Nostalgia Marketing

At Queen’s, any brand, accessory, or aesthetic is seen ten times over on our Instagram feeds and Snapchat story reels. Social media has come to act–now more than ever–as an indication of what everyone recognizes as ‘in’. We, as active users of these platforms, endorse what we deem to be cool by liking, commenting, and sharing. It seems this cool factor often stems from a deviation from the norm. We wish to distance ourselves from the waves of I.AM.GIA jackets, which are now seen as frequently as boat shoes on University Avenue. It seems that something previously edgy and statement-worthy ironically becomes a trend of its own, especially in the social bubble that is Queen’s. Off trend becomes on trend, and on trend quickly becomes off—who would’ve seen that coming? Enter Huji. Nothing screams nostalgia like a digitized copy of a disposable photo. Once the image is produced, it is ready to be uploaded to a feed full of other pictures that once fit your Instagram aesthetic, but you are now too cool for. If you’re yearning for a subtle tinge of edginess on your feed, look no further—nowadays it takes only a finger tap and a free download. Sit back, relax, and look back on your glory days the same way your parents did at their own printed off Polaroids and disposables. There is no more convenient way to actively attempt to be retro and off-brand than to form your own relic. Here’s a digitally constructed means of bringing us back to the cherished days of the ’90s—in our case, back to our terrible twos. What a glorious time. In the same way white borders and cranked up saturation have become passé, we’ll likely grow tired of the orange-tinged “98” time stamp that is a marker of this latest fad, stuck on the right-hand corner of each Huji-produced photo. Scrolling through my own feed, I’ve noticed a new trend. People are adding hints of character to their profiles, seeking to differentiate their vibe from the others. A nostalgia marketing movement is cashing in on our inclinations to relish in the past and in the unique. As a result, our feeds are flooded with snapshots painted by identical brushstrokes. By no means do I think it’s a poorly thought-out app or concept. It comes down to how we as millennials are fully willing to hand over praise to this new wave of nostalgia marketing. We are promoting the idea of taking a walk down memory lane without financially investing in a Pentax lens. As these trends come and go, I’m curious to see if we’ll continue to find charm in our Huji-snapped pics. I wonder if this app is a snapshot of the future: we’ll sit our families down, pull out our iPhone 84s, and scroll through our Instagram feeds—the modern equivalent to the photo albums our parents showed us once upon a time.

by Lauchland Lee