Nostalgia: A Tool to Resonate or the Easy Option?

I’ve got a problem.

‘What’s the matter? The CIA got you pushing too many pencils?’

You see, when you avidly consume pop-culture for the best part of fifty years, something’s got to give. And unfortunately that’s patience. Of friends. Of colleagues. Of loved ones. My daily interactions regularly spiral into a mess of quotes, references and misremembered moments from 1980s breakfast TV cartoons. But does familiarity breed contempt? Or a warm fuzzy feeling? Like a neon hug that smells faintly of pear drops. Or an article littered with iconic film quotes.*

‘Maggots, Michael. You're eating maggots. How do they taste?’

Embrace the glow, because I’m not the only one. In a recent survey it turns out 77% of gen z also like anything with a sheen of retro goodness. Just look at the resolutely pixel world of Minecraft, or Netflix’s deep dive into pretty much every ‘80s trope going for Stranger Things. Cassette tapes are coming back, and vinyl sales are growing 11% year on year. 2025 is a good time to be retro.

But wait - is that a walkman? (The cool, yellow waterproof one that I could never afford.) No, it’s a little voice in my ear and it asks me: is nostalgia a poison in the jugular of creativity?

In theatreland, it would certainly seem so. London’s West End seems to consist almost entirely of 1980s and 1990s retreads of movies brought to awful musical life. As if the great British public can only tolerate ideas which are tried and tested. It’s nostalgia, but bad nostalgia. The beige kind, and it sucks. Clearly I’m no fan of musical theatre - so not exactly without bias there - but it’s rewrites nonetheless.

The resurgence of retro themed creative across the media landscape though? Now that I can get behind. We recently crafted a playable,16-bit video game for Nissan, inspired by classic Nintendo and SEGA racing games such as OutRun and Super Chase H.Q. Pixels aren’t just for gaming, though, they’ve become a much sought after aesthetic of late. Vitality briefed us with pixel-worshipping moments across their flagship campaign, and in the wider industry, it’d be remiss of me not to mention BigTime Creative Shop’s latest Fatal Fury piece. Feat. Chris Eubank Jr and Conor Benn, they must ‘settle what [their] fathers never could’. Good, non-beige nostalgia, renewed, redefined and straight into our retinas.

Above: Nissan ‘Nismo Electric Racer Tokyo. Dark Horses x Electric Studios

‘This is a Camberwell Carrot. It’ll tend to get you very high.’

In the literary world, taking it waaaay back to 2011, Ernest Kline’s novel ‘Ready Player One’ shamelessly tapped into pretty much every sci-fi and fantasy meme with precision. It re-packaged the nostalgic into something new and fresh with aplomb. Yes, it's nearly 15 years old. But that hunger for the past and how it can be used to reinvigorate the future isn’t going away any time soon. Sneaker heads, comic geeks and record collectors exist in a constant loop of long and short nostalgia; our cultural recycling breeds archivists, connoisseurs and enthusiasts that self perpetuate like a sweaty ouroboros eating its own tail. All whilst carrying a bunch of Rough Trade and Forbidden Planet bags - after all, it’s ok to cherish the past if you take it seriously.

‘It’s not in the jungle. It is the jungle.’

Let’s talk about a brand that really smashes it, for no-one perfects the hybrid nostalgic blend of now and then quite like Palace. A Palace Snake on a 3310! A melting Lamborghini Contach! Tron-inspired geometric grids! This core vein of focused nostalgia runs through their very DNA, as retro injections of the tactical and the tactile meeting constantly with contemporary flourishes. A pick ‘n’ mix of the finest moments across the ‘80s and ‘90s… loved across all generations. One thing that’s scary about getting older, is you see things coming back into fashion for the second time. ‘Surely we’re not old enough that that’s back in fashion, right?’ said one Carhartt-clad millennial to another.

Above: Palace x Evisu ‘Heartless Season III’ Rollo Jackson x Electric Studios

With fashion as the ultimate litmus test, we’re lucky enough to live in a time where the influence of many a decade gone by still has an impact. ‘50s demob style suits are in, as are ‘00s hip-grazers. ‘70s flares and lapels have made a comeback, and so too, has the haircut no-one saw coming: the mullet. And we’re not talking the classic accidentally bad trim like from back in the day - nope, the mullet of 2025 is a glorious beast. Intentful and without shame.

It really is rather wonderful: the past as a cultural buffet for the present. I grew up in the ‘80s, memorising landline numbers, coveting Global Hypercolour t-shirts and eating yellow hued food mostly shaped into letters. But the things we were in awe of? It was what came before. Yes, 1986 was a place of neon pink, shoulder pads and cassette tapes unspooling in your school bag, but it was also a place where paisley ties, The Beatles, T-Rex and the looming threat of nuclear war was de rigueur. You know, the stuff our parents liked.

‘I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit.’

And we grew up. And yes, the 80’s and then the 90’s was our playground - but it was all influenced by previous decades. Baggy / rave culture is just flower power gone binary, our uniform flared trousers and stolen St Michael shirts (circa 1975) from Dad’s wardrobes. Cycles upon cycles upon cycles. Invention breeding invention; arguably, nothing is truly original, but instead, a creative structure built on the bones of the past. All the hard work is done, and we only pick the best bits, our rose t(a)inted memories conveniently forgetting Spam, flying ant day and polyester school slacks. Instead we latch onto Gameboys, Guns’N’Roses and an underlying but undeniable love for a neon colour palette.

‘I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.’

So, nostalgia. Good or bad?

You can blame the internet as a bloated repository of everything that has come before. You can blame modern parents not wanting to grow up themselves pushing their own pop-culture addictions onto their children. You can blame human nature for inherently seeking the familiar, but with cultural frames of reference stretching past our own lifetimes, I don’t think the buck stops with anyone, actually. Not if we use the bygones correctly. Broad interests and an eye for constant reinvention turns nostalgia from being merely a glimpse back at the past, into a self-perpetuating beast with indulgent tendencies that drives our society’s zeitgeist in ever-evolving, ever-refreshing ways.

It’s wonderful, this layering of cool. And it means that - even though I’m clearly out of date -I’ll be back in fashion one day.

*Popquiz! How many movie quotes can you identify? Extra points for nailing the date. If you know them all, then you’re as bad as me.