Derivative vape counterculture

As a self-professed rebel, I have always been drawn to counterculture. I find the desire to live with a spirit of defiance alluring. Overall, I support the trends, ideas and fashions that are derived from anti-normative societies.
Despite my typical enthrallment with counterculture, I have grown to hate one of its unintentional by-products; the Juul. Not only Juuls, but vapes, pens or any other name that refers to an e-cigarette.
Cigarettes or smoking in general was once the ultimate symbol for youth counterculture. Depictions of teenagers smoking as a symbol for their rebellious nature is prevalent in pop culture throughout most of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. For example, the iconic library smoking scene in the popular 1985 movie The Breakfast Club.
Fortunately for the lungs of America’s youth, the number of underage people smoking cigarettes significantly decreased in the mid-2000s. Extensive medical research on the dangers of smoking and the availability of this information via the Internet caused cigarettes to lose their allure.
It was in this tobacco vacuum that the first e-cigarette was introduced to U.S. consumers.
Shortly thereafter, in 2015, the infamous Juul was created.
The Juul, with its candy and fruit flavored pods and sleek USB style design, recharacterized smoking for American youth. Smoking tobacco regained its cool by being marketed as not actual smoking, but instead as inhaling vapor.
This recharacterization was extremely well-received, despite being equally as dangerous as cigarettes in similar and its own unique aspects.
“Scientists at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that e-cigarettes leak toxic metals, possibly from the heating coils, that are associated with health problems such as kidney disease, respiratory irritation, shortness of breath and more. Some ingredients in the liquids used in e-cigarettes change composition when they are heated, leading to inhalation of harmful compounds such as formaldehyde, which is carcinogenic,” as stated by procon.org.
Nevertheless, our generation has fallen in love with the Juul. It has become a staple vice of our collective youth culture. It appeals to middle schoolers as well as recent college graduates.
I, obviously without the backing of my peers, hate the Juul and any other form of e-cigarette. The ignorant attitudes exhibited by users towards their health combined with their incessant need to discuss their Juul as if it is their child, makes me hate it and its users even more. E-cigarette users believe that they are different and, in some way, creating their own vaping counterculture.
What was initially a product created to combat the countercultural practice of smoking cigarettes, is now a mainstream catalyst of addiction for an unassuming and dull generation of Americans.