Park Gyu-Jung (Dept. of Sociology, 20) usually wears cargo pants and platform shoes. The students who wear crop tops and low-rise pants are all around the campus. The brands that emerged in 1990s sitcoms can be noticed. She said, “The trends from the 2000s are coming back because the young generation wants to express its own personality like the generation X in the 1990s.”

A new “retro” style recently is called “Y2K.” It refers to the same word as a millennium bug that terrorized the world at the end of the 20th century, but the definition is different. The word Y2K combines with the initial of the term “year,” the number two, and “kilo,” representing the number 1000. It deals with the cultural trends at the end of the century that were popular from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. Beyond the existing “Newtro,” which refers to the analogs such as a vinyl record and film camera, Y2K is characterized by expressing “my own personality” freely with vivid and bold color and styling.

■ Following New Trends Inside Our Parents’ Closet

Y2K fever can be easily seen online. In August, the global SPA fashion brand, “ZARA” went viral with the “Y2K collection” in collaboration with “Zepeto,” a mobile multiverse platform. It includes popular items such as neon green cropped sweaters and pink knit miniskirts. “Zigzag,” a Korean fashion shopping platform, selected cargo pants, jorts (the combination of jeans and shorts), and crop tops as Y2K fashion items under the theme of “Back to the 2000s.”

At the end of October, there were about 3.9 million posts with #Y2K on Instagram, and #Y2Kfashion had more than 200 million views on “Tiktok.”  According to Tradesy, an online second-hand trading site, the number of search keywords related to Y2K fashion has increased significantly over the past year, including low-rise (50%), baby t-shirts (200%), and cargo pants (28%), “Trenbe,” a luxury item shopping platform, announced that the sale of “Dickies” which are loved as work pants, increased by 978% compared to the same period of last year, and the sales of “miu miu,” which led the low-rise trend, also increased by 42%.

Like the common saying that the fashion cycle turns every 20 years, Y2K gives the impression of the picture of parents’ closets. Cargo pants, low-rise, Jordan shoes, damaged jeans, and sweatsuits were all in fashion magazines 20 years ago.

Experts say that Y2K fashion trends do not have a single definition. That is because it has a variety of styles ranging from “tone-in-tone” sweatsuits that celebrities in the 2000s like Britney Spears and Paris Hilton wore, to the “Preppy look,” which refers to the style of prestigious American private high school students. This is differentiated from the 1990s when people pursued minimalism and characterized gorgeous as too much.

■ The “Y2K” Fever in K-pop Music Scenes

“NewJeans,” the hottest rookie girl group, captured the hearts of many fans and ranked in major charts with the Y2K concept for their debut. The members gave their own fresh take on a sporty look and preppy look of the 2000s in the music videos. The official website also reminds us of the old cellphone screen. Goods such as the form of CD players and note board brought us back to the 1990s.

A new song “After Like” of girl group “IVE,”  who debuted in December last year, sampled Gloria Gaynor's disco song “I will survive,” released in 1978. The cheerful and exciting retro rhythm of the song was also remade from the song "I Will Survive" by singer Jinju in 1997, so it managed to get closer to the public. As experts mentioned, “It seems like a link between Generation MZ and Generation X.”

In a title song’s music video of a gril group “Twice,” released in August, the first scene of “Talk That Talk” is similar to the test pattern on TV before a regular show. The members of Twice put on low-rise miniskirts with crop tops and used props, reminiscent of the early 2000s. Regarding the Y2K fever in the K-pop music culture, Cho (Dept. of Life Science and Environmental Biochemistry, 20) said, “I can feel the youth and get attracted because of the concept and musicality through which singers express confidence about themselves. Shin (Dept. of Public Policy and Management, 20) also said, “Their outstanding visuals and trendy images attract attention, and it leads me to listen to their music.”

■“Like A Random Game At a Stationery Store”

Throughout this year, convenience stores across the country have been crowded with people collecting stickers from old comics and game characters such as Digimon, Keroro, and Cookie Run, enclosed in bread. When it comes to the CU, bread sales from September 1st to 15th increased 28.9%, GS25 54.6%, and Seven-Eleven 100% year-on-year. Those who collect those stickers while waiting outside the store before it opens exchange stickers that they hadn’t found yet, and also buy stickers at a higher price than the products.

Random game culture is still ongoing. Popular character key rings with Jjangu, Sanrio, and Pokemon can be picked up randomly at convenience stores and are favored among Generation MZ. The low price, between 2,000 won to 3,000 won, is also a popularity factor. The characters such as Pokemon and Jjangu strike Generation MZ’s childhood memories. Lim (Pukyong National University, 20) said, "I keep buying capsules because I remember drawing them in front of stationery during my elementary school days."

“Album kkang,” one of the K-pop idol fan culture, means the action of buying albums until a particular member’s photo card comes out. Due to the aftermath of COVID-19, all activities were converted to non-face-to-face, and the demand for physical photo cards has increased. As more and more people cannot forget the moment when the so-called "craving photo cards" that they really want to have, it has become a fan culture. Choi (Dept. of Sociology, 22) said, “I want to pick out my favorite photo by myself.”

Some analysis shows that Y2K trends are derived from the anxiety of the younger generation. Lee Eun-hee (Prof. of Consumer Science, Inha University) said, "The current society is as unstable as the end of the century, so people tend to seek bright, colorful, and conspicuous things to shake off such anxiety. Since the young generation has been seeing only sophisticated and refined things, it feels old and unfamiliar, but new from outfits and stuff in the 2000s. Then, a constantly changing world can make us see something new but cannot give us a sense of stability. Retro is always favored because it gives us the same stability as a mother's warm embrace.”

Reporter Kang Ji-Won

Translated by Park Yeon-Hee