Cast your mind back to the mid-noughties and what do you first think of? Is it Jeffree Star’s MySpace page? Audrey Kitching? Bring Me the Horizon? A time when Skrillex was Sonny Moore, From First to Last’s poster boy for red eyeliner and teased hair? If you were, like many among us, a scene kid, chances are all of these names tug at your nostalgic heartstrings. With that in mind, we bring you good news.
Following in the footsteps of visible thongs, velour trackies, flip phones, saddle bags and platform flip-flops, the scene kid is the latest noughties incarnation to defy expectations by coming back from the dead. And scene kid 2.0 has switched platforms — well in fairness, MySpace and LiveJournal are long gone anyway — finding a new home on TikTok.
In amongst the furries, e-girls, soft boys, pastel grunge and a surprising number of BDSM enthusiasts, there’s a growing community of teenagers with rainbow raccoon hair extensions, smudged black eyeliner, tutus, striped long sleeves, stacked plastic bangles and a collection of Blood on the Dance Floor-esque T-shirts that Jessie Slaughter would be proud of.
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the nu-scene revival has found a home on TikTok. After all, scene as an aesthetic grew as a reaction from the uber ‘fake’ mainstream beauty industry that defined the noughties. It was a way of pushing back against beauty standards which favoured fake tan and Juicy Couture tracksuits, and revered Paris and Nicole as fashion icons. It was a precursor to the same reaction which led to the rise of the e-girl — which has been explained as a response to the uber-curated mainstream beauty ideals of Instagram influencers.
The mainstream reaction, it seems, isn’t much different to how we all felt about it back in the days where Gok Wan was a sartorial icon and climate change was still a semi-distant threat. Just like in the noughties, scene kids, particularly scene girls are derided online when they post a video.
In amongst the 43million videos found with TikTok’s #scenegirl tag is one by @madmolly, a scene kid sick of the backlash. The short clip sees Molly dancing to stereotypes about scene girls, including “wow they still exist” and “is it 2009”. “I personally think I’m fucking adorable”, she finishes.
Tbh we kind of agree. Welcome back, scene kids!