Striding through a paparazzi throng outside the Giorgio Armani men’s fashion show in January, “Heated Rivalry” star Hudson Williams insouciantly lit a cigarette. The shots of the smartly suited 24-year-old Vancouverite, devil-may-care in the face of Milan’s public-area smoking ban, spread across the internet like wildfire.
His isn’t the only cigarette to take the spotlight of late. At Charli XCX’s wedding in Italy last summer, Vogue Essence Bleue slims were laid out on silver platters like appetizers, practically guests of honour. (Want to have your own cigarette tower at your nuptials? Pinterest abounds with ideas.)
Meanwhile, Sean Penn lit up at his table at the Golden Globes in January, and “Marty Supreme” breakout star Odessa A’zion was shot smoking in her “best performances” awards season photo shoot for W Magazine.
A whole pack got a starring role in country singer Morgan Wallen’s recent song, “20 Cigarettes.”
Statistically, Canadian smoking rates have remained at about 12 per cent of the population for the decade leading up to 2024. But medical experts are concerned about a comeback among Gen Zs drawn to cigarettes’ nihilist, anti-establishment associations — and their “retro” appeal as an analog, pre-vape vice embodying ’90s heroin chic and ‘60s rebellion.
Liz Duff, host of Canadian pop culture podcast Late Night Scrolling, posted the image of Williams smoking on Threads with a comment about his well-curated look, logged off and returned hours later to a minor firestorm.
“I was gobsmacked,” Duff said. Some of the 183 responses: “It’s giving Alain Delon vibes.” “It’s giving mafia boss.” “I hope the cigarette is just a prop. He always complained about how [‘Heated Rivalry’ co-star] Connor [Storrie] stank of smoke.” “There’s nothing chic, glam or fashionable about tobacco.”
While the passionate response caught her off-guard, Duff wasn’t actually surprised to see Williams smoking in such a setting.
“He’s becoming this monolith of the next generation of hot Canadians taking over entertainment. My genuine reaction was, ‘Of course he’s smoking a cigarette,’” she said. “It’s just so hand-in-hand with youth culture right now.”
Duff said she could walk down the street any Friday evening and see “hundreds of guys Hudson’s age” smoking cigarettes on a night out. Online, she points to the proliferation of “cigfluencers,” who post OOTDs matching their vape colour to their outfits.
As an emerging Canadian Gen Z icon, then, Williams is simply reflecting his generation. “Cigarettes have always gone hand in hand with rebellion, self-expression and self-choice. Choosing to smoke is supposed to be counterculture, punk, sticking it to the man,” said Duff. “And that’s so symmetrical to what’s happening in Canadian pop culture right now. We’re choosing ourselves, we’re choosing to rub against the grain.”
Duff, 28, is asthmatic so steers clear herself, but she sees the tactile appeal of cigarettes for a generation whose reality is heavily screen based. “People talk so much about the socialization of a smoke break,” she said. “It’s so hard for people to form connections in a digital world — and holding a cigarette is the opposite of holding a phone.”
This is a good time to reiterate that, for all those claims that loneliness is worse for you than smoking, cigarettes remain very, very harmful.
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, 46,000 people die each year in this country from smoking, and it causes 30 per cent of cancer deaths. There’s also an economic cost: Tobacco costs the health care system more than $6 billion a year.
“The warnings on cigarette packages are still accurate. With enough exposure, you can expect some or all of those health consequences to occur,” said Dr. Mark Broussenko, a Toronto physician and medical director at telehealth platform Phoenix. They include cancer, heart disease, emphysema and myriad other serious conditions. “There have been no meaningful improvements in the safety profile of conventional cigarettes in our lifetime.”
And yet, Broussenko is seeing a resurgence in their use, particularly among his young patients and first-time smokers.
Cigarette use among Canadian students in grades seven to 12 plummeted from 37 per cent in 2008 to 16 per cent in 2022, but that drop plateaued from 2022 to 2024, sitting at 17 per cent.
“There seems to be a ‘retro’ or ‘vintage’ appeal to cigarettes, especially among people who were first exposed to nicotine through other products like e-cigarettes or nicotine pouches,” Broussenko said. “What’s striking is that this trend runs counter to another dominant cultural movement we’re seeing right now, which is a strong emphasis on self-care and wellness.”
He’s hoping that this will be just one more passing blip.
“Smoking is once again being framed as rebellious or cool, but it’s hard to say how durable that trend will be. Trend cycles move much faster now — what feels true this year may not be true next year,” he said. “However, people who start smoking now may find it very difficult to quit later, even once it’s no longer seen as fashionable.”
Katherine Vienneau started smoking “late” at 18, drawn in by its ubiquity at her Toronto film school. “It was part of the culture. You just get to a point where, like, everyone else is doing this so I might as well give it a shot,” she said.
Around 2018, she switched to Juul, when vaping hit the mainstream with its fruit and cotton candy-scented clouds. “Then I realized it was worse for me than smoking cigarettes, because I was just doing it all the time. I’d do it inside; I could sneak it in the bathroom at an event,” she said. “I was waking up feeling like I was breathing through a straw because I’d just been vaping all day.”
Cigarettes are more contained to a moment. “It feels a lot more intentional, versus using a vape as a pacifier, which I feel like a lot of people do.”
Vienneau, now 29, is well aware of the health perils, but she values the “sense of community” when “60 per cent of the audience” nips out for a smoke between acts at a concert. “It’s how I made a lot of friends,” she said. “And it does look cool.”
Still, she’s planning to quit by 30. “I’ve quit a couple times for multiple months, and I did feel better, but it was hard to fully kick it. I’m getting to an age where I can’t be as flippant with my own health.”
That’s music to the ears of Dr. Matthew Stanbrook, a respirologist at Toronto Western Hospital. “The more data we’ve accumulated, which is overwhelming, only serves to confirm how terrible smoking is,” he said. “If we were sane and rational, we would ban it worldwide for health reasons. It makes no sense we continue to allow this, but it’s there because of money and politics.”
And no: contrary to some Gen Z sentiment, cigarettes are not “better” for you than vaping because at least tobacco is a natural plant (they also contain around 600 ingredients like tar and formaldehyde, including 69 that are known carcinogens).
“I don’t know where that messaging comes from. It sounds like something the tobacco industry would spread, because that’s exactly what they want,” said Stanbrook. “There is no reputable health professional who would ever say we would rather you smoked than vaped.”
He has had patients use vaping as a way to quit cigarettes. He congratulates them, then warns that vaping isn’t good for them either and they should work on quitting. “But anything is better than smoking,” he said. “It’s absolutely the worst thing you can do for your health.”
Yet cigarettes persist. Stanbrook feels this is partly explained by the “cosy” relationship between Hollywood and the tobacco industry that dates back over a century — and was one of the main reasons smoking rates among women caught up to men. More than half of 2024’s biggest films featured tobacco imagery, up 10 per cent from the year before, according to Truth Initiative.
“We have to be continually vigilant,” said Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society. “Tobacco companies would love to slow the decline in smoking. Even if it’s not increasing, that means a lot of money. They will do whatever they can.”
When Matty Healy of The 1975 becomes a meme for singing “I don’t like menthols” onstage or pictures of Jeremy Allen White and Rosalia smoking together on the streets of New York go viral, it’s basically free advertising. “When you’re a celebrity, what you do influences a wide number of young people, and you shouldn’t be contributing to young people smoking,” Cunningham said.
However immortal Hudson Williams might seem now, “it’s the leading cause of preventable death in Canada.”
