Things People Actually Found Attractive In The Tenties

For better or worse, the tenties were a time of rapid trend cycling, and we can all probably agree that some of these trends should remain a distant memory. Enjoyable fads like boy bands (we miss you, One Direction) and low-rise jeans have made comebacks, but feather hair clip-ons and finger mustache tattoos were both regrettable mistakes that we shouldn't make again.

Perhaps luckily for us, the tenties — that is, the period from 2010 to 2019 — are long behind us, which gives us a clearer lens on trends we were once happy to embrace — and now we can safely laugh about them. But because of social media, evidence of these fads, which include everything from brightly colored skinny jeans to fake hipster glasses, will unfortunately live on forever. Perhaps historians will one day study this era and have answers as to why we partook in some of these trends, but at the time, many of us delved right into them without any thought. Ultimately, most of what we thought was attractive in the last decade isn't so much anymore, and who knows — 10 years down the road, even TikTok, everyone's current obsession, might be a thing of the past.

Throughout the late aughts and early 2010s, hipsters suddenly became cool, and seemingly everyone wanted to look just like Buddy Holly. That meant thick-rimmed black glasses were seen on everyone from Brooklyn, New York, to San Francisco, California. The trend became so huge that those who didn't even need a prescription started wearing glasses anyway, giving everyone the impression that they were nerdy. Some even went so far as to forgo the lenses completely and just use black frames as an accessory. Hipster glasses, especially fake ones, became so out of control that they got slammed by GQ as an "insult to the legitimately visually impaired" and made the wearer look like a Harry Potter wannabe.

Thankfully, the trend died, and while you may see a few wearing hipster glasses, they're most likely truly needed. These days, nearsighted folks gravitate toward more modest-looking styles and focus more on picking frames to suit their face shape.

With the rise of social media in the early tenties, Internet challenges took over. Some were silly, such as stuffing one's mouth with marshmallows to see if they could say "chubby bunny," but others, like the planking challenge, proved to be downright dangerous. As reported by The Guardian, an Australian man died in 2011 when he fell several stories off of a balcony while planking. The trend was started by two teens who took pictures of themselves lying down on random surfaces. After creating a Facebook page for the fad in 2007, it took off and became a worldwide phenomenon.

The ice bucket challenge was another viral trend that made its rounds on social media. This involved pouring a bucket of ice over one's head, but for a good reason — to bring awareness and donations to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. After nearly a decade since the challenge began, the ALS Association announced that a new treatment drug had come out thanks to the buzz the challenge created. At least not all Internet challenges of the time were just mindless fun!

Long before Gen Z decried skinny jeans as uncool, millennials and Gen-Xers wore them at the height of their popularity in the tenties. The younger generation would be appalled to learn that the denim of the time was not only slim-fitting but also came in all colors of the rainbow. From Easter colors like pastel pink and yellow to bright neon shades, colorful skinny jeans were what we built our outfits around.

We haven't yet seen a re-emergence of the trend, but if skinny jeans aren't dead no matter what TikTok says, then we might just see them again in the near future. "[C]olored skinny jeans were an insane trend. Like if anything dates an outfit to the early 2010s the most it's always that. And I'm sure the trend will be back by the end of this decade!" one person wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. "I had a green pair from Hollister, a red pair from [G]ap, and a teal (TEAL) pair also from Hollister. WHO ALLOWED IT???" another replied.

You couldn't walk around in the early tenties without hearing somebody yell "YOLO!" While the phrase "you only live once" is nothing new, the abbreviated version became popular with Drake's 2011 song "The Motto," which contained "YOLO" in the lyrics. Soon, everyone from kids to young adults was interjecting the phrase into their daily conversations as a way to justify sometimes questionable actions. As reported by Rolling Stone, "YOLO" was even used by big corporations to sell merchandise, prompting the "Hotline Bling" singer to post on Instagram, "Walgreens . . . you gotta either chill or cut the cheque." In another post, he wrote, "Macy's . . . same goes for you."

These days, you wouldn't catch a Gen-Zer saying "YOLO" if their life depended on it. According to a survey, 49% of the younger generation thinks the phrase is completely cheugy, per Yahoo! Life. Other common acronyms from the time, like LMAO (laughing my a** off) and GTG (got to go), are also out of date, as well as the popular LOL (laugh out loud). IYKYK.

Fans of Kim Kardashian know that her preferred style of makeup during the early-to-mid tenties, in particular, was a super-snatched and baked face. This included heavy contouring; powdered, ombré eyebrows; thick, false lashes; and overdrawn lips. The look inspired many Instagram users to recreate their own versions on themselves and post the results on social media. And while Instagram makeup looked great on camera, the overly done face blurred reality and was quite frankly unsustainable as an everyday look.

"It's like looking at a bunch of clones. They're Botoxed, filled, and surgeried to look like Kim," makeup artist Kevin James Bennett told The New York Times. He continued, "I love how they all say, 'Just be you,' when they all look the same. And they have legions of fans who follow them like Stepford wives but who cannot afford to alter themselves the way these people do." The days of heavy makeup are far from over, but folks are moving away from heavy contouring and are now experimenting with other techniques, such as the gorgeous sunset blush trend that pushes past basic pink.