The summer of millennial nostalgia is still going strong as pop culture and younger generations seem to be celebrating all things early 2000s. But there is one Obama-era music moment that the internet is desperate to leave in the past: the “stomp clap hey” genre.
It’s a distaste that has been percolating online for years, only to burst across social media in recent days.
“This whole generation of stomp clap Ho hey indie folk was terrible,” one X user wrote this week. “It is responsible for some of mankind’s worst mistakes such as pumpkin lattes, Brooklyn’s gentrification and Taylor Swift.”
The rustic pop-indie folk subgenre that dominated the early to mid-2010s has always been a controversial moment in music history, best defined by its anthemic, often percussion-heavy sound made famous by The Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, and Of Monsters and Men. It’s the kind of quirky music tailor-made for Coachella and Bonnaroo, group sing-alongs, hand claps, and, yes, literally stomping and shouting “Hey!” that reigned supreme in the millennial-hipster zeitgeist.
Over the last week, a clip of one of the defining moments of the subgenre has been making the rounds online: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros performing “Home” in their 2009 NPR “Tiny Desk” concert. In the clip, the two lead singers of the 10-person troupe are dancing and singing in faux-Appalachian accents to their hit song that serves as the unofficial anthem of the era’s hipster Americana aesthetic.
And the internet is riled up about the reminder of the “worst song ever made” in the “worst genre ever.”
“Go ahead. Put the ‘Alabama, Arkansas’ stomp clap video in my TL again. Do it,” Semafor politics reporter David Weigel posted on X this week, referring to a lyric from “Home.”
Outrage over the short-lived subgenre has been in the zeitgeist for a while, with the music even earning its nickname from a 2021 viral tweet that featured a picture of a man wearing a stereotypically corny hipster outfit. Since then, Reddit threads, TikToks and articles have emerged about “stomp clap hey,” which some believe is one of the more cringeworthy moments of millennial culture. Comedian Kyle Gordon even made a parody music video a-la “stomp clap hey” set in Brooklyn, New York, complete with a chant, skinny jeans and lots of hats.
“The fight over what’s ‘stomp clap hey’ is a great example of Twitter music discourse because it wasn’t coined by a musician or music journalist: it was a tweet that wasn’t even about a band or specific subgenre but a type of guy,” one person wrote on X.
For some haters, the genre is a reminder of a cultural and political flash point, when Americans were grappling with the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and desperate for the hope-filled Obama era as millennial hipsterdom hit its peak. Others, however, believe the genre is fun and represents a fleeting moment of social escapism, and the discourse is par for the course for varying music tastes.
“Stomp Clap Hey music is the perfect relic of the Obama era: inexplicably ascendant movement built from the worst bits and pieces of the past, cobbled together into vaguely hopeful yet ultimately meaningless chants and slogans,” an X user said in response to the “Tiny Desk” clip.
Martin Scherzinger, an associate professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, described the “stomp clap hey” genre as “a brand of invented nostalgia, coopted, on the one hand, by the music industry and the bland corporate logic of music streaming; but also, on the other hand, obviously continuous with (and legible to) a brand of genuine folkish (if globalized) Americana.”
“The periodic eruptions of collectivized hating on a music genre — branding ‘stomp clap hey’ as indie gentrification, the commercialization of whimsy, nostalgic inauthenticity, etc. — is often a kind of trend of its own, a slightly misguided target for a larger issue concerning social and class resentment,” he wrote in an email to NBC News. “Like so many other cultural eruptions, this is identifying a dated genre as a bigger problem than it ever was; a cultural response to a structural issue facing us today.”
The re-emerged hate for “stomp clap hey,” however, is still slightly surprising given the newfound social adoption of all things millennial across generational lines and the ironic coolness that has returned to previously critiqued bands like Limp Bizkit and Korn. And as new artists, such as Noah Kahan, seem to invoke the same folksy soul, some are questioning whether “stomp clap hey” is back.
Gen Zers, who once mocked millennial culture as “cheugy,” are now glamorizing it online, as hundreds of TikTok users pay tribute to all things early 2000s. Reboots of millennial classics such as “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Freaky Friday” are now driving Hollywood, while the Backstreet Boys are playing sold-out shows at the Sphere in Las Vegas.
Kate Kennedy, author of “One in a Millennial: On Friendship, Feelings, Fangirls, and Fitting In,” previously told NBC News that this recent surge of millennial-focused pop culture serves as “the next level of escapism” for the generation. And if there is anything “stomp clap hey” provided for fans in the 2000s — and could soon do again — it’s nostalgia escapism.
“The last two days of stomp clap discussion was the first budding of 2010s nostalgia btw. Strap in,” one X user wrote.
