Dig out your fishnet stockings and dust off your Arctic Monkeys AM vinyl, the 2014 Tumblr era is back.
Or at least according to Vogue it is. Which is as official as you can get with these things.
Defined by tennis skirts, pictures of girls smoking with overlaid with song lyrics, monochromatic outfits, and The 1975’s music video ‘Robbers’, the years of 2013 to 2016 on the so-called ‘grunge’ side of Tumblr and Instagram were truly a time to be alive. And to be clear, I’m not talking about the Zooey Deschanel- twee girl aesthetic that seems to be resurfacing on TikTok as of late. We don’t really have time for her or her polka-dot dresses. Nor her weird obsession with moustaches.
No, I’m talking about the golden years on the internet where girls devoted their entire lives to building fan accounts named Alex_Turner_is_a_sex_god, Doc Martens came back in style and everyone had that black and white grid pattern as their screensaver. The years in which daddy issues were solidified by the lyrics of Lana Del Rey in a cool-mysterious-girl-way, before we realised how much we all desperately needed therapy. Yes, the golden years.
It was around 2014-15 that an impressionable 15-year-old Grace discovered indie rock, chokers and the concept of the patriarchy. This resulted in outfits that looked like they’d been through a shredder, and me casually saying things like, ‘oh, you probably haven’t heard of them but one of my favourite bands right now is called Cigarettes and Sex’. But hey, nobody’s perfect.
Bad fashion choices and music superiority complexes aside, there does appear to be reason to believe the grunge style and angst of the ‘Tumblr girl’ era are experiencing a renaissance in 2022. Evidenced in the resurgence of camcorder-wielding YouTubers, grungy collages, wire headphones and all-black outfits, the former bloggers and indie-queens of the 2010s are being beckoned to revisit the monochromatic aesthetics of their youth. And as someone who still listens to The 1975 on repeat, wears mostly black and continues to re-watch Skins and My Mad Fat Diary, I am more than ready. In fact, I’ve been ready for the past seven years.
Understandably, not every former Tumblr girl wants to return to the moodiness and excessive use of eyeliner that hallmarked the sub-culture during that period of time. But I think this collective nostalgia for those of us who are retreating into the comforts of the bands, fashion and things we loved in the early to mid 2010s stems from more than just our undying love for Alex Turner and Alexa Chung.
I think the nostalgia also stems from the fact that those years weren’t defined by our current use and understanding of social media, nor was it defined by a pandemic. Instead they were about exploring your personal style, hot lead singers with great hair, music and the recklessness of youth; the fun stuff.
Those formative Tumblr girl years, at least for me, will always hold a special place in my heart. And if Vogue thinks the 2014 indie girl era is back, I’m more than happy to chuck on my Docs and oversized denim jacket and lean into the escapism. Although I absolutely draw the line at chokers.