Trends have a cyclical history. Take the 20-year fashion cycle that gave Gen-Z indie sleaze and low-rise jeans or the return of record players after being obsolete for decades. It’s not uncommon for fads from the past to circle back with a new lease on life. But some trend resurgences are more addictive than others. Today’s college students have reclaimed another form of analog recreation: cigarette smoking. This generation likes its nicotine buzz, and to Big Tobacco’s delight and worrying mothers’ despair, quitting is not on the horizon.
Twenty-somethings know cigarettes are bad for them. Despite a childhood filled with D.A.R.E programs and Truth campaigns flashing black lungs and missing teeth, many young people are unburdened by the risk of yellowed fingers and emphysema. Transitioning into adulthood in a world that appears to be crumbling beneath their feet, these warnings fade into white noise. But are college students simply veering into hedonism during an era of uncertainty, or were they doomed from the start?
Today’s generation of college students nearly slipped through Big Tobacco’s clutches until a new product entered the market just in the “nic” of time: e-cigarettes, more commonly known as vapes. For the new generation of potential smokers, getting a nicotine buzz was easier than ever. And JUULs, the sleek e-cigarette that exploded in popularity when today’s college students were in high school, changed everything.
“Vapes fucked it up,” says Jack, a 21-year-old college student. “Cigarettes were so close to being quit. And then vaping came in and fucked it up.”
Vapes are considerably more convenient than cigarettes, and they can taste like strawberries, so, really, what’s not to love? But did vapes replace cigarettes? Is paper-wrapped tobacco sprinkled with formaldehyde too old-school? Not quite. Vapes, originally advertised as an alternative to cigarettes, have come full circle: now they’re the gateway drug.
Emma, another 21-year-old college student, vaped through high school. But when her friends returned to the States after studying abroad in Europe, they brought a newfound cigarette habit with them. Once she tried smoking the old-fashioned way, she didn’t look back.
“Ever since I tried smoking cigarettes, I think that vapes are so much worse,” Emma says. “The flavors are so disgusting, especially the way vapes have evolved since I started. It’s gross.”
Emma isn’t the only former vape user who switched to cigarettes. José, a 20-year-old college student and self-identified vape addict, recalls a friend of his who kicked their vaping habit − not with Nicorette or the patch, but with cigarettes. José’s friend found that the intentionality required to smoke cigarettes made them less addictive. His reasoning is like Liam’s, a 21-year-old loyal cigarette smoker staunchly opposed to vapes.
“That’s a big part of smoking a cigarette; you have to go do it,” Liam says. “You have to go outside and be cold just to smoke the cigarette, and you’re going to smell afterward. I used to vape in high school, but it was constant, so that’s why I’m out of that.”
Some young smokers feel that cigarettes are superior to vapes. Today’s college students grew up knowing that smoking kills. But what about vaping? For a number of college-aged smokers, the enigma of a vape’s contents and consequences is even more off-putting than the already well-known dangers of cigarette smoking.
“We know what they’re going to do to you,” Liam says. “There are studies that tell you that you’re going to get cancer and that terrible stuff is going to happen to you. That doesn’t exist much for vaping. That’s why a big part of me is wary about it. I have no idea what’s in a vape.”
The vape-to-cigarette pipeline is only part of the story, though. Not every cigarette-smoking college student started with vapes. In fact, some young smokers never went electronic with their nicotine in the first place. Nick, a 22-year-old college student, had his first cigarette with friends at 16 after a high school football game. He still smokes them on nights out with friends, but to this day, he’s never used a vape. Unlike older generations who smoked before the 1964 Surgeon General’s Warning told them cigarettes were bad, today’s generation of smokers was always told to stay away. Though the long-term effects of vaping remain to be seen, parents, health teachers and anti-smoking lobbyists always discouraged the habit, knowing Big Tobacco’s shiny new toy was nothing more than a cigarette rebrand.
“I kind of instilled in my head when I was younger that I wouldn’t vape because I was told so many bad things about them,” Nick says. “I’ve kind of held true to that, but cigarettes seemed like such a far-off idea, something I would never do. So, when I started doing it, it kind of felt less real.”
Like many other young adults who stick to smoking cigarettes on a night out, Nick really started smoking cigarettes when he studied abroad in Europe during his junior year of college. According to Nick, smoking abroad feels different because it’s a part of the culture there. Whereas he feels guilty lighting up in America, he felt no remorse in doing the same across the Atlantic. The rising number of American students taking a semester of classes abroad seems to correlate with a cigarette habit that persists when they return home.
After a 6-week summer study abroad program, Evan, a 22-year-old college student, discovered a newfound appreciation for cigarettes. Post-study abroad, he only smokes on weekend nights out with friends. But when Evan resided in Italy, he smoked one or two cigarettes per day. The same goes for plenty of other former study abroad-ers who may have tried their first cigarette in the U.S. but picked up smoking as a regular habit in Europe. Lighting up a cigarette and walking down a cobblestone street in Europe has a different je ne sais quoi than doing so in America, where the habit is largely frowned upon. Cigarette smoking is a greater part of the social culture in many European countries where American students are studying abroad, like Italy, where one can’t throw a rock without hitting a tabaccheria. Liam’s cigarette habit was exacerbated by his time abroad as well.
“The culture of Italians smoking cigarettes made me a lot more comfortable smoking cigarettes,” Liam says. “I also enjoyed cigarettes a bit more there, because I’d be like, ‘Wow, I’m doing this in Rome.’ It’s a little more special.”
Regardless of where, how or why they picked up the habit in the first place, vaping and non-vaping cigarette smokers widely share a common belief: compared to vaping, smoking cigarettes is simply the cooler option.
“Vaping is kind of lame,” Liam says. “If you’re going to use nicotine, in my opinion, you should just smoke cigarettes.”
Liam smoked his first cigarette at age 16 with his stepbrother who rolled it himself. To teenaged Liam, his stepbrother was just about the coolest person to exist and wanting to be like him largely factored into his smoking in the first place. “It’s an aesthetic thing, too,” Liam says. “I think people like looking cool, smoking cigarettes. Truthfully, that’s why I started smoking. I just wanted to look like my stepbrother.”
It’s not just cigarette loyalists who think cigarettes look cooler than vapes. Even those who vape and smoke cigarettes feel like the latter has a better look.
“A cigarette is a different vibe than a vape,” Jack says. “Cigarettes feel cooler. It’s so lame to say that, but it’s true.”
Jack may be lame, but old suits in marketing who try to be trendy are even lamer. In a world where marketers insert themselves into every aspect of our lives, college kids are taking a smoke break just to get five minutes of peace. Half a century after tobacco companies were banned from advertising to consumers, college kids are making smoking cool again all on their own. Who needs Joe Camel to sell tobacco? The kids are doing it for free. And the lack of marketing prevents politics and socioeconomic status from squeezing smokers into one social group. Cigarettes, unlike most other trends on college campuses, may just be the great equalizer.
Before they know it, college kids with cigarette habits may very well turn into those working professionals taking their 5 o’clock drag outside the office. Or, perhaps by that point, they’ll all have moved on to ZYNs.
