Hollywood A-listers are convincing Gen Z that cigarettes — while they may kill you — are still cooler than puffing on a vape that looks like a portable phone charger.
Driving the news: A new study from the University of Chicago found that over half of the top-performing movies last year featured scenes with tobacco consumption, up 10% from 2023.
- Anti-smoking advocates warn that the resurgence of cigarettes in Hollywood could reverse a decades-long decline in smoking rates. Research has shown that young people, in particular, are far more likely to pick up smoking if they see it in movies.
Why it matters: Cigarettes are making a major pop-culture comeback. Celebrities like Timothée Chalamet, Dua Lipa, Jeremy Allen White and Charli XCX are all being glamorously photographed with cigs in hand (Charli XCX even gave out boutique trays of cigarettes at her wedding).
- A popular Canadian-run Instagram account called @Cigfluencers, which boasts ~84,000 followers, strictly posts aesthetic photos of celebrities smoking.
By the numbers: Smoking was all but dead just a few years ago. In 2020, only 10% of Canadian adults smoked, down from ~50% in 1965. Now, cigarette sales are on the rise again for the first time in decades.
Our take: There’s no way to know whether someone will want to buy a pack of cigarettes because they saw Dua Lipa taking a puff, but it feels undeniable that the social shaming of cigarette smoking has begun to wane (especially for drunk cigs).—LA