From VSCO girl to Dark Academia to Cottagecore, TikTok has given birth to many an aesthetic. It’s responsible for our broke bank accounts — thanks to trending fashion finds — as well as for what we put on our face (we love soft girl makeup).
But now, another aesthetic is gaining traction…and it might be making fun of us millennials, just a little bit. It’s called ‘cheugy’ (pronounced chew-gee). What is cheugy, you ask yourself? Well, you may just have revealed yourself as cheugy.
Hallie Cain, also known on TikTok as @webkinzwhore143, says it refers to “the type of people who get married at 20 years old” or those with “girlboss energy” — those kinds of people are indeed, cheugy.
In the Style section of The New York Times, it’s defined as being not quite basic, but not quite uncool. Or, as Instagram user @cheuglife states, cheug is “a person who currently follows out of date trends usually stemming from things they were popular in middle school and high school.”
Oh Gen Z, you can pry my Blair Waldorf inspired headbands from my cold, cheugy hands.
It’s not just fashion trends that can be cheugy (is it cheugy to want to write farshun?) — it can also refer to social media habits (using the Taylor Swift lyric “I’m feeling 22” on your 22nd birthday is, yes, cheugy), slang and more. It’s not relegated to class or income either; people wearing Golden Goose sneakers and Gucci belts can also be cheugy.
Apparently, lasagne is cheugy. Minions, definitely cheugy (sorry to all middle-aged Facebook mums everywhere). Cruises? Yep, they’re cheug-mobiles apparently — sorry Gwyneth! Lana Del Ray, and her latest album? Yeah, you know what’s coming.
Also if you get labelled as cheugy — don’t deny it. Being ashamed or embarrassed about it is the most cheugy thing you can do, according to Rolling Stone.
How passé — wait, sorry, cheugy.
