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.

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

While some of the current retro culture is anemoia – nostalgia for an era you didn’t live through, ie Hailey Bieber obsessing over the ’90s when her birth certificate reads 1996 – The Revival Spiral sees us leaning into a seemingly ever-hastening longing for the recent past.

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?

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

the acceleration of nostalgia. We’re trapped in what might be called a Revival Spiral.

Anemoia is (currently, anyway) fuelled by an analogue-era scarcity.

we’re not so much tripping over nostalgia, revivals and retro but hoarding them. We have become pack rats of our collective past.

“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.”