By Liam Jordan

Clean girl can’t come to the phone right now, why? because she’s dead, and gen-z killed her.

Young people are desperate for change and with the current political and economic state of the world it is no surprise that the exclusive, expensive, and somewhat conservative era of the clean girl is on its way out, social media has had a rise in more alternative and grunge aesthetics, also gen-z having a desperation for relatability and authenticity in the content that they view.

Grunge making a comeback makes sense if you recall its roots, it was born in the late 80’s and bleeding its way into the 90’s with a comeback in the early 2010’s, this era was filled with political divide and distrust in the government, economic struggles and the desire to escape mass consumption and the crushing weight of capitalism, and this is just as relatable today.

Young people are tired, mass consumerism is forced down our throats, choking us until we give in and hand over our bank cards, social media and the rise in the TikTok influencer pushing perfection, the perfect job, perfect aesthetic, perfect body, perfect friends, perfect life, and you too can have this life if you like, share, follow and buy from my link tree in my bio.

These influencers are not people, they are all walking, talking adverts with no real personality, opinions or anything that shows signs of humanity, just a billboard in a pink lululemon pilates outfit.

They dominated social medias for a long time, as controversial as it may be, with people commenting on its ties to conservatism with a heavy reliance on mass consumption and capitalistic values, with minimal makeup, sleek hair and conservative hyper-feminine outfits in muted colours and tones, with people noting its classism and racism, as deeming one group ‘clean girls’ must make the other ‘dirty girls’, however many gen-z have taken the ‘dirty-girl- branding and ran with it.

Some recent examples of this shift in media are found in artists like Addison Rae, Charli XCX, Pink Pantheress and Ethel Cain all moving away from the highly polished and refined definition of a pop artist, all with their own unique and memorable aesthetics and personalities, Addison and Charli for example purely embodying the wild, feral party girl vibe, Pink having her brit-pop aesthetic with unique visuals and style, and Ethel starting a new wave of dark, grunge and edgy aesthetics in mainstream media, all of them have online and real life personalities, showing off their flaws, highs and lows, and engaging with fans and online subcultures.

One of the most influential celebrities in this major shift is model and social media personality Alex Consani, who has redefined what it means to be a model, she is loud, funny, weird, and not afraid to be seen and to be anything but perfect, also being one of the first openly transgender models to have her level of success like winning 2024 model of the year and being in films and walking major runways, moving away from the nonchalant, untouchable model of the 90’s and bringing a new wave of model, which is exactly what gen-z crave.

We see this change in aesthetics in the new Zara Autumn/Winter collection advert, featuring her and Amelia Gray, in this advert we don’t see the usual overly polished, delicate, sophisticated, fake look you would expect, we see dark colours, a realistic city background, and a wild, fun club scene, it’s fun and unique and real, it’s what people want to see, we don’t want picture perfection, we crave realism and something not to aspire to be that’s out of reach but something we are, and this advert depicts this perfectly whilst still remaining entertaining and well put together.

This could all be linked to the rise in conservatism and the economic and environmental instability in the world, but rather being a way to cope it is a way to resist and push back, gen-z is over what the world expects, we aren’t perfect, we are human and we need our media to reflect that, and embrace it.

However this aesthetic does have its own issues that hopefully this time around we can fix, like for example grunge has often being associated with being very white centred and people of colour feeling excluded, also the promotion and normalisation of drug and alcohol abuse, which we have seen, such as the sudden rise in young people smoking again, which is surprising as we were supposed to be the generation that would leave it in the past but the, cynicism of gen-z and the don’t care attitude has possibly caused this rise, we also often see along with the substance abuse it’s effect like the subculture of heroin-chic from the 90’s with wafer thin bodies.

The aesthetic is very welcome, but we do have confront its issues, but this move is a great sign that we are moving in the right direction, fashion is political, music is political.

Death of the Clean Girl and the Revival of Grunge