Tobacco use is declining. So why do we see so many famous people smoking?

Cigarettes appear to be making a comeback, at least in popular culture. Celebrities are being photographed with them, and they’re popping up in TV shows and movies.

This follows decades of anti-smoking campaigns and declining smoking rates.

Resident pop culture expert Amanda Kehrberg, a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication joined The Show to talk about it.

Full conversation

MARK BRODIE: So why? What’s happening?

AMANDA KEHRBERG: [LAUGHS] I know. No, it’s fascinating as a trend because historically we see cigarettes in movies and TV as this kind of quick way to make a character seem sophisticated, to seem cool. And of course we get a natural backlash to that, as you talked about.

And then all of a sudden in like 2024, they start coming back into films, like especially Oscar-nominated films. Unprecedented rise ... like 50% of Oscar-nominated movies ’24, ’25, ’26 have had characters smoking. If you’ve watched the HBO series “Heated Rivalry,” you see smoking both in the show and then its breakout stars — Connor Story, Hudson Williams — photographed, videoed smoking all the time. We see celebs like Hailey Bieber smoking; Kylie Jenner on magazine covers.

It’s been all over social media, and what’s so interesting about that is that it’s being talked about as a kind of pose. Like do you remember when everybody was T-posing or planking?

MARK BRODIE: Oh, yeah. I sure do. Yeah.

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AMANDA KEHRBERG: Yeah, so like if you watch the Pinterest trends, “smoking pose” has gone up like 77% in how many people are searching for it. It’s like considered a way to look cool, posing with a cigarette.

Now nobody got addicted to planking except maybe your annoying CrossFit friend. But what is so fascinating about this is that it’s an aesthetic cultural trend that doesn’t seem to be impacting the actual smoking rates, which are still going down year over year.

MARK BRODIE: So people — am I hearing you say that people think cigarettes are cool but they’re not actually lighting them and smoking them?

AMANDA KEHRBERG: That appears to be the case currently. We have no evidence that they actually are, unless you’re a cool Gen Z celeb on the Met carpet or getting ready. That was actually really funny. I saw there was a video posted of Connor Story and Hudson Williams on a Reddit thread and you can see them smoking getting ready for the the afterparty. And the mods had to to close comments because there were too many comments about them smoking.

And so we’re still — this is like controversial. It’s like people are still reacting, including Gen Z themselves to like, “We don’t want people to actually think this is cool,” but it’s happening. And even though we’re seeing like movies, TV, streaming, social media, there’s something about smoking that still people think looks, you know, functionally cool.

MARK BRODIE: That’s so interesting, because like when you talk about Gen Z, this is a generation that like they didn’t grow up with smoking sections in restaurants or on airplanes or having to walk through that cloud of smoke into almost any public building you walked into. Like they’ve never experienced that. So I wonder if that plays into this this feeling like, “Oh, this thing that a lot of people worked really hard to get rid of is suddenly cool again.”

AMANDA KEHRBERG: It is really interesting because I wonder to what degree they were exposed to — do you remember the Truth ads that would be these really extreme performance art ads, right, of like coffins on the street, and that sort of thing?

MARK BRODIE: Yeah, people having to like talk through like their esophagus.

AMANDA KEHRBERG: Yeah. And there’s this theory called Reactance Theory that fear appeals in persuasion can be really, really impactful up to a point. Beyond that point, people will react against them.

But when it comes to Gen Z, one of the reasons that people think this is kind of a cultural trend is that it plays into the kind of malaise about the future. Another HBO show, “The Leftovers,” that basically, you know, signaled a sort of sense of the end of the world, they had a cult that just constantly smoked —

MARK BRODIE: Because thinking like, why not?

AMANDA KEHRBERG: Yeah. So it does signal something about a sort of embeddedness in the present with no real sense of a future. If you think the — reminded me of the classic [Antonio] Gramsci quote: “Now is the time for monsters.” Now is the time for smokers, I guess. [LAUGHS]

MARK BRODIE: But again, like it doesn’t seem as though the idea that people are posing holding cigarettes is necessarily leading to more smoking. But I would imagine that if you’re an anti-smoking advocate or a public health expert, that would be the fear, right?

AMANDA KEHRBERG: Oh, you’re understandably worried about this, because research shows that seeing people make smoking look cool in media makes someone, particularly youth, more likely to take up smoking. So understandably they’re concerned about that, which I think says something interesting about media effects when it comes to social media. There must be something we don’t necessarily understand about the way that I think a lot of Gen Z users are experiencing this as something that looks cool but maybe isn’t cool to do.

MARK BRODIE: Is it possible to pinpoint whether this started showing up on social media and then ended up in the movies or vice versa, or was it just simultaneously in both places?

AMANDA KEHRBERG: I would say my theory is that it started showing up in streaming and TV first, before making it more into movies and then on social media. That’s my theory, is that social media kind of came last but is really driving the trend now. Because I remember when I first started seeing people smoking on TV again, and it was kind of a shock.

MARK BRODIE: It’s so jarring, right?

AMANDA KEHRBERG: It is jarring.

MARK BRODIE: Like it was one thing during like “Mad Men,” when it was portraying a time when unfortunately almost everybody smoked. And on that show, almost everybody smoked. But the shows you’re talking about take place now when a lot of people don’t smoke.

AMANDA KEHRBERG: Yeah, yeah. It is very strange, because I understand that it’s like an anachronism if you’re set at that time to not be smoking constantly. But also that’s OK. You know what? Everybody wasn’t as hot as they were in “Mad Men” all the time, too. Like there are lots of anachronisms and that’s not a big deal.

But I think what’s interesting is if smoking really does completely go out, which we I think expect it to based on numbers, what are they going to do in media to make someone look cool? You know, there’s the classic save-the-cat trope that makes us immediately know if somebody saves a cat, they’re a good character. So if somebody lights up, they’re a cool character. What’s going to be the new cigarette? [LAUGHS]

MARK BRODIE: That’s a really interesting question. I guess we’ll have to have you back to to think about some ideas. We’ll have you back. We’ll talk about what makes — maybe listening to public radio makes you the the cool character.

AMANDA KEHRBERG: Oh, I would love that. Save the radio.

MARK BRODIE: Save the public radio. All right, that is Amanda Kehrberg, our resident pop culture expert here on The Show. Good as always to talk to you, Amanda. Thank you.

AMANDA KEHRBERG: Thank you so much, Mark.

KJZZ's The Show transcripts are created on deadline. This text is edited for length and clarity, and may not be in its final form. The authoritative record of KJZZ's programming is the audio record.

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