It's unclear exactly what the origins of the Gen Z skinny jean hate are, but it is clear that it's not going away anytime soon. Instead, Gen Zs have swapped the tight, straight legs for flares and wide legs with high waists — known affectionately (or ruefully, depending on which side you take in the debate) as mom jeans. The comfortable, roomy style of jeans gets their name from a 2003 "Saturday Night Live" sketch featuring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, and Rachel Dratch, in which a fake commercial for the pants says, "give her something that says: I'm not a woman anymore. I'm a mom" (via The Washington Post).
At the time, mom jeans were seen as ugly, unflattering, and all-around undesirable, but Gen Z has a different take. A college senior interviewed by The Washington Post in May of 2021 raved about the comfort of mom jeans over skinny jeans, saying, "you could easily jump into mom jeans and take them off. You don't have to struggle to put them on."
It seems that many of her peers agree with her — though some aren't as nice about it. In fact, when a trend earlier in 2021 circulated Tik Tok with Gen Zs listing the things they'd do before they wore skinny jeans, among the most popular answers were "die" or "be homeless" (via Sydney Morning Herald).
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