In Canto XX of Hellthe first part of The Divine ComedyDante bursts into tears upon meeting magicians, astrologers and fortune tellers. They have been condemned for wanting to know the future, for seeing too far ahead, and now they wander eternally with their faces turned backwards, so that their tears roll down their backs.
Emily Segal, author of the novel Mercury retrograde (2020) and trend analyst for large companies, describes with this scene the current nostalgic point of view of generation Z. According to the expert, young people have stopped looking to the future. Like Dante’s lost souls Hellthey seem condemned to look back. The products they consume – remakes, revivals, sequels and reboots – are pieced together with leftovers from the 20th century, particularly those from the late 1990s and early 2000s. Everything new seems familiar.
“Disruption and innovation capable of changing the world still exist”, claims Segal on the phone, “but the dominant cultural landscape is saturated with nostalgic remakes”. He cites as examples the fascination with vinyl records, Walkmans, VHS cassettes, Polaroids, and the common use of archival or vintage clothing on the red carpet, pointing out that philosopher Mark Fisher had already identified this “cultural strangulation” ten years ago, as he explained in his concept “The Slow Erasure of the Future.” “His maxim that ‘nothing dies’ remains true 11 years later: we are still surrounded by the same forms of zombies as we were back then,” says Segal.
Floating nostalgia. Some generations are more nostalgic than others. And not all generations are nostalgic in the same way. Psychologist Clay Routledge, author of Past Forward: How Nostalgia Can Help You Live a More Meaningful Life (2023), you have been studying this phenomenon for years. According to his survey of 2,000 Americans, 60% of Generation Z would like to return to a time when they were not “connected,” even if that time predates their own lifetimes; 68% are nostalgic for times before their birth; 73% are attracted to the media, hobbies or styles of those times; and 78% think current technology should incorporate design elements from the past.
For Routledge, what is curious about young people is that “they are not nostalgic for past moments that belong to their lives, but for a historical era that they did not experience.” He explains that the key is to note that the desired time coincides with the period immediately before the emergence of new technologies. “They have an ambivalent relationship with technology: in surveys many say they appreciate its advantages, but at the same time express concern about its consequences. Hence their connection with the pre-digital era”, he observes in a video call.
There is a very illustrative example of this particular type of nostalgia. It is a series of viral videos, some real and some generated by artificial intelligence, showing groups of teenagers from the 1990s leaving an American high school. They’re not doing anything particularly interesting or fun. However, seeing them interact without a cell phone has an almost hypnotic effect. This feeling of nostalgia is reflected in the comments: “I’m 20 years old, I wasn’t even born when this video was shot, but it leaves me with a sense of emptiness. My high school experience wasn’t like that.” Another user writes, “I graduated in 2015. Seems like a good time. Not a phone in sight. People talk face to face. Wish I could grow up in a time like this.”
More and more initiatives are emerging that seek to counteract the dominance of technology over our lives. The European Union has been funding youth exchange programs for years, some of which incorporate “digital detox” experiences. In the United States, there has recently been talk of a “dumbphone boom” to describe the popularity of basic phones, such as Nokia, among Generation Z. Offline parties, where cell phones are banned, have also become fashionable. And some even talk about the return of a slow internet, the blogosphere of the pre-social media era.
The young philosophy communicator Leo Espluga, with over 80,000 followers on TikTok, explained in one of his latest videos that he has been trying to minimize his digital presence for some time. I recommended going out and walking without your phone, trying to get to places without looking at Google Maps. “It’s amazing how much energy you have, how many hours suddenly open up to do things, how fired up your brain is,” he said.
The danger of idealizing the past
This phenomenon, which involves an industry of déjà vu with thousands of young people trying to revive the codes of the past, offers several interpretations. The philosopher Diego Garrocho, author of Speaking of nostalgia (in English, On nostalgiaAlianza, 2019), underlines that feeling out of step with one’s times can have two effects: opening up new possibilities for the future or fueling a nostalgic vision of the past. “There are judicious, balanced and realistic ways of looking at the past, and others that border on the mythological.”
Data shows that Generation Z, especially men, tends towards more conservative positions. A study conducted by Ipsos and King’s College London reveals that 60% of men of this generation in 31 countries believe that “gender equality has gone too far”. Democratic dissatisfaction is also growing: according to a 2025 poll conducted by Circle (a private university in Tufts, Massachusetts), only 36% of young Americans believe that democracy can solve the country’s problems, and only 16% believe that “it works well for young people.”
For Mario Ríos, a political analyst and associate professor at the University of Girona in Spain, youth nostalgia is a symptom of its reactionary change. “Radical right-wing parties are always nostalgic because they appeal to a mythical past,” he explains over the phone. According to him, it is a circumstantial reaction to a lack of direction. “They live in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. They look to the past and try to undo decisions that they believe divided us as a society. They idealize the 1990s, when neoliberalism promised continued progress as long as markets continued to grow.” Routledge makes it clear that nostalgia isn’t always a sign of regression. Of course, it can be the opposite of stagnation: a form of creativity and drive. “Generation Z looks to the pre-digital past for what they perceive as valuable to reshape their present,” he explains.
Garrocho defends the inspirational potential of nostalgia. He argues that the fact that all political communities are based on a founding myth – always false, to a greater or lesser extent – demonstrates their usefulness. “Dreaming of a bucolic past, a time when we were better, or a history populated by heroes, can fuel reasonable and fertile hopes to imagine a better world. If we were better (or at least dreamed of being better), we would be more inclined to believe in the possibility of embracing excellence again.”
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