NEON NOSTALGIA: GEN Z'S OBSESSION WITH PAST

It's a language-one that talks about memory, identity and the need to mean and belong, says Mohit Mishra from Mumbai.

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With infinite scrolling, AI and virtual hyper-speed as a part of our daily lives, an interesting phenomenon has cropped up in the hearts and screens of Gen Zs: a vivid, cinematic nostalgia for a past they never truly experienced.

This fixation is not quite, it glows. From the glitchy VHS tapes and pixelated video games to the cyberpunk color schemes and Y2K fashion, a cultural current of neon nostalgia is washing through art, music, fashion, and internet life. It's loud, bright, and unexpectedly emotional.

This isn't a trend. It's a language—one that talks about memory, identity, and the abiding need to mean and belong in a future that is sometimes unfamiliar. Neon nostalgia is not the Golden Age Fallacy that the movie Midnight in Paris deals with—while neon nostalgia reimagines the past through vibrant color and digital remix to process present anxieties, the golden Age fallacy clings to an idealized, untouchable past—where one escapes reality rather than creatively engaging with it.

The Glow of the Familiar Future

Why are the current youngest generation—born during the era of smartphones and cloud computing—so enamored with 90s arcades, analog televisions, and early internet visual aesthetic? The explanation lies at the crossroads of culture and psychology. Neon nostalgia provides something precious in this era of hyper-speed and digitality: aesthetic comfort. Amidst the drowning excess of ultra-HD perfection and algorithmic coldness, the fuzzy blur of CRT screens or the warm glow of lava lamps seems human, imperfect, and tangible.