In 2025 alone, over 11.7 million Instagram posts carried the hashtag #nostalgia, Google searches for “90s movies” had doubled since 2015. I had chronicled the growing interest in vinyl, CDs and analog experiences among Gen Z, “this wave of anemoia — longing for a past you never lived — makes perfect sense once you hear Gen Z explain it themselves.”
My conversations with 13- to 25-year-olds revealed the core tension: a longing for a past when they were tech-free and owned their own attention.
