• Gen Zers have started calling Diet Coke a "fridge cigarette" thanks to a viral TikTok.
• Coca-Cola's CEO appeared unimpressed when asked about the nickname in an interview this week.
• "The most important thing to us is that we don't position Diet Coke in that way," he said.

If you've ever cracked open a bubbly, icy-cold "fridge cigarette," Coca-Cola's CEO would like a word.

The beverage giant's CEO, Henrique Braun, was asked about the phrase — a popular slang term for a can of Diet Coke — in a Tuesday interview with Yahoo Finance, and appeared unimpressed.

He first answered by promoting the company's growth, before being pressed for his thoughts on the nickname.

"The consumers call it the way they want to call it," Braun said. "The most important thing to us is that we don't position Diet Coke in that way."

"It's a great-tasting product, which connects with the consumer in a very unique way."

Coca-Cola did not immediately respond to a request for further comment.

Merriam-Webster defines "fridge cigarette" as "a cold, refreshing, and addictive soft drink," noting that it's especially used to refer to Diet Coke.

The phrase first gained traction with Gen Z through a viral TikTok video in 2025, which has nearly 4 million views. It showed a woman opening a can of the soda, with the text: "Overheard someone call a Diet Coke a 'fridge cigarette' and nothing's been more true to me since."

It makes sense that Braun would rather avoid any comparisons to cigarettes, especially given some previous bad media for Diet Coke.

Aspartame, an artificial sweetener used in the soda, made headlines in 2023 after the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it as possibly carcinogenic to humans.

However, this classification only means there is limited evidence in humans and less-than-sufficient evidence in animals. Health bodies and regulators globally have maintained their acceptable daily intake levels of aspartame. An adult weighing 150 lbs would have to drink at least 17 cans of Diet Coke a day to exceed the safe amount.

Diet Coke contains more caffeine, the use of which can lead to dependence, than regular Coca-Cola.

To most people, "fridge cigarette" instead evokes the relief from drinking a soda. An excuse to step away from work for a moment and indulge with a gratifying treat.

Rachel Reno, who posted the viral TikTok, told The New York Times in 2025, "I feel like it's one of those things that doesn't need a lot of explanation."

She added that people who understand it know that "the crack of the can is like the spark of a lighter," and then after the first sip, "all the worries and cares in the world go away."

Braun's interview came the same day as Coca-Cola's quarterly earnings, which narrowly beat estimates with $13.4 billion of revenue.

The CEO told investors on an earnings call that Diet Coke and Coca-Cola Zero grew by double digits. Coca-Cola's share price is up 33% since the start of the year.

As a child, you may have sung along to Toys R Us' iconic jingle about not wanting to grow up. Decades later, many millennial and Gen Z adults are taking that motto seriously.

Adults are rediscovering how Lego, stuffed animals, and other toys brought them joy. Now that they're earning their own money, they can afford the things they once played with or circled in catalogs. Hobby spending — which includes hobby shops, arts and crafts stores, and outdoor recreation providers — rose 7.9% year over year in August, according to an analysis by the Bank of America Institute.

Devin Byron, 25, had a collection of American Girl dolls growing up, but her interest in playing with them fizzled out around middle school. However, her love for them never really went away. And now, working an office job, she can buy her own.

In February, she and her friend went to the American Girl store in New York. Byron purchased the historical doll representing the '60s, Melody, which cost $135 with the book, plus $34 for accessories.

"I feel like a lot of collectors now are, I would say, healing their inner child because some people couldn't get maybe American Girl dolls growing up, but now they can," Byron said. "And it's an adrenaline rush too."

She's not the only adult contributing to the toy economy. Market research company Circana found that adult-only households made up over half of toy sales in the first half of this year, and that overall toy sales for adults increased 25%. Some adults may buy toys to bring nostalgia back into their lives or to avoid doomscrolling. For others, it's to make a profit.

"We're seeing toys increasingly function as hobbies, fandom ecosystems, and social experiences rather than traditional children's products," said Kristen McLean, vice president of client insights for Circana's Entertainment Knowledge Group. "That's expanding the consumer base and creating new opportunities for manufacturers and retailers that understand how to engage collectors, enthusiasts, gifters, and self-purchasers."

The rise of 'kidulting'

Jay Berino, store manager at the Lowry Town Center Timbuk Toys in Denver, pointed to "kidulting," the trend in which adults engage with childlike toys and hobbies, as coming from adults seeking distractions and nostalgia — from buying Pokémon cards to lava lamps.

"As much as we're a toy store and people hear toy store and think of kids, we sell to a lot to full-blown adults, and that drives a huge chunk of our business," he said.

Syls Farmer, 32, runs a vintage online store specializing in toys marketed to girls. Her store, Mema's Doll Shop, was inspired by her grandmother, who ran a couple of toy stores back in the day. Farmer said adults buy from her for themselves or for their kids so they can experience their past.

"A lot of people are dealing with a lot of pressure in this general economy and the world in general," Farmer said. "And I think that these items of childhood are bringing back feelings of comfort and peace that I think a lot of us need right now."

Farmer also buys toys for herself, including her first American Girl doll through Facebook Marketplace — Nicki, one of the '90s-inspired dolls.

Even crafters are getting in on the toy craze: Abby Glassenberg, the president of the Craft Industry Alliance, said that homemade Labubu-esque bag charms have taken off, with crafters making their own customizable charms from crochet or felt.

"People are definitely still spending. I think craft in some ways is resistant to market up and down," Glassenberg said. When the market is up, people pour more money into their hobbies, whether that's getting premium materials or even traveling to somewhere catered to their favorite crafts.

"When the market is down, and people's budgets are tighter, they want to make something for a gift rather than buy it," Glassenberg said.

Collecting toys

Emma Wynn, 28, has 120 Jellycat items, a popular stuffed-toy brand that includes animals, food, and more. Wynn's collection began when she bought a scuba diver egg while browsing at a garden center with her family, sparking a feeling of childlike happiness.

Prices range on the Jellycat site; for instance, a heart dragon is priced at $80, a carrot cake is priced at $45, and bear winter decorations are priced at $28. Wynn funds her collection with money she earns from content creation, rather than from her corporate job.

Wynn thinks adults buy toys because they bring back happy childhood memories, can provide a dopamine hit when someone finds something they've been searching for a while, and can connect them with others who are building similar collections.

"It feels very empowering to be unapologetic about the things that bring us joy and happiness, whereas before maybe I would've been embarrassed about it," she said.

It can also be a tangible way to remember a memory. For instance, Wynn's soon-to-be mother-in-law bought her a Jellycat flower bouquet to celebrate her new engagement.

Fueling an income

Harrison Woodward, 28, said building and playing with Lego sets was a large part of his childhood. For one birthday in his early 20s, his aunt bought him a Lego Porsche car model, reigniting his passion for Lego sets. He put on a streaming show after a long day of work and started to build the over 1,000-piece product.

"It was just the most therapeutic, peaceful activity," he said. "You could sit there for a few hours, a few days in a row, and complete a set and see it come together and marvel at all the different engineering things that they put into these sets now."

He left his job in insurance to focus on content creation full time. He posts about his Lego collection and passion for cars; he recently started collecting Hot Wheels, another childhood favorite. He has spent thousands on Lego and is running out of space in a room that's filled with his collections. He still tries to find a balance so that building isn't just for content, such as taking his time to build a CaDA car set in the evening.

Woodward thinks adults might be purchasing toys to invest some time in their hobbies and take care of their mental health.

"I think the stigma has kind of lifted over collecting and everything," he said. "I think that for a long time people thought any of this stuff was strictly for kids, but as the years have gone on and adults have continued to adopt it, the stigma continues to go further and further away."

Trading cards have also become a major area of interest for some adults. Kian Golshan previously told Business Insider that Pokémon is a lucrative side hustle. For instance, he sold a Japanese-edition Charmander for $750 that he bought for $59.26. As Business Insider's Samuel O'Brient previously reported, Golshan was able to put the analytical skills that he developed while working in finance to work.

"It helps me kind of think through the risks and when to take profits, when to sell, what to hold, what's my like risk profile, what's tracking the market," Golshan said.

Byron, the Gen Zer who bought an American doll, still has her collection of dolls from her childhood. Plus, she has her most recent addition displayed in her room.

"I'm actually thinking about going back to the store again," she said. "Maybe I'll walk out with another doll. I guess we'll see."

• When a member of Gen Z smells good, you can probably thank Sol de Janeiro.
• I'm a millennial and new to the brand, so I tried six of its popular fragrances.
• The best scent, in my opinion, is also one of the brand's most underrated.

Millennials had Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works. Gen Z has Sol de Janeiro.

The body, hair, and fragrance brand, founded in 2015, has become a major player in the industry. A 2025 fiscal year report from L'Occitane Group, Sol de Janeiro's parent company, said the brand accounted for 31.6% of the group's sales. The report also described Sol de Janeiro as Sephora North America's No. 1 beauty brand and the No. 1 fragrance brand on Amazon US at the time.

Two Sol de Janeiro products have led that charge. First, millennials embraced the $48 Brazilian Bum Bum Cream after it launched in 2015, turning it into a skincare staple.

Tweens and teens have now become obsessed with the $39 Cheirosa perfume mists, the first of which debuted in 2020. The sprays have become a staple of young people's shopping hauls, holiday wish lists, and what's-in-my-bag videos.

The brand confirmed to Business Insider that its three most popular scents are Cheirosa 62, 40, and 68.

I'm a big fragrance fan myself, but I had yet to try the perfume mists. So I went to Ulta Beauty, purchased a $49 sample set of six Sol de Janeiro scents, and tested them on my skin.

Considering each mist's scent, staying power, wearability, and personal preference, here's how I'd rank them from worst to best.

I wish the Cheirosa 71 mist had more depth.

If there's one thing I love more than fragrances, it's sweet treats — so Cheirosa 71 should have worked for me.

Sol de Janeiro says the scent is inspired by the iconic Confeitaria Colombo bakery in Brazil, with notes of caramelized vanilla, toasted macadamia nut, sea salt, white chocolate, and tonka bean.

When I tried it, the mist smelled more like a gingerbread cookie to me. Then, as it settled, it transformed into something more reminiscent of a graham cracker drizzled with caramel.

Some critics of this scent say it smells like buttered popcorn. I didn't notice that on my skin.

Instead, it reminded me of a holiday hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works. I can appreciate the scent for a moment, but I don't want it to linger all day. It's too strong and sickly sweet for me.

Cheirosa 62 is Sol de Janeiro's most famous scent, but it's not my favorite.

I'll be honest. I was never that impressed by Cheirosa 62, the scent made famous by the brand's Brazilian Bum Bum Cream.

Sol de Janeiro describes the fragrance as "irresistible and sunny." It's a nod to Brazil in 1962, when "The Girl from Ipanema" was written.

With notes of pistachio, almonds, heliotrope flower, jasmine petals, vanilla, salted caramel, and sandalwood, Cheirosa 62 is exactly that. I'd describe it as summer in a bottle.

That said, it also makes the fragrance seasonal for me. It just doesn't feel right to wear in the fall, winter, or spring.

I also think the notes lend themselves better to a richer, creamier product, like the Bum Bum cream.

The Cheirosa 39 mist stands out, which I appreciate.

If any Sol de Janeiro scent smells like buttered popcorn, I think it's this one.

This scent is meant to be beachy, as if you were lounging on a hammock with the breeze in your hair, Sol de Janeiro says. It has notes of coconut cream, toasted vanilla, tropical orchid, sandalwood, and praline.

When I first spray the mist, that combination smells like buttered popcorn on my skin. That's not any reflection of Sol de Janeiro. Perfumes smell different on everyone because of their individual skin chemistry.

But I'm not complaining. I actually like the scent. It's decadent, intriguing, and different than anything else in my fragrance collection.

The coconut and vanilla notes come through more as it settles, with florals peeking through. It takes some time, but it eventually transports me to an island.

So while I might not wear Cheirosa 39 every day, I will add it to my perfume rotation.

I feel fresh, youthful, and like I'm on vacation when I wear Cheirosa 68.

The Cheirosa 68 scent was inspired by Brazil's Tropicália Movement in 1968, which influenced the country's art, music, and culture.

It includes notes of dragonfruit, lychee essence, Brazilian jasmine, ocean air, hibiscus, vanilla, and musk.

To me, it smells sweet, sunny, and refreshing. I could see myself wearing it to the beach or for a night out with friends.

Considering my current fragrance lineup, I'll probably wear this on occasion when the weather is warmer. If I were a teen in 2026, though, I'd probably wear this Sol de Janeiro scent every day.

Cheirosa 40 reminds me of my favorite scent from Victoria's Secret.

The famous Carnaval Ball in Rio inspired the Cheirosa 40 perfume mist.

On its website, Sol de Janeiro says it's meant to be sultry and delicate, with notes of black amber plum, crème de cassis, jasmine, Brazilian orchid, vanilla, and musk.

In my experience, each of those notes comes through with a single spray of the fragrance. It's one of the most mature and longest-lasting scents in the lineup I tried.

It also reminds me of my favorite Victoria's Secret scent: Bombshell Intense. Naturally, I have to recommend it to fellow millennials looking to get in on the Sol de Janeiro trend.

I can't get enough of Cheirosa 48.

Sol de Janeiro says on its website that this scent should be as liberating as the "energy of 1948, when the bikini was first spotted in Brazil."

Liberating is accurate, but I'd also say this scent is exhilarating. Its notes blend guava nectar, coconut water, orchid, lemon, wild orris, pink musk, and vanilla.

Together, they create a fragrance that's as refreshing and exciting as a poolside drink in the summer. Still, the musk notes make it more versatile than a basic summer scent.

Cheirosa 48 is the Sol de Janeiro mist I'll be wearing year-round.

• Frutiger Aero, a Gen Z favorite, combines early internet nostalgia with a utopian tech vision.
• Fans say the aesthetic represents a "future that was promised" by tech but never arrived.
• Some recent tech releases have hinted at a Frutiger Aero revival.

Looking at 22-year-old Sammy Conti's room is like looking into a fishbowl.

Shades of blue fill the space, interspersed with neon green and the occasional pop of orange or yellow. Vines, bubbles, and jellyfish hang from the ceiling. Moving lamps are everywhere: lava lamps, bubble lamps, aquarium lamps with roving tropical fish. Then there are objects that feel out of place: a purple Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64 cartridges, Wii and PlayStation game cases hung like art on a gallery wall, and a DIY mirror in the shape of an old Microsoft Windows logo.

The confluence of nature and old-school tech isn't random. It's Frutiger Aero, an aesthetic inspired by the early internet, embraced by Gen Zers who say it represents a future that was promised but never arrived — one where technology is a source of inspiration and fuel for creativity, coexisting with nature and helping us ascend to our highest selves.

"You grow up thinking the world is going to be this green utopia where we coexist with nature and have technology and it helps us," Conti told Business Insider. "Then as I started getting older, things became very sleek and modernist, very gray."

For Conti, whose Frutiger Aero content has earned her more than 700,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, the aesthetic represents a promise tech abandoned. "We could have lived in that future," she said. "It could have been taken care of responsibly in a way that doesn't take people's jobs, doesn't pollute the environment, but it's not."

A corporate tech aesthetic gets a glow-up

A fervent online community has formed around the term after it first gained traction in 2023, according to Google Trends data. There's an active Discord and Subreddit, plus millions of views for #frutigeraero on TikTok.

Sofi Xian, a researcher and founding member of an online community called the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute, coined the term Frutiger Aero in 2017 to describe a corporate tech aesthetic prevalent from the mid-2000s through the early 2010s. Some defining characteristics included glossy surfaces, glass or transparent materials, and macro photos of grass. "Frutiger" refers to a specific typeface, while "Aero" was Microsoft's name for the interface design of its Windows Vista operating system, which came out in 2006.

"Nobody at the time really thought it was cool," Xian said of the design style. "It was a corporate product. It was sold to us."

The recent embrace of Frutiger Aero remains somewhat of a mystery to Xian, who says the term has blossomed well beyond what she first documented. Her book on the style, "Archaeology of a Promised Future," is set to come out in November.

The modern version of the aesthetic still incorporates some of the classic elements, and then some. "Bliss," the iconic photo of rolling green hills beneath a bright blue sky with clouds — the default wallpaper on Windows XP upon its release in 2001 — remains an almost sacred image to Frutiger fans. Conti recently made a pilgrimage to the area in Sonoma County, California, and called it "just as beautiful as it is in the photos."

The future that never showed

"The future that was promised" is a central theme in the world of Frutiger Aero and is frequently invoked alongside images of clean, glistening skyscrapers set against grassy fields.

"It's really a vision of technology that is quite different to what we have," Maria Gemma Brown, a cultural studies researcher at the University of Queensland, told Business Insider.

Many young people now see technology as bland, lifeless, addictive, or even sinister. AI is increasingly associated with war, mass surveillance, and environmental degradation. Data centers, one of the most controversial physical manifestations of modern tech, face fierce opposition over environmental concerns.

Richy Srirachanikorn, a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University, has interviewed more than 30 people in the Frutiger Aero community. He said it's about nostalgia for a feeling more than about the specific objects or design that inspired it.

"Whatever this aesthetic was as a kid, it made me optimistic, not about the future, but about the present," he said was how the people he interviewed described it.

That could help explain why it's especially appealing to Gen Z, a generation rife with concerns about environmental, technological, and financial doom. Srirachanikorn said he found Frutiger Aero is used almost as a "coping mechanism" and the associated online communities as places to take "respite from the uncertainties of the world."

Lovers of Frutiger Aero are also rejecting a broader design shift toward minimalism and neutral colors. In consumer tech, translucent clamshell laptops and bright pink MP3 players have given way to sleek, uniformly gray designs, as if they're explicitly meant to disappear into the background of our lives.

"I feel like products had almost a personality. Which color you picked or what design you picked was a loud extension of you," Conti said, adding that now it feels like everything merely wants to "fit in."

The old-school tech may also represent a level of agency that feels unattainable now, Srirachanikorn said. In the early 2000s, consumer tech companies may have embraced bright colors and images of nature to make their products more appealing as they still needed us to buy in. Today, their products are almost impossible to escape.

Hope for a new bloom

Austin Horey, founder of the New York-based brand Unjust Jewelry, makes a range of products inspired by Frutiger Aero and similar strains of nostalgia. He's sold over 10,000 bottles of a Frutiger Aero-inspired fragrance — oceanic, clean, soapy — that comes in a box that, when opened, plays an original Frutiger Aero-inspired song.

Horey said not only is there a huge appetite for Frutiger Aero content and products, but that major tech companies seem to be taking notice. His work has been embraced by an icon of the Frutiger Aero movement: Microsoft. When he released a Windows XP bracelet featuring the classic application icons from the operating system, the company partnered with him to make a necklace as well.

Fans of Frutiger Aero celebrate every time Big Tech makes a move they think signals a return to the aesthetic, like Xbox introducing a new glossy neon-green logo and the release of the budget-friendly Apple MacBook Neo, which comes in a bright yellow-green. Apple's introduction of the Liquid Glass design last year also set off the Frutiger Aero antennae. Microsoft even posted a TikTok suggesting the design was reminiscent of Windows Vista.

Conti said the colorful MacBook Neo was the most Frutiger Aero product a tech company had released in years. While she's been disappointed in modern tech, the underlying vibe of Frutiger Aero is one of optimism, and she still sees the ideas behind it as something to strive for, "especially as Gen Z moves into these positions of power as we get older."

"I think it's important not to forget what it still could be," she said.