It all started with Heated Rivalry.
Or, rather, its Gen Z stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie.
I noticed, as the buzz around the show grew, that I was seeing photos of the two actors making cigarettes a part of their public aesthetic.
Williams was videoed at Milan Fashion Week in January smoking publicly while wearing a Giorgio Armani suit. Connor Storrie has often been photographed with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
Not long after that, I started looking around at the University of Missouri and noticed that an increasing number of local Gen Z folks also seemed to be reaching for cigarettes.
So, I began to wonder: is Gen Z smoking more cigarettes? And if so, why?
I spoke to some of my journalism students at Mizzou, and we landed on three questions to explore:
- Are cigarettes a way for young people to overcome social anxiety and find connection?
- What impact do celebrities and social media influencers play in Gen Z cigarette use?
- Are nostalgia and a desire for more analog and “authentic” experiences driving this trend?
The desire for social connection at Mizzou
“Resource Mondays” at the Wellness Resource Center at the University of Missouri are an opportunity for students to drop by and access “quit kits” and free nicotine replacement therapies, or NRTS, such as nicotine gum, lozenges and patches.
Sophomore Patty Kirtley is an intern for Nic-Free Mizzou, a project funded by the Truth Initiative, which is a large non-profit working to end youth and adult nicotine addictions.
She pointed toward a "quit kit" and explained that they were designed to help people with oral stimulation needs and flavor cravings, both of which can make it harder to quit nicotine use.
“Some of these include flavored toothpicks, we get flavored lip balm, we get different flavors of gum, and then hard candies and different flavors,” Kirtley said.
"Quit kits" also include information packets with online tobacco cessation resources.
She and her fellow intern, Danielle Kimmel, both agree that they see lots of people around campus smoking, vaping or using oral nicotine pouches — and the data backs that up.
Partners in Prevention is a coalition of 27 colleges and universities in Missouri with the mission to, "create healthy and safe college campuses."
Every year since 2007, PIP has issued the Missouri Assessment of College Health Behaviors survey. It assesses how alcohol, drugs, tobacco and nicotine, interpersonal violence and mental health affect the health and wellness of Missouri students.
In 2025, 43% of Mizzou students reported using a nicotine product in the last year, according to internal datasets based on the MACHB by the University of Missouri. The average for all 4-year institutions in PIP was just 28%.
Kimmel said she believes tobacco and nicotine use at Mizzou often begins socially.
"It's kind of that camaraderie or way of feeling involved or connected to someone else, and then it becomes incredibly addictive,” Kimmel said.” I think it's mostly vapes, but we've also heard about a lot of — sometimes it starts with a 'drunk cig' and then it turns into something else.”
They said they think their fellow students don’t expect to become dependent on nicotine, and they also underestimate how difficult it can be to quit nicotine products.
Kirtley said she knows lots of her peers that started vaping in middle and high school and want to quit, but have not yet been successful.
According to the Truth Initiative, it can take adult smokers 30 or more quit attempts before successfully quitting smoking.
And Kimmel added that it can be especially hard when others around you are smoking or vaping.
“I don't know anyone who uses cigarettes regularly for the nicotine because vapes are convenient and they're small and, honestly, to people, I think more enjoyable,” Kirtley said. “And cigarettes are, like, aesthetic, they're aesthetic and they're, like, sophisticated, and it's like more of an activity … to pass a cigarette around.”
The aesthetic perception of cigarettes is contributed to, in part, by high-profile drivers of culture.
The role of celebrity and lack of regulation
Jessica Rath is the Senior Vice President of the Truth Initiative's research institute. She said she believes the glamorization of nicotine use in pop culture contributes to Gen Z's interest in the products.
“It's really reigniting this addiction, this nicotine addiction among young people, and discouraging those trying to quit,” Rath said. "So, by giving these highly addictive nicotine products a starring role on screens, celebrities are really serving as unpaid spokespeople for the tobacco industry. They may or may not even realize.”
Rath said there’s robust research that demonstrates how images of smoking or using nicotine products can make it harder for people trying to quit. It can also lead to young people picking up the habit.
She said, while tobacco imagery in traditional media platforms such as magazine and network television is heavily regulated, there is much less regulation, if any, for movies, streaming platforms and social media.
In one 2026 study from the Truth Initiative, it was found that youth with high exposure to tobacco imagery in shows on streaming sites were 176% more likely to want to start using e-cigarettes and 168% more likely to want to start smoking cigarettes.
Dr. Rath added there’s also been a resurgence of tobacco use in films, with 8 out of the 10 films nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars featuring tobacco imagery. And there was a 10% increase in tobacco imagery in films between 2023 and 2024.
“Our Truth Initiative goal would be zero tobacco imagery on screens that are in front of youth. If there can't be zero tobacco imagery on screens, then there are other things that can happen,” Rath said. “If a show has tobacco imagery, they can show a prevention ad before or after. Before and after would be better because we know these prevention ads work.”
And it’s not just the on-screen appearances of tobacco that are potentially harmful.
Tianze Sun is a post-doctoral research fellow at the National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research at the University of Queensland in Australia. She’s also an older member of Gen Z.
She said the perception that cigarettes are “cool” or “sexy” or “mysterious” has been carefully curated by the tobacco industry and widely perpetuated by influencers on social media.
There are accounts online that only post images of celebrities smoking cigarettes and looking “hot and attractive” with no accompanying safety disclosure.
Sun said they have found in the latest U.S. Tobacco and Health Survey that 61% of youth aged 12 to 17 years old reported having encountered tobacco-related content on social media. Who that messaging was coming from mattered, as only celebrities and social media influencers were predictive of subsequent nicotine usage.
“There's a lot of research, like decades of research, showing why celebrities are influential,” Sun said. “We perceive them as attractive. We're more likely to follow them. We think they're trustworthy in comparison to, perhaps, a tobacco company.”
Sun said what makes this social media content potentially even more dangerous is that it’s subject to fewer laws, making it harder to regulate and meaning pro-smoking messages cross borders with ease.
She added that one interesting trend they’ve seen lately is a rise in anti-vaping content online. But it’s not cessation messaging. Instead, it's often a promotion of a return to a more masculine, more traditional, more analog way of interacting with tobacco: cigarettes.
“The tobacco industry has historically focused on young people because they know that, if they can get them hooked at this young age, that they're going to be lifelong consumers of their products,” Sun said. “I think it's if you try smoking past the age of 30 or something, then it's very hard for you to become addicted to these products.”
The search for nostalgia and authenticity
Clay Routledge is a psychology researcher and the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the Archbridge Institute, a right-leaning tank in Washington D.C that investigates the economic, psychological and cultural barriers to social mobility.
“In a lot of our interviews, things come up about, like, 'Oh, did people really used to have these house parties where a bunch of people came over and drank a bunch of beer and smoke cigarettes?'” Routledge said. “And so, here is this sense of, like, an attraction to freedom and attraction to not taking yourself too seriously, about being a bit reckless.”
His research focuses on existential psychology, which includes looking at nostalgia. He said nostalgia is not just an emotional response but actually can motivate and stabilize those experiencing it.
“Nostalgia functions as this kind of self-regulatory mechanism in which, when we're moving forward in time and dealing with the uncertainties and anxieties about what we're living through in the present and thinking about in the future, we can pull on the past to help us,” Routledge said.
He also said, when it comes to young people picking up cigarettes, it may be, in part, a specific phenomenon called “historical nostalgia.” This is when a person or group of people longs for and becomes nostalgic for an era they didn’t personally experience.
Routledge said it’s likely less about wanting to become dependent on a substance and more about a longing for a sense of freedom and a time when the world was less online and documented.
He added that younger generations — Gen Z, millennials and Gen X — report much higher rates of engaging in historical nostalgia than their older counterparts.
Routledge said he believes young people reaching for cigarettes is similar to their relationship with analog media such as film cameras, vinyl and cassettes. He recognizes that it's a harmful byproduct of the phenomenon, but he's hopeful that it will lead them in a meaningful direction.
“What I see is them using — Gen Z using — historical nostalgia in a very productive way, where they're saying, ‘Okay, well, how do we solve this problem?’ Maybe we need to connect with old ways of doing things, in-person, analog, tactile. Not to throw out the tech, but to get more balance in our lives.” Routledge said. “I'd like to think, and maybe I'm just an optimistic person, that on the whole … they're using it in a constructive way to solve their problems and to improve their lives and to build a better future.”
Conclusion: Supporting Gen Z by meeting them where they are...?
Welp. I don’t have the answers, or really, any answers.
Smoking and nicotine products are harmful, as we already knew, but the societal factors leading to young people picking up the habit are also somewhat understandable.
In talking with my students, I get them wanting to feel connected and free and unmonitored. I want them to be in community with others, which research shows IS good for their mental health.
But how do I balance the two — as an educator and as a health reporter? How do I tell them to walk away from their communities because of the possibility of experiencing harmful effects in the future due to their behavior today?
I feel like all of us, in our youth and college years, experiment with behaviors that make us feel more “adult.” I know I did.
So, I will continue to educate my students on the harmful effects of nicotine products and encourage them to find other ways to socialize and boost their mental health.
And, at the end of the day, I hope they know that I am not judging them and their choice to use or not use nicotine products. But I’m also here if they are feeling overwhelmed and want information about how to quit.
