she can do things that are objectively bad and be at peace with it. This frame of thought counters the dominant narrative in all our lives, that everything is that serious and that everything won’t be okay.
However, Borzilleri adds nuance to this perspective when she says “For me, when I smoke a cigarette, it’s a moment for me to step outside and breathe and realize nothing is that serious. But I want to be able to do that without the cigarette. I want to be able to realize that I don’t always have to be curated, [planned, perfectly healthy] and whatever in order to be okay. I can live in a balance.”
As we begin a new school year, it’s important to be conscious of our habits, not in pursuit of condemning them as either good or bad, but rather to recognize why we engage in certain patterns. Acts such as smoking or spending provide us with a moment of control in a time when we are told we have so little. However, our generation is entitled to living in the present, not because the future does not exist, but because it is something worth looking forward to.