Soft-Grunge_4Ever.tumblr.com
On Jan. 2, Vogue announced “The 2014 Tumblr Girl Is Back.” The article header showed a frizzy-haired Charli XCX performing in black nail polish, moto leather, and shades; her cool-from-within-glow defying a heavy shadow, calling back to the year “Boom Clap” exhausted local radio stations—a time when Spotify was second to the radio.
Vogue’s declaration was met with surprise on Twitter, mainly by ex-Tumblr teens who had since retired to the newer platform. To them, it seemed too soon for the early-to-mid-aughts fashion to return, since we’ve only existed in an early-2000s revival for three years. Y2K trends rapidly bled into 2009 glam-sleaze, breaking the 20-year cycle rule, and now trend forecasters see us practically skipping into the 2010s. Just like those lonely high school years, the 2020s forced “indie” college girls back to their bedrooms to ruminate in front of a screen. It's the cyber-heroine’s time to rise again, but some of us never outgrew our sartorial roots. You can take the girl off Tumblr, but you can’t take the Tumblr off the girl.
Since its nail-in-coffin porn ban in 2018, Tumblr has existed as a deserted oasis. Its golden era, for those who were there, lives on forever in our adolescent hearts. It was a magical land where devastating Lana Del Rey music video gifs of blossoming flowers and tears on film floated across your dashboard, black and white indie pop album covers reigned (cue Arctic Monkeys, The 1975, and The Neighbourhood), Kylie Jenner’s best social media account was kalifornia-klasss.tumblr.com, and teen girls indulged in self-deprecating text posts while reblogging an American Apparel tennis skirt ad in the same breath.
Teenagers logged on to scroll for hours, drowning in melancholic poetry, cigarette iconography, intimate (though anonymous) confessions, and revelations. They, as a community, tapped into discourse about mental health, social issues, trauma, and other topics that were still taboo. The dark blue desktop landscape afforded a sense of privacy and discovery, acting as an underground exchange of ideas that could be visually appealing, relatable, or political. It was the land of the angsty, the artsy, and free—a dark, comforting place to project coming-of-age fantasies from your childhood bedroom and to connect with your identity.
Photography by Elie Largura
The indie-alternative musical genre of the time was brand new, invoking a sadder, grunge-pop that is largely credited to Lorde’s 2013 debut, as Pure Heroine sonically illustrates the aesthetic and emotional weight of this pocket in youth culture. Glamor and grit intertwined, raising themes of romanticized depression, materialism versus fulfillment, beauty standards, doomed heartbreak, and underdogs. All of these were championed by Lana Del Rey, Lorde, Marina & the Diamonds, Sky Ferreira, and other woman storytellers who reinvented the “Teen Idle.” The movement was so-called “soft grunge.” An enigmatic term in its time, it precedes those “trend-cores” that come from TikTok, and before them “VSCO girls” and “e-girls.” In terms of internet-derived fashion trends that influence mainstream shopping, Tumblr girls are the blueprint.
WikiHow’s steps to “Become a Tumblr Girl” say: “Develop your style. Don't worry about brands. Be eclectic. Shop boutiques and thrift stores. Follow trends early—or make your own.” She, our Tumblr Girl, had an unspoken uniform, which sought to express the honest, dark emotions that come with adolescence and also to identify her to the Tumblr community. As sung in Marina’s four commandments, called “How to Be A Heartbreaker,” rule number three advises to “wear your heart on your cheek, but never on your sleeve, unless you wanna taste defeat.” Tumblr girls are cool because they’re mysterious, and they’ll avoid the brunt of heartbreak because otherwise means certain ego-death.
Her look was moody yet romantic and largely based on ‘90s grunge. Minimalistic, desaturated monochromes, tattoo chokers, and band tees paired with fast fashion items, like that Brandy Melville moon phase tee. Fishnet tights and stockings slipped into Dr. Marten Mary Janes or combat boots, while jean jackets enveloped a black crop top and tennis skirt ensemble, finished with a red flannel shirt tied at the waist. Similar to the anti-mainstream attitude of the website itself, her unruly edge played off of clean, normcore-adjacent shapes. Soft grunge, more specifically, embraced softer elements like flower crowns, thick winged liner, kisses of pastel, and preppy pieces styled down. The aesthetic connected the internet culture and community with distinct styles attached to brands like American Apparel, Brandy Melville, or Urban Outfitters, making them recognizable as a coveted lifestyle (even though most of us didn’t have a storefront in our town), insidiously valued by status and body exclusivity (remember the “thigh gap” movement?).
These days, TikTok and Instagram pump out new trends faster than an online order can reach your door. It’s because visual ideas and aesthetics are widely shared among a generally younger audience that is viewing media culture for the first time, just like those Tumblr girls hungry to find an identity. Thus, styles are adopted and recontextualized for the ‘20s. The only constant trend of the last decade? Nostalgia.
It’s the younger half of Gen Z that aims to resurrect soft grunge, which ironically is a conception for nostalgia in its origins, known on TikTok as #TumblrAesthetic to 21.1 million viewers or #Tumblr2014 to 85.6 million. Vogue misspoke in their assessment: “Now the Tumblr girl style is being revisited by its millennial originators, but also Gen Z, which has discovered and altered the trend.” The Tumblr Girl is a distinct dressing style of older Gen Z, born in the 1990s-2000s cusp years. They interacted with Web 2.0 in a totally different way than their millennial older siblings. Millennials are likely more responsible for the “Twee” and “Indie sleaze” personas of the 2010s, which also threaten to return shortly.
Welcome to 2022, where Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die just turned 10 years old, Lorde called for a “Leader of a New Regime” on 2021’s Solar Power, Marina dropped “The Diamonds,” and Sky Ferreira is still tirelessly teasing her second album Masochism, which she says will finally arrive this March. The Tumblr girls never left—they just grew up.