Jamaine Punzalan

A man lights a cigarette outside a small restaurant in Mandaluyong, May 30, 2019. George Calvelo, ABS-CBN News

Article (news)

Agence France-Presse

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/178511903101920190530-no-tobacco-day-GC-6025.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">A man lights a cigarette outside a small restaurant in Mandaluyong, May 30, 2019. George Calvelo, ABS-CBN News </span></span></span></div><p>From beauty mogul Kylie Jenner lighting up on the cover of Vanity Fair to cigarette trays at singer Dua Lipa&#x27;s wedding, the pop culture-verse has rebooted cigarettes as the accessory du jour, health risks be damned.</p><p>Smoking rates are at a six-decade low among American adults and the lowest in a quarter-century among youth.</p><p>And yet, searches for the term &quot;smoking pose&quot; on the image-sharing platform Pinterest have soared 70 percent among 18- to 24-year-olds, according to Style Analytics, a fashion world data tracker.</p><p>On Instagram, the account &quot;Cigfluencers&quot; shares images of celebrities smoking -- &quot;your favorite smoker&#x27;s favorite smokers,&quot; reads the tagline.</p><p>The posts included a number of shots snapped in May at the Met Gala, the annual gathering of A-listers in New York.</p><p>Even though current US smoking statistics don&#x27;t show an increase in the actual habit, making cigarettes chic again has triggered concern among anti-smoking advocates.</p><p>&quot;Pop culture&#x27;s glamorization of smoking is just reigniting the addiction among young people and discouraging those trying to quit,&quot; Jessica Rath, vice president at the anti-tobacco advocacy group Truth Initiative, told AFP.</p><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;HIGHLY CONCERNING&#x27; </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>The organization noted that eight of the 10 feature films nominated for this year&#x27;s best picture Oscar contained images of tobacco use.</p><p>This type of exposure makes young people two to three times more likely to use tobacco products, Rath said.</p><p>Brian King, head of US programs at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the trend is &quot;highly concerning from a public health perspective.&quot;</p><p>One explanation for the resurgence is the return of aesthetics from the 1990s and early 2000s -- an era when smoking was still quite common in the United States.</p><p>The look was all over the recent popular series &quot;Love Story,&quot; a show that detailed the storied relationship of the late John F. Kennedy Jr and Carolyn Bessette -- the latter was a regular smoker and was portrayed as such on the show.</p><p>The brand strategy newsletter On Brand has dubbed the smoker&#x27;s aesthetic an act of rebellion against the social media pressures of &quot;self-optimization.&quot;</p><p>And it&#x27;s all set, of course, against a backdrop of economic and geopolitical uncertainty.</p><p>&quot;Right now, we&#x27;re also having kind of a colliding mental health crisis with young people,&quot; said Rath.</p><p>&quot;And so young people are thinking that using nicotine is helping their feelings of anxiety, depression, and stress -- when really it could be making it worse.&quot;</p><p>King noted that public attention has shifted away from the risks associated with conventional cigarettes, as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches grow in popularity.</p><p>&quot;In some cases, we as society have been recalcitrant in terms of remembering those risks, and also importantly implementing policies that we know work to prevent the use of these products,&quot; King said.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/3/5/medical-groups-declare-alcohol-tobacco-and-vape-epidemic-among-youth-2026">Medical groups declare alcohol, tobacco and vape epidemic among youth </a></div><div><br/></div><div><strong>&#x27;DE-NORMALIZE SMOKING&#x27; </strong></div><div><br/></div><p>US President Donald Trump&#x27;s administration has made significant cuts to smoking prevention and cessation support programs.</p><p>And the previous administration under Joe Biden backed off its plan to ban menthol cigarettes, which are popular among young people.</p><p>King said that in the US, the tobacco industry spends the equivalent of approximately $1 million an hour on marketing and promotion.</p><p>Nonprofits and anti-smoking organizations lack data on how tobacco companies might be pushing the &quot;cigfluencer&quot; phenomenon.</p><p>But it&#x27;s critical, King said, that the United States works to &quot;de-normalize smoking&quot; in the face of such trends.</p><p>Society must &quot;not be doing anything that could potentially reverse the considerable progress that we&#x27;ve made in reducing smoking over many decades,&quot; he said.</p><p>Along with traditional methods of discouraging smoking -- public service messaging, cessation support, price hikes, and smoking bans -- Rath recommends working with platforms and Hollywood to discourage the habit.</p><p>She suggests displaying on-screen messages directing viewers to support services, similar to those already in use to prevent suicide or assist those suffering sexual violence.</p><p>&quot;Shows also have the power to reduce tobacco depictions and incorporate realistic quitting examples into storylines,&quot; said Truth Initiative, noting recent depictions in &quot;The Bear&quot; of the main character working to quit smoking using nicotine replacement therapy.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2025/11/18/who-chief-urges-clampdown-on-nicotine-products-aimed-at-kids-0634">WHO chief urges clampdown on nicotine products aimed at kids </a><br/><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/health-science/2024/12/4/vaping-while-still-smoking-unlikely-to-help-quitters-study-0127">Vaping while still smoking unlikely to help quitters: study </a></div>

<p>From beauty mogul Kylie Jenner lighting up on the cover of Vanity Fair to cigarette trays at singer Dua Lipa's wedding, the pop culture-verse has rebooted cigarettes as the accessory du jour, health risks be damned.</p>

From beauty mogul Kylie Jenner lighting up on the cover of Vanity Fair to cigarette trays at singer Dua Lipa's wedding, the pop culture-verse has rebooted cigarettes as the accessory du jour, health risks be damned.

Make smoking cool again? Pop culture reboots the vice

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Make smoking cool again? Pop culture reboots the vice

Agence France-Presse

Published July 27, 2026 10:38 AM PHT

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