Tobacco on the way to becoming ‘popular’ in the UK?

In an article published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the deputy director general of the journal warns of the danger of a return of smoking in pop culture in the United Kingdom, under the cover of nostalgia for the 90s.[1].

Smoking trivialized and funding for anti-smoking campaigns falls

Associated with the 90s imagery, tobacco consumption tends to be renormalized and glamorized by the world of culture. Thus, pop singer Charli XCX, at the origin of the trend " brat summer ", who has over 30 million monthly listeners on the Spotify streaming platform alone, summed up his aesthetic as "a pack of cigarettes, a BIC lighter and a white top with no bra." In fact, such a statement associates smoking with a spirit of rebellion and female empowerment. Similarly, models for designers Christian Cowan and LaQuan Smith walked the runway smoking cigarettes at the Fashion Week in New York at the beginning of 2024. This trivialization of smoking is also developing through influencers and social networks, for example an Instagram account exclusively dedicated to the broadcasting of celebrities smoking, and followed by tens of thousands of people. Given the prescriptive potential of the culture and entertainment industry, such a return can prove particularly dangerous, especially for the younger generations. This return of glorifying representations of smoking is to be linked to the considerable decline in public funding granted to media campaigns to combat smoking. Indeed, between 2008/2009 and 2020/2021, this funding decreased by 95%, from 27.6 to 1.56 million euros.

Exposure to tobacco images, a health risk for younger generations

In fact, the 1990s were characterised by an increase in the prevalence of smoking among young people: in England, 12% of adolescents aged 11 to 15 declared themselves daily smokers. This increase can partly be explained by the advertising strategies of manufacturers, who also increased their sports sponsorship practices or promotional offers on tobacco products, or worked on the representation of smoking in the media, to make the cigarette a symbol of youth, fashion and emancipation. Since then, the United Kingdom has implemented an arsenal of avant-garde measures to reduce tobacco consumption, whether it be particularly dissuasive tax policies, various smoking bans, the introduction of plain packaging, or the ban on displays for tobacco products (display ban). These public health policies have borne fruit, particularly among young people, since only 3% of 11-15 year-olds are now smokers. However, the progress made in the fight against smoking is never definitive, due to the strategy of renormalizing tobacco and nicotine consumption, undertaken by manufacturers for several years. The article thus underlines the need to be extra vigilant with regard to the return of smoking in cultural productions. The scientific literature demonstrates that the representation of tobacco in the media is a determining factor in the attitude of adolescents towards smoking and consumption behaviors. The audiences allowed by social networks constitute a serious threat to the public health of the younger generations, because the degree of influence of the representation is associated with the dose. In other words, the more a teenager is exposed to a tobacco representation, the higher the risk that he or she will start smoking.

FT

[1] Cerny C. Smoking's pop culture revival is an unwelcome throwback for public health BMJ 2025; 388:q2883 doi:10.1136/bmj.q2883