When, in 2018, the Urban Dictionary added the word “cheugy” to its extensive vocabulary, no one was really paying attention. Recently, the word resurfaced thanks to 24-year-old Hallie Cain, a copywriter in Los Angeles and the face behind the Instagram handle @cheuglife. In a TikTok video she posted in March, she tells her followers that the word describes anything from “the type of people who get married at twenty years old” to millennials’ obsession with “girlboss energy”. More practically, the Urban Dictionary defines the word as an adjective to describe an object, a behaviour, or a preference that is the opposite of trendy, or out of date.

Need more examples? Let me explain. “Live, love laugh” posters? Cheugy. Destination weddings? Definitely cheugy. Going to Bali to find yourself? The jury is still out, but I suspect the verdict is the same.

One recent example occurred on Wednesday, when Etsy announced a £1.14 billion deal to buy Depop. Etsy boss Josh Silverman described the move as a way to target Gen Z consumers, as 90% of active Depop users are younger than 26. Depop CEO Maria Raga added, “[the next generation] comes to Depop for the clothes but stays for the culture”.

Etsy, the global online retailer for do-it-yourself goods, was all the rage in the mid-2010s. It presented users with a platform which encouraged enterprise and trading, and unlike its roughly similar relative, Ebay, Etsy was perceived as accessible, fun, and a way to support small businesses. However, the rush and excitement died when apps such as Depop, Vinted, and Carousell started popping up, with a more general appeal to a younger audience thanks to their focus on sustainability and gender-equal leaderships.

Depop was founded by London entrepreneur Simon Beckerman, with the help of Italian tech incubator H-FARM in 2011. It describes itself as a peer-to-peer social shopping app, and says it has a business model that fosters community and trust rather than profit-based competition. It describes its mission as building “a community-powered fashion ecosystem that’s kinder on the planet and kinder to people”.

Perhaps it is precisely this ESG appeal that drew in Gen Zs in the first place, as they place more of an emphasis on sustainability, the environment and social causes. But the Gen Z consumer base is also more fragmented than any other generation of consumers before them and appealing to them is not an easy task. Etsy, a marketplace that Gen Z barely would know about, must resolve the stark differences among its consumer bases if it is to make it work—and keep Depop’s users loyal.  

Perhaps Etsy buying the Gen Z-favourite Depop is a way to capture that market but then again, perhaps it is just cheugy business.