Are These Bottoms Called Yoga Pants Or Flared Leggings? Please Advise

It's time to bring back all those repressed middle school fashion memories. While tracksuits, scrunchies, butterfly clips, and more have come back into style, this recent resurgence may shock you for a moment. The latest TikTok fashion trend is: yoga pants... or flared leggings. As Gen Z reclaims the early '00s style, I have a lot of questions. The main one is why? But the debate taking over Twitter and TikTok, however, is "flared leggings" vs. "yoga pants" — yes, simply about the terminology. And it's getting heated.

This blast from the past all started when well-known cool vlogger Emma Chamberlain tweeted on Oct. 1, "Is it bad that I want flare yoga pants and UGGs to come back?" This ended up being a very controversial tweet, with over 200 responses ranging from simple "EW!"s to "you're right." But Chamberlain couldn't be stopped. Soon, she posted an Instagram Story of herself looking super cozy in a Nike sweatshirt and yoga pants/flared leggings.

But that's when things took a serious turn. Taking cues from Chamberlain's style, the pants became a TikTok sensation with a new name. As under-25-year-olds started buying what I once thought was my biggest fashion mistake, they rebranded yoga pants into "flared leggings," which undeniably sounds infinitely cooler somehow. And Twitter is not happy about it. So, grab some popcorn and get ready for a show, because the people are fighting.

"Is anyone else offended that yoga pants are making a comeback as 'flared leggings?'" one user wrote. Another said, "I did not wear the pink zebra yoga pants in middle school for y'all to call them 'flared leggings.'" Talk about a generational divide. Meanwhile, in classic Gen Z, unbothered form, this has done little to stop the growth of "flared leggings" as a term. And, to be honest, I'm kind of here for it. It makes it much less jarring to see the once memory-repressed look with its new name. But if you're geared up for some drama, check out all these tweets and TikToks debating flared leggings vs yoga pants.

Hey, whatever you call them, perhaps we can all agree on one thing: No one *actually* did yoga (at least regularly) in these, right?