Great piece! Thank you for connecting all the dots on this. Iām optimistic that at the very least there will be a big move towards creative rebellion and an awakening in art in response to this regression. Much like grunge was a response to the excesses of the 1980s. One can hope š
Iāve been thinking about this a lot lately! I think itās also because of what lasts in a historical record.
Thereās no fossil record of the quiet desperation of housewives and the gross feeling of using febreze to try to get years of cigarette smoke out of the fabric seats of a Chevy convertible.
Because there was such shame, it was tucked away and undocumented.
So all that survives is the glossy Marlboro ads and the sexy shiny ads pushing the lifestyle. Thatās what Gen Z found.
That is such a great point! The historical record is biased, and we donāt talk about that enough. Iāve seen some notes on here recently about the importance of writing and documenting reality in the midst of whatās currently happening, precisely for that reason, as we are now far too reliant on unstable social platforms as archives, and they are not actually reliable.
Thank you for this. You have managed to articulate something that has been nagging me for months now. Connecting the dots between those seemingly innocent instagram trends and the broader cultural shifts.
However, every time the pendulum swings this hard it tends to spark some something in our collective creativity. š¤
This is so great! And as a gen x person and a prof to young gen z, I think youāre on to something re: younger generations donāt have the full set of facts abt how bad the options were for non white men. Presumably tho younger gens are raised by gen x and boomers? Fascinating ideas here
Thank you! Yes I think my conjecture is that Gen Z was mostly raised by Gen X, and in many Gen X households the mother worked full-time (at least, moreso than in Boomer households). So Gen Z saw mothers struggling to manage "doing it all," making the idea of being a "stay-at-home" mom/housewife seem more aspirational than being a working mother.
Incredible analysis. I loved reading it. Iāve noticed and covered generational nostalgia mainly in my political reporting of Gen Z voters. Your thoughts on how that very nostalgia, reflected in an appreciation for tradwife culture to 80ās-era conservatisim, is largely ignored in most of today's branding strategy or trend forecasting is really fascinating.
From what I understand about young people who see themselves as part of the new conservative movement, feeling left out from mainstream culture and conversation only further fuels the fire under their bellies and makes it even more *cool* to exist outside the realm of most public discourse.
Thank you Rachel! I went down a rabbit hole of your work last night, and it was very insightful. I really loved your post on nostalgia. It was so poignant and made me realize this mindset goes far deeper than perhaps I had even imagined. I'll be including a reference to your post in a followup email going out tomorrow, and moving it here at the end of this post afterwards too.
Oh, thank you so much! I'm excited to continue reading your insights and would love to connect to chat trends like nostalgia anytime :) I think we're only starting to see how pervasive it is in shaping youth sentiment
Very interesting. The section on āvisual thinkingā made me remember how my husband and I would fantasize about living in a cute farmhouse out in the countryside whenever we passed one before the rigors and isolation of farm life snapped us back to reality.
As for footnote 2 on youth and holocaust denial, Pew Research points to ābogus respondentsā for online opt-in surveys. The motive MAY be financial, as they zoom through answering yes to everything to get paid sooner.
āFor example, in a February 2022 survey experiment, we asked opt-in respondents if they were licensed to operate a class SSGN (nuclear) submarine. In the opt-in survey, 12% of adults under 30 claimed this qualification, significantly higher than the share among older respondents. In reality, the share of Americans with this type of submarine license rounds to 0%.ā
Regressive Nostalgia is a branding minefield. Itās not just an aesthetic trendāitās a cultural shift rooted in economic anxiety and generational memory gaps. Brands canāt just ignore it, but engaging requires careful navigation.
50s Idealism and 80s Aspirations both yearn for stability, power, and pre-social media simplicity. Thatās why weāre seeing the rise of tradwife influencers, old-money aesthetics, and indulgent consumerism. But nostalgia without context is dangerousāleaning too hard into these aesthetics risks aligning with regressive values, even unintentionally.
The real question is: How do brands acknowledge the sentiment driving this trend without endorsing its ideology? Positioning matters. Luxury brands can play into exclusivity without veering into hyper-conservatism. Wellness brands need to recognize the Unwellness push and rethink how they market āoptimization.ā Lifestyle brands should be wary of romanticizing past eras without modernizing them.
Ignoring the shift isnāt an option. The challenge is understanding why Gen Z is embracing these aesthetics and meeting them where they areāwithout getting stuck in the past with them.
Excellent deep dive! Iāve thought about this piece often. Other culture threads that feel tied to regressive nostalgia include Diet Coke becoming the new symbol of masculinity and the current rise in Cowboy Culture a symbol of Americana.
Due to the rise of BLM, the pendulum is swinging hard in the opposite direction in alignment with a Trump presidency.
I've never been one to jump on the bandwagonāit's why I launched @nobodyknowswellnessclub on IG, a cheeky middle finger to the "sporty & rich" crowd. Honestly, 2015-2017 was the era when everything I believed in got distilled into a bland, copy-paste trend.
Thank you for this! I tried to articulate something similar -- I wrote a piece about purity being in fashion again, mentioning tradwives, RFK jr, wellness practices during WWII, clean beauty & clean eating dogma's
i briefly played around with some of these ideas as an intro for my trend report but am soooo glad i abandoned that because this would have put it to shame.
Such a great piece. Difficult to put a lot of this into words and you killed it. A couple of these points are part of the basis of my next piece on āSPENTā. Glad to know Iām not alone in these observations! šš
Thank you Gabriel, appreciate the support. I feel similarly and it's great to know this resonates. It's like we've all been silently making these observations while avoiding speaking about them openly, because we fear that it may give the trend more momentum or inspire others to exploit it for commercial gain. I think it's clear now that that approach isn't working. Look forward to reading your next piece!
Yes! So glad you wrote about this - totally agree that it bears discussion to be adressed and course corrected. I feel like all this nostalgia doesn't have to = MAGA, given our natural human nostalgia at play (in face of AI, uncertainty, life...each decade looks back as you mention) but components like trad-wifery are a big yikes we should address. Totally agree with you on the difference of motherhood influence between gen cohorts. Do you think there's also a power seeking aspect of the office siren character? I could chat about this all day...and we should!
Thank you Caitlin! I agree, it's more like nostalgia has been almost weaponized to create a sort of false history, which is easier to do in the modern media climate its tendency to promote distortion of truth/facts. The power seeking aspect of the office siren is a very interesting angle! I think there is definitely a component of that as well. Almost like, the office is attractive for its sense of control/stability/power? I think it's again a false/twisted narrative though ā in reality, the office controls you, not the other way around.
1000% agree with you it's a false narrative! Personally I read corpcore as derogatory, less about a desire to return to office and more of a critique on the banality of it all - how much has it actually progressed since the 80/90s? Yikes I could chat for ages on this haha
Yeah this makes sense to me but weāre overall talking about a cool minority moving in this direction, rather than everyone in Gen Z. Of course, aspires to the cool minority except outcasts.
Great piece! Thank you for connecting all the dots on this. Iām optimistic that at the very least there will be a big move towards creative rebellion and an awakening in art in response to this regression. Much like grunge was a response to the excesses of the 1980s. One can hope š
Thank you! Agreed - we've got to hold onto that hope š¤š½
I think you're onto something with a potential creative rebellion. Maybe people en masse logging off (less likely).... one can hope.
I think it will be a response but not necessarily anti-consumer culture like grunge. It never repeats the same
Iāve been thinking about this a lot lately! I think itās also because of what lasts in a historical record.
Thereās no fossil record of the quiet desperation of housewives and the gross feeling of using febreze to try to get years of cigarette smoke out of the fabric seats of a Chevy convertible.
Because there was such shame, it was tucked away and undocumented.
So all that survives is the glossy Marlboro ads and the sexy shiny ads pushing the lifestyle. Thatās what Gen Z found.
That is such a great point! The historical record is biased, and we donāt talk about that enough. Iāve seen some notes on here recently about the importance of writing and documenting reality in the midst of whatās currently happening, precisely for that reason, as we are now far too reliant on unstable social platforms as archives, and they are not actually reliable.
Thank you for this. You have managed to articulate something that has been nagging me for months now. Connecting the dots between those seemingly innocent instagram trends and the broader cultural shifts.
However, every time the pendulum swings this hard it tends to spark some something in our collective creativity. š¤
Thank you! I totally agree. Creativity is a powerful tool šš½
This is so great! And as a gen x person and a prof to young gen z, I think youāre on to something re: younger generations donāt have the full set of facts abt how bad the options were for non white men. Presumably tho younger gens are raised by gen x and boomers? Fascinating ideas here
Thank you! Yes I think my conjecture is that Gen Z was mostly raised by Gen X, and in many Gen X households the mother worked full-time (at least, moreso than in Boomer households). So Gen Z saw mothers struggling to manage "doing it all," making the idea of being a "stay-at-home" mom/housewife seem more aspirational than being a working mother.
Yes totally, I see this! Itās still shocking to me Gen X is not more politically radical! Idk what happened to my peeps.
Incredible analysis. I loved reading it. Iāve noticed and covered generational nostalgia mainly in my political reporting of Gen Z voters. Your thoughts on how that very nostalgia, reflected in an appreciation for tradwife culture to 80ās-era conservatisim, is largely ignored in most of today's branding strategy or trend forecasting is really fascinating.
From what I understand about young people who see themselves as part of the new conservative movement, feeling left out from mainstream culture and conversation only further fuels the fire under their bellies and makes it even more *cool* to exist outside the realm of most public discourse.
Thank you Rachel! I went down a rabbit hole of your work last night, and it was very insightful. I really loved your post on nostalgia. It was so poignant and made me realize this mindset goes far deeper than perhaps I had even imagined. I'll be including a reference to your post in a followup email going out tomorrow, and moving it here at the end of this post afterwards too.
Oh, thank you so much! I'm excited to continue reading your insights and would love to connect to chat trends like nostalgia anytime :) I think we're only starting to see how pervasive it is in shaping youth sentiment
Very interesting. The section on āvisual thinkingā made me remember how my husband and I would fantasize about living in a cute farmhouse out in the countryside whenever we passed one before the rigors and isolation of farm life snapped us back to reality.
As for footnote 2 on youth and holocaust denial, Pew Research points to ābogus respondentsā for online opt-in surveys. The motive MAY be financial, as they zoom through answering yes to everything to get paid sooner.
āFor example, in a February 2022 survey experiment, we asked opt-in respondents if they were licensed to operate a class SSGN (nuclear) submarine. In the opt-in survey, 12% of adults under 30 claimed this qualification, significantly higher than the share among older respondents. In reality, the share of Americans with this type of submarine license rounds to 0%.ā
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/
They say the % of Holocaust denial is probably closer to 3%, the same as other age groups. Whew! (Not that any % is good!)
Omg thank you for this insight!! A huge relief tbh. And the submarines lmao ā ļø
Yes, apparently some people will claim anything. š
Regressive Nostalgia is a branding minefield. Itās not just an aesthetic trendāitās a cultural shift rooted in economic anxiety and generational memory gaps. Brands canāt just ignore it, but engaging requires careful navigation.
50s Idealism and 80s Aspirations both yearn for stability, power, and pre-social media simplicity. Thatās why weāre seeing the rise of tradwife influencers, old-money aesthetics, and indulgent consumerism. But nostalgia without context is dangerousāleaning too hard into these aesthetics risks aligning with regressive values, even unintentionally.
The real question is: How do brands acknowledge the sentiment driving this trend without endorsing its ideology? Positioning matters. Luxury brands can play into exclusivity without veering into hyper-conservatism. Wellness brands need to recognize the Unwellness push and rethink how they market āoptimization.ā Lifestyle brands should be wary of romanticizing past eras without modernizing them.
Ignoring the shift isnāt an option. The challenge is understanding why Gen Z is embracing these aesthetics and meeting them where they areāwithout getting stuck in the past with them.
Excellent deep dive! Iāve thought about this piece often. Other culture threads that feel tied to regressive nostalgia include Diet Coke becoming the new symbol of masculinity and the current rise in Cowboy Culture a symbol of Americana.
Due to the rise of BLM, the pendulum is swinging hard in the opposite direction in alignment with a Trump presidency.
I've never been one to jump on the bandwagonāit's why I launched @nobodyknowswellnessclub on IG, a cheeky middle finger to the "sporty & rich" crowd. Honestly, 2015-2017 was the era when everything I believed in got distilled into a bland, copy-paste trend.
Now that you mention it, Sporty & Rich might be one of the earliest manifestations of this trend
I think JJJOUND would the first to me, but she definitely geared a movement forsure
The term āregressive nostalgiaā perfectly encapsulates the vibe shift towards counter-counter cultural values and behaviors.
Tradwives, cottagecore, homesteading, quiet luxury, old money, soft girl, girl math, iām just a girl, stay at home girlfriend, office sirenā¦
Itās never just about the clothes.
BRILLIANT! thanks so much for doing this work and adding subtext. Gen Z will FAFO as they say.
Thank you! and yesss FAFO rings true once again
Thank you for this! I tried to articulate something similar -- I wrote a piece about purity being in fashion again, mentioning tradwives, RFK jr, wellness practices during WWII, clean beauty & clean eating dogma's
You might like it, it's definitely about regression as well: https://open.substack.com/pub/romydevries/p/against-purity?r=ryise&utm_medium=ios
Thank you! Will check it out, purity culture and the aspiration of ācleanā definitely overlaps
spot on.
i briefly played around with some of these ideas as an intro for my trend report but am soooo glad i abandoned that because this would have put it to shame.
hahaha thanks tadz
Such a great piece. Difficult to put a lot of this into words and you killed it. A couple of these points are part of the basis of my next piece on āSPENTā. Glad to know Iām not alone in these observations! šš
Thank you Gabriel, appreciate the support. I feel similarly and it's great to know this resonates. It's like we've all been silently making these observations while avoiding speaking about them openly, because we fear that it may give the trend more momentum or inspire others to exploit it for commercial gain. I think it's clear now that that approach isn't working. Look forward to reading your next piece!
https://open.substack.com/pub/gabrielgomeznyc/p/go-woke-go-broke?r=d21ft&utm_medium=ios
Just mentioned this piece in my latest āSPENTā installment, Anu. Hope it resonates with you šā„ļø
Yes! So glad you wrote about this - totally agree that it bears discussion to be adressed and course corrected. I feel like all this nostalgia doesn't have to = MAGA, given our natural human nostalgia at play (in face of AI, uncertainty, life...each decade looks back as you mention) but components like trad-wifery are a big yikes we should address. Totally agree with you on the difference of motherhood influence between gen cohorts. Do you think there's also a power seeking aspect of the office siren character? I could chat about this all day...and we should!
Thank you Caitlin! I agree, it's more like nostalgia has been almost weaponized to create a sort of false history, which is easier to do in the modern media climate its tendency to promote distortion of truth/facts. The power seeking aspect of the office siren is a very interesting angle! I think there is definitely a component of that as well. Almost like, the office is attractive for its sense of control/stability/power? I think it's again a false/twisted narrative though ā in reality, the office controls you, not the other way around.
1000% agree with you it's a false narrative! Personally I read corpcore as derogatory, less about a desire to return to office and more of a critique on the banality of it all - how much has it actually progressed since the 80/90s? Yikes I could chat for ages on this haha
Yeah this makes sense to me but weāre overall talking about a cool minority moving in this direction, rather than everyone in Gen Z. Of course, aspires to the cool minority except outcasts.