People really hate Rory Gilmore. In 2016 The Washington Post published the op-ed “Rory Gilmore Is a Monster.” In 2020, CBR posted “Gilmore Girls: How Rory Became the Show’s Most HATED Character” (yes, hated was in all-caps). Two years later another critic shared their “unpopular opinion” that Rory was “the villain” of the hit 2000s-era dramedy, while Elite Daily posted its “hot take,” granting her the same title just this past May. There are YouTube videos detailing her downfall and countless Reddit threads denouncing the Chilton grad's actions throughout the original seven seasons and 2016 revival.
Most of the criticism surrounding Rory Gilmore (portrayed by Alexis Bledel) stems from her perceived sense of entitlement, narcissistic behavior, and serial cheating. Much is made out of her decision to drop out of Yale after a single brush with criticism and the time she stole a yacht and complained about the amount of community service hours she had to complete. If Lorelei Gilmore (Lauren Graham) had to name her own daughter's worst moment from the series, she might recount Rory's lack of remorse for sleeping with Dean (Jared Padalecki) when he was married to Lindsay (Arielle Kebbel). Sure, she was just 19 years old at the time, but Rory repeated that behavior with Logan (Matthew Czuchry) in Year in the Life when she was in her 30s.
It's fair to say dragging Rory Gilmore is no longer a hot take nor an unpopular opinion. So why is she taking over TikTok in 2023?
Short answer: her wardrobe. Pre-reboot Rory Gilmore's style just so happens to line up perfectly with Gen Z's current fashion wish lists, mixing flirty Y2K silhouettes with more demure, quiet luxury pieces like her J.Crew wool coat from season five. As many on TikTok have pointed out, one of her favorite wardrobe combinations was a formfitting sweater, miniskirt, and tights, though she also wore plenty of boot-cut jeans and racked up a pretty impressive outerwear collection. All sounds very on trend to me, but there's more to it than that.
Sure, Rory's oversized white knit sweater from the pilot episode has been coveted by millennial women since its airdate in the year 2000, but this autumn's collective annual Gilmore Girls rewatch has resulted in an unusual wave of sartorial support for the controversial character among Gen Z on TikTok and beyond.
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Currently the Rory Gilmore hashtag has 7.3 billion views on TikTok, with videos using #rorygilmoreoutfits racking up 10.5 million views. For scale, Gossip Girl's Blair Waldorf, the long-reigning queen of fictional teenage fashion icons, has fallen behind with 6.6 billion views overall and 8.1 million views on #blairwaldorfoutfits. Suddenly, celeb ’fits are being dubbed “Rory Gilmore coded” (yes, I know I wrote one of those articles), and Vogue is publishing a 22-year-old’s take on their first Gilmore Girls binge watch.
Is that cup from Luke's?
The simplest explanation for this would be the Netflix effect. As we've already seen this year with the Suits renaissance, the streaming service's binge model can spike fresh interest in a series that has long been off the air. Gossip Girl, for one, was all over many TikTok users' For You pages throughout the early days of the pandemic before it was removed from Netflix on the last day of 2020 in advance of its HBO reboot. But here's the thing: Gilmore Girls has been streaming on Netflix since 2014, so why is this happening now—and why Rory?
It all circles back to the current fashion landscape. In fall 2023, Rory “Who Cares If I'm Pretty If I Fail My Finals” Gilmore is not a “bad” dresser, as one journalist wrote for InStyle in 2021; she's utilitarian and timeless.
“I never thought that Rory was a trendy person," Gilmore Girls costume designer Brenda Maben told Fashionista in 2016. “[She has a] good, solid, classic style that you could wear from year to year and not look outdated.”
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Such is the mantra of “quiet luxury,” which favors understated yet high-quality items over too much personal expression. The term has had social media in a chokehold since the spring of 2023.
I've always found it somewhat odd that the generations that proudly chant “eat the rich” went all in on a style philosophy that's often directly associated with the morally bankrupt über-wealthy characters. They lust after the fashion of the characters on Succession and celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow (whose civil courtroom ensembles made headlines in late March).
Perhaps Rory Gilmore is another example of this apparent disconnect, though her unfussy looks are at least more relatable to teens and 20-somethings—as are her so-called crimes against humanity. For every few TikTok videos of Rory Gilmore–style dupes, there seems to be at least one denouncing the character as insufferable. In the case of fashion, likability and influence do not have to intersect.
In one viral clip from the show's pilot episode, Rory jokingly describes herself as “unbelievably self-centered” during a conversation with her first love interest, Dean. (It's also worth noting that the tomato red turtleneck from that scene is very in style right now.)
“I never noticed this foreshadowing for all her future mishaps and mistakes,” TikTok user @afterworkwithalana captioned her post, adding, “Happy Gilmore Girls fall!!”
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Thanks to Rory's rise in relevancy, we're surely due for a round of essays explaining why Rory Gilmore was not that bad, actually (in fact, Collider published one in September). Personally, I think she paved the way for the messy teen heartbreakers of today's small screen—particularly Devi Vishwakumar of Never Have I Ever and Belly Conklin of The Summer I Turned Pretty—but that's an unpopular opinion for another hot take.
For now, I'll leave you with the words of TikTok user @skylar.alysha: “Hate the character all I want, but I can't deny she's a fashion icon.”
Emily Tannenbaum is an entertainment editor, critic, and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. Follow her on X @ectannenbaum.
