Walking definition of ‘twee’, Zooey Deschanel, joins the TikTok trend

With a popular ‘twee’ aesthetic overwhelming the world of TikTok, Zooey Deschanel – the queen of ‘twee’ herself –is now joining the trend.

The New Girl actor took to TikTok on Monday with a video of herself lip-syncing to “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?” by her own band, She & Him. The video is accompanied by a collage of some of the various quaint outfits she has donned over the years. Deschanel captioned the video with “I’d like to thank TikTok for teaching me what twee means.” Take a look at the video for yourself.

The post follows a trend, the revival of twee, that has been growing in TikTok the last month, which is defined by various users with a specific vibe in the worlds of music, fashion, and movies, with the last notable peak of the style spanning from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s. Often these posts have the aforementioned song to go along with it by She & Him, which consists of Deschanel and M. Ward and originated in the mid-2000s.

Twee is essentially an offshoot of hipster and indie culture, with fashion examples being things like cutsie looks, shift dresses and layering clothes with cardigan sweaters. Film examples of twee include grounded romantic comedies with the finger on the pulse on youth culture, like the Deschanel-starring 500 Days of Summer and Juno, as well as the surreal The Life Aquatic. And the music side twee actually hails from a subgenre that dates back to the 1980s. A post by Twitter user @oldloserinbrooklyn gives a comprehensive breakdown of the movement.

According to AllMusic, the subgenre of music known as Twee Pop dates all the way back to 1986 and is characterized by its simplicity, perceived innocence, catchy melodies with lyrics about love, and often featuring boy-girl harmonies, such as in the band She & Him.