How did ‘wholesome’ become a Gen Z compliment?

For a young generation, the nine-letter-word has come to embody everything pure and true

Wholesome memes account post memes, comics and heartwarming messages like this on Twitter. 

Two people on opposite sides of a foggy window playing tic-tac-toe with their fingers. Or, a monkey riding on a piglet’s back.

If you belong to Gen Z, chances are you would describe these simple, silly moments as ‘wholesome’. This nine-letter-word has indeed replaced ‘aww’ to refer to things that are sincere, nice or cute.

Accounts like Wholesome Memes has 3 million followers on Twitter while Wholesome Games has 3,28,000 followers on TikTok. Data from Google Trends shows that ‘wholesome’ started getting popular in 2018 and peaked in September 2020 and continues in use.

The Gen Z compliment is free of connotations of traditional family values and virtues, according to Michèle Lamont, a sociology professor at Harvard University in the US. “They’re not necessarily defining ‘wholesome’ the way the Midwesterners traditionally do, but more in the sense of having a positive outlook on life,” he continued.

Enzo Luna, a 22-year-old communications consultant in Los Angeles, thinks of wholesomeness as kindness, like giving up a seat for an elder or complimenting a stranger.

So does Sufian Miah. The 16-year-old said, “I saw a video of a person talking to a homeless man, and they became good friends. It was wholesome. It means a good feeling in the heart for everyone who witnessed it and was a part of it.”

Wholesome Games, an account that posts video snippets of cozy games, has a mostly Gen Z audience: 67% of its audience on TikTok is between 18 and 24.

There are also oodles of wholesome meme accounts, which Gen Z prefers over the satirical millennial memes of the early 2010s that were coated with dark humour and doused in irony.

“Sometimes those ironic and satirical memes are too heavy-handed, and they go into things that, at a certain point, it’s not really a joke anymore,” Luna said. Watching cat videos is one of his favourite pastimes. “I enjoy seeing that type of content as opposed to people making fun of others,” he said.

In a 2022 study, Michèle worked with two students who interviewed 80 college undergraduates and found that there was an overall sentiment among Gen Z of valuing optimism and contributing to social change.

“This is the cohort that came of age under Covid, the first people born with a phone in their hands,”Michèle said. She said the focus on positivity was a way to move forward from the hardships.

Luna recently entered the workforce and he had noticed that his co-workers “expect the world to be hard on them”. But he preferred to be “the person who tries to be a place of comfort for everybody.”

Emily Torres, 33, has noticed that her Gen Z co-workers tend to bring a positive attitude into meetings. She is an editorial director at The Good Trade, an online publication.

And it’s not just wholesome content that Gen Z-ers prefer. Many of them prefer wholesome people, including Harry Styles; wholesome pastimes, such as playing board games; and a wholesome lifestyle consisting of ‘healing eras’ and ‘protecting your peace’. Wholesomeness is not just a compliment, then. It’s a generational value. — NYT