Celebrities and influencers are lighting cigarettes all over social feeds, hyping smoking into a cultural comeback — and health experts warn the glamour could undo decades of decline.
The photos are vintage-filtered; the math isn't. Tobacco still kills on a scale influencers never post about. Data shows use trending down — but trends turn on exactly this kind of content.
Rap visuals flirted with smoke for decades — blunts in videos, cigarettes in photo shoots. The culture knows the look sells. The question for young artists with massive young followings: sell the aesthetic, or sell out the audience's lungs?
Cool posted is forever. So is cancer.
Sources: CBC News. Context from the Young Hadene newsroom.
Usage data still trends down, but experts fear glamorized content could reverse it.
Young fanbases copy what stars normalize — including cigarettes.