Homemade barbecue pork cuts. Katy Perry performs on stage during the Katy Perry the Lifenettes Tour 2025. A woman checks her receipt when leaving a store.
Istock | Theo Wargo | Hispanolitic | Getty images
A few weeks ago, when Kiki Rough was felt more and more concerned about the state of the economy, she began to think about previous periods of financial difficulties.
An approximate reflection of the skills it has acquired on the realization of the grocery store during the difficult moments that accompanied the past economic slowdowns. Faced with similar feelings of uncertainty with regard to the country's financial future, she began to make video guides to cooking books published during previous recessions, depressions and war times.
The 28 -year -old told subscribers that she was not a professional chief, but rather won his scratches by learning to cook during the food coupons. From the Yellow and Black Kitchen of Rough in the suburbs of Chicago, she teaches viewers how to prepare cheap meals and home replacements for items like Strudel or Bigette for Breakfast. She often reminds people to replace the ingredients with alternatives they already have in the pantry.
“I continue to see this joke again and again in the comments: the old Poors teaching the new Poors,” Rough in CNBC told. “We just need to share knowledge right now because everyone is afraid, and learning will give people security to navigate in these situations.”
Self -employed workers videos I quickly found an audience on Tiktok and Instagram. Between the two platforms, she won 350,000 subscribers and collected around 21 million views on videos in the last month, by her count.
The announcement by President Donald Trump of wide and steep prices earlier in April hung fears of the American economy Inclination in a recession In recent weeks. While the Americans like the rough are increasingly worried about the coming road, they go back to the advice and the tips they used to scratch during dark financial chapters like the global financial crisis that exploded in 2008.
Google is planning a peak in research volumes this month The terms related to the recession that has come to define the late 2000s. Research on the “global financial crisis” should reach the unbek observed levels since 2010, while investigations for the “large recession” should be at the highest rate since the start of the cocovored pandemic.
Porkchops, house holidays and jungle juice
On Tiktok, a herd of millennials and the Xers generation entered the roles of older brothers and sisters, offer flashbacks And advice to young people on how to pinch money. Some Gen Zers have released Calls to ancients For information on what a recession can feel at this stage of life, having been too young to feel the complete effects of the financial crisis.
“It is, potentially, at least on a large scale, the first time that millennials have been the” experts “on something,” said Scott Syls, a 33 -year -old marketing specialist in Louisiana. “We are the experts to get the carpet out of us.”
Those who make the advice take a journey into the memory of the end of the aughts. Cheap escapades in Florida were the standard instead of lush trips abroad. They had Received files In case purchases of large tickets will be sold later. Occasional commercial outfits were common for social events because they could not afford several styles of clothes.
Pigs were a basic dinner Given their relative affordability, leading a creator to declare that they “GOTT like” The great recession. They have drunk “Jungle juice” At the house of the house, a concoction of various cheap alcohols and mixers, instead of cocktails in bars.
“There are things I didn't know “Recession indicators” The first time, I thought I only thought of trends, “said my Lakewood, a writer and collection of professional funds in New York State.” Now you can see it from 10 miles away. “”
Customers buy products from a weekly grocery store on February 12, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty images
Admittedly, part of the speech focused on how inflationary pressures have made a handful of these hacks disappear. Some content creators have stressed that the federal minimum wage has Set at $ 7.25 per hour since 2009 despite the cost of weighing living.
Kimberly Casamento recently started a Tiktok series Viewers through the recipes of a cooking book focused on affordable meals published in 2009. The director of digital media based in New Jersey said that she had found costs for what was then considered as low budget meals between 100% and 150%. In addition to sharing price changes, the 33 -year -old man gives viewers some advice on how to reduce costs.
“Each aspect of life is so expensive that it is difficult for anyone to survive,” said Casamento. “If you can reduce the cost of your $ 5 meal, then it's a victory.”
'A very human thing'
This type of municipal knowledge sharing is common during periods of economic belt, according to Megan Way, associate professor at Babson College who studies the family and the intergenerational economy. Although conversations on how to reduce costs or to make meals are generally stated among the neighbors in the late 2000s, Way said it was logical that they are now taking place in the digital square with the rise of social media.
“It is a very human thing to reach out to others when things feel uncertain and try to win on their experience,” said Way. “It can really make a difference to have the impression of the somewhat prepared future. One of the worst things for an economy is absolute fear.”
Way said that Americans are not quick to return to the big recession for a guide because this slowdown was so shocking and largely felt. However, she said that there are key differences between this economic situation and what the United States faces today, such as the absence of debt This sparked the accident of the housing market.
However, she said that there was a large uncertainty felt today on several fronts – whether linked to the economy, geopolitics or internal policy priorities such as reducing federal labor or limitation of immigration. This can revive the feeling of unpredictability about what the future will bring that has been essential during the great recession, Way said.
In 2025, it is clear that economic confidence among the average Americans hides quickly. The feeling of consumer feeling of the University of Michigan recorded one of its worst readings in more than seven decades this month.
With this negative economic perspective, the rise in stress. When Lukas Battle made a satirical tiktok on the fact that divorces were increasingly current At the time of the great recession, the 27 -year comments were excited with people who were talking about the separation of their parents recently. (Although divorce was considered a cultural characteristic of the financial crisis, the data show the rate In fact refused during this period.)
“There is a second cycle of divorces that take place when we speak,” said Battle.
Cultural parallels
This is one of the many parallel social media users have established themselves between late ends and today. When videos surfaced a dancing group on the successful song of Doechii “Anxiety”, several commentators on X reported the feeling already seen When will flashmob performance were common.
Disney's restart From the animated program “Phineas and Ferb”, which was initially presented in the late 2000s, also put the mind.
Lady Gaga performing in Coachella 2017
Getty Images | Christopher Polk
“Pop recession,” A sentence mainly referring to the sub-genre of fashionable music that fell during the global financial crisis, has captured a second wave in the past year while the Americans have supported inflation and high interest rates.
Now, in 2025, like the voice choir Project an upcoming recession Grows, pop music has familiar sounds.
In 2008, artists such as Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry regularly appeared in musical charts. Cyrus and Gaga released new songs this year. Perry launched a world tour this week.
“It is almost a permission to feel good, whether through the song or something,” said Syls, the marketing specialist in Louisiana. “This does not necessarily ignore the problems that are here, but perhaps find a kind of joy or pleasure in the middle of all this.”