Anyone who has lived here for more than a year already knows that in Tel Aviv, as in Tel Aviv – trends come and go. When they come they can infect an entire city in an instant, and in the distance of time, with the reconciliation, we look back for a moment and ask – why did we make such a big deal out of it? Why did we make anything out of it at all?
So now it’s monkey pox. Okay, let’s get a little terrified, maybe we’ll see some serious guys with gloves on the bus (well, they said it’s a touch!), And that’s over, too. How do we know? Because we have already succeeded a thousand of them. Corona is another lite, where would you be in the plague of colorful reflectors of 2014? Here are five Tel Aviv epidemics that are the surest proof of the amazing survival of the city as it deals with the most cringeful phenomena of the decade:
Transportation: Segways and Aver-boards
Oh, fuck. We could have stopped with these pair of words, because they accurately describe our deep aversion to the amounts of semi-autonomous tools that plagued our streets between 2010 and 2016, roughly. They also accurately describe what would surely have come out of our mouths if we had seen such a vessel approaching us, controlled by some geek from a liquid making devines on it.
Drive, and do not return here. Segway in Tel Aviv. Photo: shutterstock
The Segways were the first, even before Duches from the high-tech – a combination that was a firefighter today, by the way – anyone who wanted to look rich and progressive would rush to purchase this ‘environmental’ and stylish tool, and he would probably have had a minor accident and lost a front tooth. In general – remember days when walking to the promenade was accompanied by a deadly fear of being run over by a group of rolling tourists?
In recent years the huber-boards have grabbed the front of the stage, which are basically the exact same thing only without handlebars. Fine, let’s take some more control and confidence from them. The wealthy of the real estate were replaced by their sons, whose free hands allowed them to roll a tic-tac-toe and poke their noses in the process, and we got streets that looked like a scene from “WALL-E.” Recently, to our delight, these too have mostly disappeared from the streets and we are left to wait for the next traffic plague. Get ready for eye-catching delivery gliders.
Social: Hipsters
Ah, remember that was the most heard word in town? The hipsters of course have not disappeared, they are still here, with the special tattoos they made manually, the graying mustaches and hoop earrings in both ears. But we are here to mention that there were more difficult days in the last decade, when Tel Aviv was just beginning to learn the field of hipster from its European counterparts. Admittedly, the city has faltered greatly in its first steps in the field – and we have all borne the consequences. In the name of coolness we had to wear oversized button-down shirts in epileptic colors, thick, unshowered beards, and requests for drinks like, “Make me a mosque mule, but have a tequila and put me some bitter dash on top.” And that’s not to mention Avi Bitter’s fetishization.
How well we calmed down from the pineapple. Hipster Ben Gurion. Illustration by Amit Shimoni
Today hipsters are a bit like Corona: we are already used to them and they have assimilated among us beautifully. So beautiful that we hardly know if there is a situation in which we, like them, really love Nicholas Jar. We have a warm corner in our hearts to them, make no mistake – they may have brought a techno Trojan into the city, but they also make Florentine feel a bit like Berlin, which is no easy task.
Culinary: Belgian waffle and frozen yogurt
There was a time, especially when the global revolution began to make its mark at the beginning of the millennium, in which we desperately wanted to be America. Dozens of burgers, tens of thousands of pizzerias and ice cream parlors, abundance, abundance, abundance everywhere. Things started to roll in a less appetizing direction as more specific culinary trends began to emerge in the city like McDonald’s branches after the nineties rain.
Initially, frozen yogurt stores arrived. At one point it seemed that every store that vacated in the heart of the city had turned into some kind of ‘yogo’, attracting queues of 14-year-olds and a contest over who had real and not fake Oreo. Today, teenagers seem to prefer things that are more beautifully photographed, but the strong spots for pro-US, which were strong even then, survived the defeat – such as “Tamara” in Rothschild or “Anita” in the Sharona complex.
really? Belgians? You know what they like besides chocolate? Belgian Waffles. Photo: Shutterstock
Then came the Belgian waffle – another American hit in essence, which perished a little faster, mainly because it has been around in the United States for decades. The Opel Bar chain closed its branches in Tel Aviv during the Corona, but the good old La Gofra still has a variety of branches. Apparently Tel Avivians still have a fondness for square dough with sockets stuffed with nutella and mountains of whipped cream on the side.
The (not) fashionable: eyeglasses, mustache products and owls
The year 2014 will be remembered forever among the fashion lovers in the city as the year of disasters. Luckily, as someone who was a teenager herself in 2014 – I know very well where they came from. The growing popularity of an American social network called Tumblr, and the beginning of the emergence of Instagram as a powerhouse of likes and fasting, united teens from all over the world around abundant caring trends. So along with the One Direction pan fiction and the Duck Lips images in a black and white filter, there were no less bad fashion trends.
In winter: products with a mustache print. Yeah yeah, what you heard dear Z members read: sweaters, T-shirts, necklaces, crazy talkers even tattooed a mustache on the inside of the index finger just so they could be photographed with it over the lip like it’s some cute quirk and not a perversion. Owl jewelry also popped up at the same time for a reason, sponsored by Accessorize chain branches and dozens of chin stores, which have become a pilgrimage hotspot for girls with sock hats and moose tights. In the summer: The specs, mostly from the Brazilian Havaianas chain, were the hot news. The more colors you acquired, which over time became prints (crocs were already cute there, even those it did not save), the better your social and fashionable status.
Yes, it came down to babies. Sucking a mustache. (From Amazon)
All sorts of things have happened to humanity since 2014 – warmed up here, got polluted here and will definitely be more photographed and documented here in every corner. The Tumblr is dying, Instagram is getting stronger, and suddenly trends have become something that does not rely on random symbols and animals. Who knows – maybe another decade will look at the Instagram feed from now on and not understand why we are photographed in Vanzis or why we returned the low-cut jeans to fashion, Lord of the Worlds.
Blaine: Mega Bars
Let’s start from the end: recently I feel that at least in this area, Tel Aviv has calmed down a bit. There are queues – but they are for Peacock, Gazetta, Mozner and October, the neighborhood, small and intimate places we all love to love. It may be the appalling price increase that does not allow us to pay more than 65 shekels for a gin and tonic, but it seems that the power of the mega-bars – those huge complexes that have opened in the city en masse next to each other and are trying to cover all the entertainment niches – has actually weakened.
Yes, the experience of fluffy cocktails and even more fluffy food alongside them, followed by dance music that tries to keep you in place from 9pm to 1am – sparked a quick enthusiasm that faded as it came. The huge and ambitious tea house, for example, which housed the American Zionist House and offered a huge menu of tea-based cocktails and 20 portions, closed in less than two years and was replaced by the brothers’ new and stunning branch. The Beach Club, which was promised by the promenade, has become a relatively solid beach bar-bar in its atmosphere, with occasional parties. Even the pompous and ornate “Fantastic” is less talked about and has become more of a pilgrimage destination for Instagram photo lovers than for blazers.
The trends in Tel Aviv nightlife come and go, but the knowledge that even in the age of photogenicity we still prefer our beer instead of getting a smile from the one waitress we love and will not miss us when we go – is quite comforting.