No-Stalgia: Nothing Sentimental About It

It would seem retro is the in-thing. Boot cuts are parading the streets again. College kids are riding retro motorcycles. Venkatesh Prasad and Javagal Srinath are in a faux boy band. (Boy, that’s retro on so many levels). My young gen z colleague follows Dalip Tahil on Instagram. Which beats me, because most of us millennials didn’t know who he is. And as if all this weren’t enough, someone down the hall from my table is playing Ariana Grande on a retro-style bluetooth speaker from boAt.

Marketers and LinkedIn gurus have come up with a term for this: nostalgia marketing. But I am not buying it for two reasons:

1. You can put any two words together to come up with a cool jargon these days. Brand evangelist. Content architect. Digital shaman. Performance marketing.

2. Nostalgia requires memory. And most of gen z wasn’t even born when these trends or people were a thing.

For gen z, it’s no-stalgia. No-stalgia is the act of adopting retro trends with no specific sentiment about it, using them for their present value, not their past value. I reckon gen z is not attracted to retro because it's retro but because its useful to them, today. Here are four ways retro stuff is useful to today’s kids:

1. Retro is OG. When Venkatesh Prasad crooned, “Coz in the '90s, we were the OGs”, he was onto something. In the world of undifferentiated fast-fashion chic, copy-paste reel trends and wannabe products, there is a dearth of authenticity. There is a yearning for it too. “Yamaha and KTM thought they could buy us with plastic covered sports bikes with fancy speedometers”, says Nikhil, 23 years old and owner of a Classic 350. “But we grew up wanting a Royal Enfield. A comfortable, accessible, pure motorcycle.” He is right. Nearly 80 out of 100 motorcycles sold in the 300-500cc category are Royal Enfield. Nearly 10 of the rest are retro roadsters from Triumph, Honda, Harley or Hero. Only 10 are the super-zoomy motorcycles that you would assume gen z would go for.

2. Retro is simplicity and comfort. Further in our conversation, Nikhil says something that blows my mind. “There is an elegance to analogue. If you see a knob on a car radio, you know exactly what to do”. The sort of elegance and intuitiveness that touchscreens promise but just cant emulate. Retro is tactile. It can be touched. It’s not pixels on a screen. Perhaps this is why this boAt bluetooth speaker is such a vibe. That is the appeal of the Fujifilm Instax. That is also the appeal of boot cut Jeans. I ask Mitali, a 22 year old girl, about why the retro boot cut trend is back. “What? I did not even know it’s retro!” she exclaims, “I wear it because it’s comfortable” In a world that is complicated, retro keeps it simple – whether they know it's retro or not.

3. Retro is a flex. Taking the effort to know something from the past is instant street cred. There is so much content today, that a young 20-something has no need to look to the past for inspiration, knowledge or entertainment. But those who do already know more than 99% of their peers. It says something about you: that you are deeper, have finer influences and tastes. “I wasn’t even born when Taal was released”, says Mitali, “But I love it. All songs in our generation are basically for reels – the rest of the song beyond 15 seconds sucks. But Taal, there was so much effort put into the music, the lyrics, the orchestration. When I listen to Taal, I know I have taste in music”. I wonder if Mitali is an outlier. Or some reincarnated Rehman fan. Then I come across this research from Spotify which avers that the growth in consumption of '50s and '60s Hindi songs has been highest among the 18-24 age group. I show it to Mitali. She says, “It’s because we have a love for the iconic.”

This works in fashion too. The gen z of today won’t go full Archies retro clothing. But they do like to add a bit of a retro element in their dressing. Having a thoughtful retro element that compliments an otherwise modern ensemble shows appreciation, class. Mitali shows me this picture from Zudio. “They get us”, she says, pointing to the retro sunglasses in an otherwise modern outfit.

4. Retro is a meme. Above all else, though, retro is prime meme material. All the ad campaigns you see from Cred, Makemytrip or Razorpay with yesteryear stars are scarcely about nostalgia. They are barely even ads. They are memes masquerading as advertising. Its internet culture seeping into advertising. Memes are all about taking something old and casting it in an unexpected, yet relatable context. That’s what Angry Dravid is. That’s what Kumar Sanu as an insurance salesman is. That’s why you don’t even see Jackie Shroff’s face in the makemytrip ad. Be like Zeenat Aman. The retro brands that are really doing the best job connecting to gen z, aren’t even brands. Zeenat Aman has an Instagram following for being what a gen z gal called the “sassy aunty”. When they tried to troll her, calling her an “aunty”, she owned it.

Jackie Shroff is seen as unfiltered, authentic and grounded. His Anda Kadeepata recipe became the stuff of memes. Neena Gupta was affectionately called “Badass Dadi” by one of my colleagues who shall remain unnamed, for her bold, feminist stances.

1. Focus on what retro can do for gen z today – physically, emotionally. Not what its past value was.

2. Retro’s core appeal? Authenticity. Own it.

3. In product: go for tactile simplicity. Thoughtful retro design hits different. No brand does this better than Teenage Engineering. (Trivia: they even inspired Carl Pei to design the Nothing Phone.)

4. It’s a same-same copy-paste world out there. Use retro to get gen z bragging rights by helping them stand out.

5. In communication, embrace the madness and meme the hell out of yesteryears, if that fits your brand and category.

6. If you are a boomer or millenial brand wanting to transition to gen z, how can you channel your inner Zeenat Aman rather than pretending to be Deepika Padukone? (Resemblance to any packaged water brand is purely coincidental. #IYKYK)