THE ATLANTIC: The cool factor of cigarettes has proved hard to shake.
The allure of smoking has proved hard to stamp out. Despite the fact that cigarette use is at an 80-year-low in America, smoking has, unfortunately, become cool again. At the New York Fashion Week show in February, some models accessorized their runway outfits with a cigarette. A clip of the TikTok influencer Addison Rae smoking two cigarettes is cut into her latest music video, which has more than 4 million views. The pop star Charli XCX, who was recently gifted a bouquet of cigarettes for her birthday, sparked one during her performance in Manchester last month, and has said that her brat starter pack would include “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, and a strappy white top with no bra.”
All of this is despite the fact that anyone born after 1964, when the surgeon general pronounced that smoking causes cancer, should know the habit is just about the worst thing you can do if you want to live a long, healthy life. And many people grasped that much earlier: The Atlantic contributor James Parton wrote back in 1868 that “it does not pay to smoke.” When he quit tobacco, he had fewer headaches, enjoyed exercise more, and held a “better opinion of myself” (though I admit that his prescribed method for kicking the habit—drinking a “good stiff glass of whiskey and water” instead of reaching for a pipe—hasn’t held up very well). » | Nicholas Florko | Thursday, December 5, 2024
Related video – Tucker's take (and mine) here.
