Smoking as embodiment in a virtual age

Christine Emba, Coming to Terms With Embodied Pleasures, NYTimes, August 5,2025.

It’s not hard to imagine, then, that smoking might serve as an antidote — or at the very least, a refutation of an existence lived at a remove from the real. Editors’ Picks How Does a Rewards Start-Up Know What Credit Cards Are in Your Wallet? 15 Ways to Break Free of Your Phone How Your Diet Influences Your Colorectal Cancer Risk

Cigarettes are unavoidably analog; smoking is an embodied task. The handling of a cellophane-wrapped pack, the flick of a lighter — or better yet, the strike of a match — the deliberate draw and release of breath and the heady nicotine buzz all engage the senses in a way that can’t be replicated on a screen. Many smokers describe the ritual of lighting up, the tangibleness of the particular task. And unlike a bulbous, plasticy vape, they seem real; not just another thing to plug in.

Plus, in a time of persistent distance between individuals, cigarettes are often social — a connective experience. Most of those paparazzi shots of celebrities smoking involve them circling up with friends; they’re “outside,” in the Eric Adams sense. “The party cig is so back,” a Gen Z acquaintance told me, referring to the idea of stepping out from a function to huddle and chat, the possible flirtation inherent in bumming one off someone else — a much more sensual experience than swiping on an app.

And they are symbolic. Smoking has always signaled a certain devil-may-care mood; in our nihilistic times, haunted by fears of apocalypse — A.I., climate, institutional, other — it’s a celebration of being alive by way of chipping away at it, treating the body casually in service of a life fully enjoyed. A pack of cigarettes is the opposite of an Oura ring or any of the other tech brands of bodily surveillance that seek to become the new norm.

Against all of this, though, is the incontrovertible fact that cigarettes can kill you. Lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and emphysema are certainly less aesthetically pleasing than an artfully arranged spread of loosies and lighters at a fashion industry party.