Smoking was definitely the cool thing when I was in college and I ran with a hipster type crowd. This was from 2004-2009. Everyone smoked. Usually American Spirits or Camels. I rolled my own cigarettes out of rolling tobacco but sometimes also smoked any eclectic, European cigarettes I could find, like Prince, Sherman, and some others whose names I forget now. There was definitely a sense of pride in smoking and a self awareness about it too, like everyone was conscious of the fact that they were all brought together as a group by smoking. It’s very hard to explain. But at any party, the porch was always the place to be. That’s where everyone smoked, and as it provided a somewhat quieter and more private environment than the rest of the party, it was where the more interesting conversations happened. Same thing at any bar.
Cigarettes would also always come out if people were drunk or if they were high - regardless of whether these people were regular smokers. There were always a lot of people, including myself, who were noncommital smokers and apparently not addicted to tobacco.
Anyway, these people to whom you refer, who are indeed critical of advertising and the media, are likely to mock the message of “don’t smoke” that is being put out by the media. Among hipsters, the mainstream is uncool. Any message for mass media is uncool. Therefore, anti-smoking sentiment is uncool. We’re talking about a class of people who drink Pabst Blue Ribbon basically because the design of the can looks more old-school and vintage than other beers.
A lot is from movies. Look at the new ads for “The Girl who…” defiantly smoking a cig and gothed out. She’s supposedly strong, smart, independent, of course teen girls want to be like her.
The completely out of place and ridiculous smoking scene in Avatar must have gained RJ Reynolds another several 10’s of thousands of converts.
At twenty-eight, my personal experiences are probably out of date for what teens are doing now, but I started at around nineteen, because a friend offered me a cigarette, and I didn’t see any short term reason not to try it. We all knew about the health issues, but we weren’t really planning for things that would might crop up twenty years down the road. The campus we were on didn’t allow smoking in the dorms and apartments so it gave you a good reason to go outside and meet your neighbors. Around the same time, the restaurants and bars in NY went smoke free, and once we were all 21, no one wanted to be the only one standing inside waiting for the rest of the group to take a smoke break, and that probably helped everyone keep the habit going, or pick it up in the first place, if they hadn’t already.
Has anyone mentioned that smoking gives you a quick little dizzy buzz that feels kind of good, especially the first few times you do it? It’s not because it LOOKS cool, it’s because it FEELS cool. You take your first puff because you’re 15 and a group of friends are all trying it out. You light it up and cough your lungs out and your friends all laugh and say “No no no, just take a little puff and hold it in your mouth for a couple seconds, then inhale slowly…” Then you try it that way and you get a little dizzy and your throat feels tingly because it’s a menthol and you smile and laugh and pass it to the next person. Then a month later you somehow end up with a cigarette in your hand and your parents aren’t home and you’re bored and you sneak out back and light one up…
People still smoke because the experience of being young and doing something wrong that makes you a little buzzed is fun, especially in a group. It’s the same reason young people drink, sneak out at night, or skip school.
I don’t believe anyone these days can legitimately claim ignorance of the damage caused by smoking and second hand smoke. And it’s not like the things are cheap at $5 and up a pack.
I’d like to hear from some of our younger members who have taken up the habit. What prompted you to start, knowing what you do about the risks?
Didn’t read the linked thread, but my answer is the same as the last couple of times this has come up: To be cool. Except for 0.00001% of cases, that’s the only answer.
However, how kids start nowadays with the prices what they are, I have no idea.
Yep, smoking always gave me that immediate, light-headed high. It never wore off - but then I never smoked more than 5-6 cigarettes in a day for the two years or so that I smoked. It was more of an immediate ‘high’ than both pot and alcohol, and the main reason I enjoyed smoking. Which I usually did alone, BTW. Not in front of people to look cool - it was another introvert activity for me.
I couldn’t get through all the postings here, but I just want to say I think Rhubarbarin is right on:
I’ve spent most of my life as an antismoking zealot, and some of it as a closet smoker (maybe 10-200 cigarettes a year from ages 12-14 and again from 19 to 25). I hung around people who smoked in college, then I married a smoker. A lot of it was self-protection (if you’re in a room full of smokers, you’re going to be really annoyed by all the secondhand smoke, unless you have your own firsthand smoke), a lot of it was social and, I’m not going to BS anyone, a lot of it was magazine advertisements. (All those sexy people smoking in the late 70s and early 80s. Hey, those companies paid a fortune for that stuff, so why would they if it wasn’t working?) But when my wife quit almost 15 years ago, I happily never went back.
(Note to Rhubarbarin: I also joined the fitness revolution about 5 years ago and really wish I would have 25 years ago!)
I’ve tried to chill out about it now, as idiot teenage Joe Jr. decided to toy with the habit at age 16, but ostensibly has given it up. (It still pisses me off just thinking about it.)
I think a budding psychiatrist could spent a doctoral thesis on my own relationship with cigarettes. But I think it boils down to: People are not as rational as we like to believe.
On a somewhat-related note, I was trying to explain to my 6-year-old what a cigar was, and told him it was like a big, stinky cigarette. And that he didn’t know what that was either. We live in Ohio, where there’s no smoking in restaurants or other public places, so he’s never really had an opportunity to be exposed.
It’s possible to have a couple drinks a few nights of the week and not be addicted like many (arguably most) people get with smoking.
Smoking has numerous negative health effects and the young people who choose to willfully ignore them are just plain stupid or willfully ignorant. It’s not like many are hooked on their first inhale; you have to WORK at it to stop wheezing. How stupid and dim-witted is that? I’ve heard truly hilarious excuses of young people who smoke: who cares, I roll my own so it’s not bad, I can quit when I want to (truly my favorite), or the negative consequences are exaggerated.
Also, many high schools have cameras now, making it impossible to skip. Less than 5 people in my class (of 150 some) would skip due to the fact there were cameras that caught you before you left the parking lot. Smoke detectors in the bathroom deterred smoking. I remember just once in my high school career walking into a bathroom that reeked. Times have really changed.
I didn’t cough or choke the first times I inhaled (pot or cigarettes). And quitting was easy.
I would say a majority of people who have smoked cigarettes before aren’t currently addicted.
Can you concieve of a gray area for the many millions of people, plenty of them much more intelligent in a variety of ways than you and I, who don’t care enough about long-term health consequences to modify their daily behavior?
I don’t have an answer to your question. Sorry. What’s more intriguing to me, if I may indulge in a bit of hijackery, is the seeming correlation between smoking and level of education achieved. I haven’t found statistics to support my contention, but it seems that, as a group, those with Masters degrees or higher tend not to smoke, whereas those with limited or no undergrad education tend to smoke.
When I was in my early 20s, killing myself as a mortgage clerk in the administration offices of American Savings Bank at 380 Madison Avenue (heh, it’s funny the things you remember) while holding down a full load of courses at NYU, it seemed almost everyone on my floor smoked; those were the days when it was permissible to smoke in an office, and it was bloody rancid, and I almost choked to death wading through the clouds of second-hand smoke. Now, over 25 years later, I work for an organization where, as far as I’m aware, no one smokes, and all have at least one advanced degree.
If anyone has access to any statistics that confirm or contradict my suspicion, I’d really like to see them.
Nope, because if they were more intelligent than you or I then they’d obviously be well versed on what the side effects and hazards are, not even to speak of the insane cost. Choosing to then ignore facts intentionally is just plain stupid. Low self esteem could certainly be at play as well. And like I mentioned before, family history is a big factor. But exempt family history and low self esteem, you’re pretty much an idiot to take the gamble in the first place these days.