"Here's how the fabric went from a "miracle" fiber to TikTok slang for fake."

"Even if you’re not wearing polyester now, it’s probably sitting somewhere in your closet — after all, it is the most ubiquitous fabric for textiles on Earth. Is that bad? 

Judging by social media, the answer is solidly “yes.” Influencers want you to know it’s a form of plastic, fashioned from melted crude oil or PET bottles and extruded into threads. That disgust factor (“ugh, I’m wearing plastic?”) might help explain why “polyester” is now trending as an insult on TikTok.

“Polyester lifestyle,” says the top comment on a viral video in which an 18-year-old imagines his oddly specific dream life — wearing blue-light glasses in a coffee shop while a Claude agent does half his job during lunch break; getting a call that he has to pack for a sudden business trip to Europe while watching the sunset from the tennis court — as a 1987 composite sketch of the Unabomber gradually fades into view.

There’s just one problem with the story that “polyester” is, as Mashable put it last month, “Gen Z’s new way to call you fake”: The term has already been used this way for about half a century. The Oxford English Dictionary gives examples from 1979 (“A gleaming brazen polyester clown”) and 1987 (“Clifton wears polyester suits and a polyester smile”)."

Kate Yoder reports for Grist September 2, 2026. [2]