In case you hadn’t heard, Anne Hathaway is cool again. So is Zooey Deschanel. And Taylor Swift. In the gladiator ring of pop culture, predicting who’ll get the metaphorical thumbs up or the thumbs down is an increasingly bewildering task. Step back and watch the process for long enough, and the seemingly random fluctuations of who is in and who is out may leave you with whiplash. In the latest reshuffling, it appears we have decided to bestow our favour on a few familiar faces. Specifically, faces that were once deemed to be too sweet, too eager, too open. Most significantly: too earnest.

Our sudden acceptance of the earnest celebrity isn’t merely a fluke – it’s a symptom of a much larger cultural shift. As a new generation comes of age, new values, priorities and perspectives are also taking hold. A millennial preference for irony, edge and sarcasm has been phased out. Earnestness is in, as are the stars that have most famously embodied it.

Zooey Deschanel was the indie queen of the 2000s, an archetype of wide-eyed quirk with a bundle of Smiths albums under her arm. The image crystalised in 2009, with her role as the titular love interest in the romcom 500 Days of Summer, and then two years later via her sitcom New Girl. With polka dots, vintage clothes and Peter Pan collar in tow, she became the poster child for the twee and “manic pixie” movements that dominated the era. A few years earlier, a young Anne Hathaway was anointed into Hollywood royalty via Disney’s The Princess Diaries (2001). By 2006, her turn in The Devil Wears Prada had made her a household name and burgeoning cultural icon. In every interview, she exuded a grinning, I’m-just-happy-to-be-here energy. Taylor Swift also strummed her way onto the scene in the 2000s as a golden-haired, angel-voiced embodiment of goodness. She was the ever-polite, ever-humble country star. She wore her heart on her sleeve. She was unwaveringly likeable.

As the 2010s wore on, however, people became disenchanted with this brand of unironic earnestness. “I’ve been trying for years to figure out why I don’t like Zooey Deschanel,” one 2011 thinkpiece in The New Republic began. “I’ve always known I’m not alone: A quick Google search will reveal plenty of female writers who take issue with the indie actress.” Deschanel was falling out of favour. “She is troublingly girlish, even childish,” the writer mused, adding that she’s “programmed to talk and behave exclusively as an adorable oddball”.

As for Hathaway, her infamously sincere Oscar acceptance speech in 2012 – “it came true!” she beamed – gave rise to a movement of so-called “Hathahaters”. Apparently, her earnestness off and on screen was annoying; it was rubbing us all the wrong way. “She’s got this theatre-kid thing where she adopts the mood of every situation she’s in […] but wildly overcompensates every time,” one critic whined to Hollywood.com. “She always seems like she’s performing, and her favourite act is this overstated humility and graciousness.” By 2016, Swift’s downfall had also commenced. #TaylorSwiftisOverParty trended number one on Twitter that year. “Taylor Swift isn’t like the other celebrities,” proclaimed Vice. “She’s worse.” Evidently, what had first been embraced as quirky and cute had become grating and cringeworthy over time. We rolled our eyes and roundly dismissed the earnest celebrity from our good graces.