Our obsession with nostalgia is driving a trend revival spiral

“I find it positive that the references are getting more obscure, but also quite eerie,” she says. Say hello, then, to archaeological-core – although, as the revivals continue to spiral, even that might be over by the time you read this.

“There’s so much interest in content that categorises and explains trends. It helps make sense of the discourse online and distinguish trends from fads.”

“Instead there is a constant attempt to recreate atmosphere. In the fantasy culture of the 1980s there is no real history, no real past; it is replaced by an instant, magical nostalgia, a strangely unmotivated appropriation of the past.” Put simply, it’s that hit of nostalgia, and the discovery of a new niche, that we’re after.

Now we’re overwriting the past ad nauseam, and at a greater speed. Take the goth-inclined subculture aesthetic known as Dark Academia. It could be seen as a 2022 version of a style from 2012 via 1992 via 1981 via 1964 via 1922 via 1880 via 1248. Dizzy, yet?

“Social media commoditises culture for views and engagement,” she says. “Therefore, subcultures become stripped to mere aesthetics [and] participation in them requires consumption of material goods.”

So the fevered search for the next ever-more-niche revival could be seen as a way for Gen Z to carve out a IYKYK (“if you know, you know”) point of difference and ring-fence a specific look, community or interest. For a limited time, anyway.

There’s been a kind of flattening of the zeitgeist, leading to a monoculture that is understood across generations.

“For me, revival culture is gaining a sense of control over an ever-shifting cultural landscape and relocating oneself in the recent past in order to fully process the present. [It’s] a way of temporarily stopping time.”

we consume culture like we listen to podcasts: at 1.5x speed.

The dictionary definition of nostalgia is a “pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again”.