The Tomorrow Museum reports on a trend we’ve been noticing for awhile, now clearly punctuated by the retail giant Urban Outfitters: a little phenomenon we shall call “nostalgia tech.” Take a gander! Nostalgic yet savvy consumers can snap up everything from record players and vintage-esque radios (quick! name even one local radio station, we dare you!) to Olivetti typewriters, industrial clad sewing machines, and toy cameras. And for those of you with a land line, you might consider the Crosley pay phone.
Let’s ruminate on the why. Perhaps a generation of kids raised with a cell phone in one hand and Playstation controller in the other is sick of reading electronic type. Maybe it’s kinda like when generational baby names go through phases of hip and un-hip, and grandparents’ names suddenly seem chic. (When’s the last time you heard Tiffany, Heather, or Kyle around the playground? How about Harriet, Jake, or Emma?) Could it be that we all really just want to be our parents! Or, let’s just hazard a guess that vintage technology has become novelty — the novelty of effort.
The very impracticality of an analog camera that must be taped shut and uses wide-format film that shan’t be processed at Walgreen’s — we’re looking at you, Holga — illustrates the requirement that nostalgia tech is damned inconvenient. Honestly, typing a letter full of paragraphs on the Webster XL-747 is both thunderously loud and somewhat painful. But therein lies the rub: the process alone is worth 90 pounds of hipster weight in street cred. It’s pretty cool that your iPhone tells you how to get to that underground club in Bushwick and all, but I just rotary-dialed the 411 operator, made best friends with her, and scored the unlisted phone number. So there.
There’s nothing wrong with liking old things, or appreciating the craftsmanship of what came before. For example, albums on vinyl emit a completely different sound than their MP3 counterparts, and the happy accidents created with light leaks from a Diana camera have provided a fair amount of affordable art for twenty-something apartments. We have to ask, though, how special a tool really is if it’s been purchased at a retail chain with 140 stores and an estimated 21.7 percent yearly sales growth.
As for the message in a bottle kit currently being sold at sister outlet Anthropologie? That’s just asinine.
Comments (8)
Even hipsters can't last forever. Urban saw a downward trend last quarter.
Artists started the trend by using real-life tools, e.g. the typewriter, the turntable, to create new effects with their new way of using them, while bridging the real and digital worlds. They found their tools from their parents, from dumpsters, by coincidence or by experimentation.
Hipsters are artists wannabes. They get the typewriter, the turntable, to put them in their house to show their friends their good tastes. Or do one or two pieces of 'art' and then get bored. They found their tools from Urban Outfitters.
Well, that's the first time I ever heard a film camera referred to as "analog." Clocks might be analog, but I don't think cameras are. Go ahead and argue with me about this. I'm interested in this hip 21st century nomenclature.
Do people have so little initiative these days that they are unwilling to take the time to seek out the real thing? You can do better in ALL the categories covered here on e-bay after devoting a little time to research (and probably for less or equivalent $$$).
There is also a very positive side to this phenomenon which is that Polaroid film may actually go back into production. "Obsolete but Still Dope" as Grand Royale put it many years ago.
Your point about 'finding tools' is absolutely correct: dumpster-diving and alley-searching is key (here in Montreal) — you can find anything and everything you want to deck out a living space with fun, old relics (tech stuff, furniture, etc). Hitting up (hipping up at) the local UrbOut is plainly disingenuous. And expensive.
There's also something to be said about assembling 'objets trouvés' into new and exciting artwork or simple conversation pieces that actually have a memorial value for the finder and a cool story for the viewer. People seem to be forgetting the relationship between objects and the extensions of our own characters, personalities and nuances.
For another perspective about old technologies and seeking out culture in a pre-internet era, check out this short film I made a year ago called Out of Print. It seems germane to the chat here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIrxc3IAbww
I'm personally not a fan of the stuff Urban Outfitters sells, but nostalgia tech is cool because nostalgia is cool. Everywhere we look, companies are reaching back to yesterday to come up with new ideas for everything from advertising to new products. Check out the heritage-intensive advertisements from companies like Allstate, Macy's, and Brooks Brothers for good examples. Old is the new new. Actually, old has always been the new new. Remember 10 years ago when big boxy headphones were in even though consumers could easily find small, compact ear buds? How about the resurgence of bell bottom pants in the 90s? How about GM reusing and retooling the classic "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet?" Nostalgia has always resonated with consumers because it is something they identify with. Despite our sweet tech gadgets like iPhones, the green is always greener on the other side. There will always be people that think back to yesterday and wish they were there.
[...] the trend of new gadgets pretending to be vintage has been going on for a while now (some have called it “nostalgia tech”), thanks in great part to Urban Outfitters, [...]
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