Culture
'Polyester' Becomes a Gen-Z Insult in the West — Japan Reacts With Shrugs
English-speaking Gen Z are reportedly using 'polyester' — the synthetic fabric — as slang for 'cheap,' 'thin,' or 'fake,' applied to people and content. One trigger was a TikTok in which an 18-year-old describes an 'ideal day' (a New York penthouse, Bible study, delegating half his work to a Claude agent), whose top comment, 'Polyester lifestyle,' drew over 40,000 likes. Similar fabric-as-fakeness metaphors have existed since at least the 1970s, so this reads as a meme re-trending on TikTok rather than a brand-new coinage. Japanese reactions were mostly bemused and cynical, mixed with fabric-knowledge one-upmanship.