🚬🥴 Is Gen Z’s new thing ... a drunk cig?

🪩🛍️ HUGE night market loading … Who Found What Night Market is popping Oct. 18 at First Street Market. Expect giveaways every hour, TONS of vendors, food, and more. Bonus: If you're one of the first 25 B-Side Members to arrive, you get a free hand-printed tote!

🥳 Speaking of HUGE, it’s B-Sider Maria Fallavollita’s birthday! If anyone deserves a free, hand-printed tote, it’s you, bestie. Have an amazing day!

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Are cigarettes … back? From the silver screen to social media, it seems like a “yes.”

But are young people actually lighting up more? Here’s what to know: 

🚭 According to MGH tobacco researcher Doug Levy, the data say no. Thanks to effective public health campaigning and legislation (especially in Mass.), numbers have been steadily declining for years, and as of 2022, an all-time low 11.6% of American adults smoked cigarettes. That said, a 2020 FTC report saw an increase in cigarette sales for the first time in 20 years following pandemic lockdowns.

🚬 Though your local bartender might have a different take … Just ask The New York Times, The Guardian, Reddit, TikTok, celebs publicly ripping cigs (hi, Queen B), or your neighborhood’s trendiest dive bar: Social smoking is making a comeback. “It's a little bit less stigmatized than it used to be,” said Kaitlyn, a 25-year-old smoker (who declined to give her last name). “I see more cigarette butts on the street than I did five years ago, and I'm noticing that people younger than me are smoking.” 

🎥 We’re even seeing it on the big screen: Per the Truth Initiative, eight out of 10 “Best Picture” nominees this year featured cigs, and 70% of 2023’s top binge-watched shows contained tobacco imagery (which was mostly cigarettes). 

😮‍💨 For young smokers, the vibes > the nicotine. Smoking carries a lot of “cultural cachet,” said BC communications professor Michael Serazio. Particularly in an era when most people know better, lighting up can be as much an “attitudinal or … aesthetic statement” as your clothes or hairstyle. “We've known all our lives that [smoking] was bad,” Kaitlyn said. “But there's sort of a freedom to it, sort of a shunning of expectations.” Plus, between the earth heating up and microplastics coming for us anyway, “what's one more thing?” she said.

🥴 Enter: The drunk cig. Most smokers we heard from view cigarettes as a special-occasion indulgence reserved for a night of drinking or a European vacation, rather than an all-encompassing habit. Think: Charli XCX, not Ben Affleck. As one B-Sider wrote: “Never been addicted to nicotine in my life. But there’s something about a drunk cig on a trip in Europe that I can’t say no to.” 

⚠️ But to be clear: Cigs are REALLY bad for you. They’re incredibly addictive, cause 480,000 deaths in the U.S. every year from lung diseases, cancers, diabetes, heart disease, and way more, and research has shown that a single cig can take 20 minutes off of your life —  that’s a steep price for the vibes.

💸 🏥 Nothing kills a good day faster than opening the mail to find a medical bill you didn’t see coming. The good news? With a little cost literacy, you can prevent most of them. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts helps members understand what’s covered, what’s not, and how to make smart choices about where and when to get care. Pair that with tools like HSAs and FSAs, and you’ve got more control over your health (and your wallet) than you think. Learn how to make your plan work harder for you.

🤑 Harvard’s federal funding $$$ is SO back. As of Oct. 14, most of the nearly $3 billion federal research grants that were slashed by President Trump have been restored. The news comes about a month after a federal judge ruled the cuts illegal. This is an undeniable W for the school, where the cuts were described as a “bloodbath.” But without a permanent solution to funding threats, many researchers aren’t exactly popping the champagne. In fact, its public health school is only authorizing them to spend 80% of the grants out of caution.

🍁 This year’s mediocre leaf-peeping predictions came true. Shout out the drought conditions impacting nearly 40% of the country as of early October! Less water = leaves browning and falling faster, and since New England and the western U.S. are seeing the worst of the drought, their foliage will likely take the biggest hit. The good news: New England trees are pretty resilient, so even under stress, they tend to put on a solid show (which will hit Greater Boston later this month). And apparently, the news hasn’t slowed down leaf peepers.

🐶 Your next flight from Logan just got cuter. Enter: BOS Paws, the airport’s new therapy dog program, which Massport hopes will raise passenger satisfaction and lower stress. This isn’t Logan’s first attempt to jazz up its airport experience this year (remember the live music in baggage claim?), but it’s certainly the fluffiest. The program kicked off Friday when three ADORABLE pups named Remington, Waffles, and Buster wandered the airport with their handlers wearing bright blue “PET ME” vests. They’ll be part of a rotating cast of pups available for snuggles.

🤩 This local professor *literally* wrote the book on Taylor Swift. And it’s out NOW! Remember Stephanie Burt, the prof behind Harvard’s viral “Taylor Swift and Her World” class way back in 2024? Well, her new book “Taylor's Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift” just dropped, which draws from Burt’s experience teaching the class (and her years as a Swiftie) to trace the magic behind Swift’s songwriting prowess from “Fearless” to “Midnights” and everywhere in between. You can grab it here.

Enter for a chance to win a VIP festival prize package — including two All Access Passes for all in-person film screenings and Q&As, two All Access Passes for the virtual films, plus a GlobeDocs-branded bag and exclusive access to the festival’s opening and closing night parties. To enter, just refer a friend and have them accept your invite by the end of the day on 10/16/2025. If you have already referred a friend to B-Side (and they’ve accepted), you're eligible! Full details below*

18+. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Limit one entry per person. See Official Rules & an additional entry option here.

Dunkin’ just opened its 10,000th U.S. location. But which one is the most … Dunkin’? It’s a question we never thought to ask, but one Globe reporter set out to answer.

But first, she had to figure out what exactly makes a Dunkin’ … Dunkin’? Is it the oldest Dunks? The spot with the most consistent crowd of retirees? Or the longest line of contractors in high-vis vests and dirty pants? The ones with conference rooms (which exist, apparently)? Or with the most parking tickets? 

Ultimately, even after talking to Dunkin’ aficionados, and traveling to Dunkin’s far and wide, she didn’t come to a satisfying conclusion. 

But maybe, as one MIT student — who’s been to nearly 300 Mass. Dunkin’s — posited, that’s because it’s not an objective question: “I think the most dunkin dunkin,” he wrote, “is your dunkin.” Poetry.

— Written by Gia Orsino, Emily Schario, and Claire Nicholas

🍩 Thanks for reading! We’d like to nominate the Dunkin’ where they found those rats eating the doughnuts. 

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, for supporting local journalism and helping patients access the right care at the right cost. 

🎃 The results are in: 55% of B-Siders say that a U-Haul and Storrow Drive is the best couples Halloween costume. One reader said: “They belong together, entwined in metal and bad decisions.”

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