Why Gen Z Culture is Driven By Nostalgia

NOSTALGIA TODAY

It is a bit hard to be removed from nostalgia in today’s world especially if you care about pop culture. From singers like Normani and Ariana Grande whose biggest hits today are dipped in nostalgia on various levels - Normani’s ‘Motivation’ references and recreates scenes and moves from dance music videos like Beyonce’s ‘Crazy In Love’, Jennifer Lopez’s ‘I'm Real’, Ciara’s ‘Goodies’, and Britney Spears’ ‘Baby One More Time’. On the other hand, Ariana Grande’s smash 2018 hit ‘thank u next’ references classic hit movies like Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Bring It On, 13 going on 30. The response to these songs and in particular the music videos where these references are mostly seen was almost entirely positive and earned both artists universal acclaim. Since then, of course, more acts have attempted to tap into nostalgia with their music videos to varying success. 

The first Billboard Hot 100 #1 rap single of the year, Doja Cat’s ‘Paint The Town Red, used a very prominent sample of the Dionne Warwick 70’s crossover hit, ‘Walk On By’ while one of Burna Boy’s most recent hits, ‘Last Last’, uses a prominent sample of the Toni Braxton 2000 hit song ‘He Wasn’t Man Enough’ and his 2023 hit song City Boys also sampled Jeremih’s RnB classic Birthday Sex. We could keep listing all the samples in popular Nigerian songs today: Ruger’s Asiwaju samples Sound Sultan’s 2004 song Motherland, Rich Baby Daddy by Drake, Sexxy Red and SZA samples Florence and The Machine’s Dog Days Are Over and more.  On TV, a similar story is playing out. Reboots of classic shows like Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, How I Met Your Mother, Charmed, i-Carly, and more have been released to varying levels of critical and commercial success. More like Zoey 101 and others have been ordered despite reported reboot fatigue from viewers. This reboot fever has also found its way to Africa where the last few years has seen a spike in rebooting as well as releasing sequels to old classics. These movies have been released to mixed reception: Living In Bondage 2 was released to critical acclaim and commercial success, while a few others like 'Nneka The Pretty Serpent' and Glamour Girls were both released to dismal reviews. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped Nollywood and why would it, nostalgia stays selling. 

NOSTALGIA THEN

It may surprise you to learn that nostalgia is a relatively recent sensation. According to researcher Sam Diss in a recent newsletter, he wrote “It is accepted that our ancestors—even our recent ancestors, up until about two centuries ago—did not feel this way. Far more often than not, people lived where they were born, which was mostly where their families were born, which was mostly where their grandparents were born. Feelings of meaning, connection, and continuity were apparent every single day.”

A 2013 New York Times article details the history of nostalgia—an emotion considered  an “immigrant psychosis,” a form of “melancholia” and a “mentally repressive compulsive disorder” among other pathologies in the 19th and 20th centuries. Of course, they’ll change their minds over time. However, even then, nostalgia wasn’t as big then as it is now where it is seemingly the dominant emotion driving the culture of a whole generation.

WHY GEN Z IS BIG ON NOSTALGIA

According to recent research from GWI, the younger generations are the strongest drivers of nostalgia in the media and seek it out as an escape from the hectic environment of today. Gen Z is the most nostalgic generation and 15% said they’d rather think about the past than the future. Gen Z and millennials drive nostalgia the most, with 50% of Gen Z feeling nostalgic for types of media, followed by 47% of millennials according to Net Influencer.

But their nostalgic feelings runs deeper as Gen Zs yearn for a “simpler time”—one that doesn’t pose the issues of climate change, rapidly rising inflation, and global unrest. In some places, inflation has doubled projected rates this year, posing a grim outlook for people just entering the economy, and consumers young and old are reacting to the stress of rising prices. Recent research by Deloitte showed that half of Gen Z feel anxious or stressed, all or most of the time while a recent UK survey highlighted that they have to balance not only concerns about the future world but also, their pragmatic concerns about the issues of today. With concerns like this, it makes sense that a whole generation will rather focus on what they consider greener pasts—real or imagined.

WHAT BRANDS CAN LEARN

The truth is: nostalgia sells. 

People want to go back to simpler times and they want things that remind them of that time and numbers show that: #nostalgia and #y2k both have tens of billions of views on TikTok. Y2K fashion trend is inspiring young people in Africa, global celebrities and more. That industry is now expected to grow by 10 to 15 per cent every year for the next decade.  Rudy Mawer, founder and CEO at Mawer Capital, an entrepreneurial ad agency investment group, told CMSWire that his business has had enormous success using nostalgic video game ads. "Some of our nostalgic ads include themes from classic games such as Pac-Man, Street Fighter, and Duck Hunt, to name a few," said Mawer. “Our team will choose a retro-style video game to reference, design a script that uses the visuals to line up with our offers, and then our animator animates the ad using our script and reference.”

Gen Z craves things that function like time capsules, reminding them of memorable times in their past. Spotify is one brand that has successfully launched nostalgic products like Spotify Wrapped, which provide sentimental value to their users by reminding them of the songs, artists and genres that defined their music in the just-concluded year. It's valuable data that functions primarily as a time capsule, as Spotify also lets users create a playlist of their top songs from the past year that they can go back to whenever they want to relive that year.

Ingenious brand approaches to commoditising nostalgia like Spotify Wrapped and Mawer’s retro game ads represent some of the ways brands can step up to take advantage of this cultural trend.