Disco 2000
May 19, 2016 7:48 AM Subscribe
I mean, "Is the Y2k aesthetic set to return"? Of course it is, because the engines of capital require that everything return, eventually.
I myself picked up a pair of period-appropriate used boots only last winter, actually, on the theory that that they were coming back.
The one thing I'm a little worried about: next up for nostalgia is the September 11 era and I'm not entirely sure how that's going to work. It took until the 1970s for the 1940s to become a source of nostalgic imagery, and even there it wasn't, like, Germany that was nostalgic, or the source of nostalgia - it was all the spirit of the Blitz and platforms and high hair, or maybe a little fascism fashion for the kinky and transgressive.
posted by Frowner at 7:54 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
I myself picked up a pair of period-appropriate used boots only last winter, actually, on the theory that that they were coming back.
The one thing I'm a little worried about: next up for nostalgia is the September 11 era and I'm not entirely sure how that's going to work. It took until the 1970s for the 1940s to become a source of nostalgic imagery, and even there it wasn't, like, Germany that was nostalgic, or the source of nostalgia - it was all the spirit of the Blitz and platforms and high hair, or maybe a little fascism fashion for the kinky and transgressive.
posted by Frowner at 7:54 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
"Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, launched in 2001, was the first full-length, photorealistic digital movie to hit cinemas..."
so it did well
"..."
posted by griphus at 7:55 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
so it did well
"..."
posted by griphus at 7:55 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
...or maybe a little fascism fashion for the kinky and transgressive.
Punks will be wearing Dick Cheney shirts in 2025.
posted by griphus at 7:55 AM on May 19, 2016
Punks will be wearing Dick Cheney shirts in 2025.
posted by griphus at 7:55 AM on May 19, 2016
Man I forgot how big CDs used to be.
posted by Fantods at 7:56 AM on May 19, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by Fantods at 7:56 AM on May 19, 2016 [10 favorites]
Previously: Silver, metal, liquid, blue -- Y2K Futurism - An investigation into the futurism/aesthetic of the period 1996-02 (SLImgur)
posted by filthy light thief at 7:57 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by filthy light thief at 7:57 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, launched in 2001, was the first full-length, photorealistic digital movie to hit cinemas
Photorealistic ... you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means (in this context).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:58 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Photorealistic ... you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means (in this context).
posted by filthy light thief at 7:58 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm sorry, but this is the only Y2K aesthetic you need.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 8:07 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by escape from the potato planet at 8:07 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I remember after the original iMacs came out, everything was being marketed in translucent blue and I also remember thinking, "that's going to look so late '90s real soon".
posted by octothorpe at 8:08 AM on May 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 8:08 AM on May 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
I hate the pop music of the turn of the century in a way that I don't really hate music from any other era (okay, maybe the treacly late-80s-early-90s diva ballads). The design is goofy and I'm not really sure I thought it looked futuristic, even at the time. It seemed like everything went from beige and black and silver to translucent blobs of candy-colored plastic overnight (and I agreed with octothorpe about the iMac).
That said, the guy named as spearheading this Y2K curation is 26. He was a pre-teen at the time. It's easy to latch onto an aesthetic at that age; I was about that age when I grabbed the baggy-everything middle-America-grunge look and held onto it (might we be the only generation for whom wide-leg jeans and shapeless black t-shirts could be sexy?).
posted by uncleozzy at 8:20 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
That said, the guy named as spearheading this Y2K curation is 26. He was a pre-teen at the time. It's easy to latch onto an aesthetic at that age; I was about that age when I grabbed the baggy-everything middle-America-grunge look and held onto it (might we be the only generation for whom wide-leg jeans and shapeless black t-shirts could be sexy?).
posted by uncleozzy at 8:20 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
There was a Spy magazine article in, oh, 1987 saying same thing. "The good old days are getting closer and closer".
posted by GuyZero at 8:21 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by GuyZero at 8:21 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Seems relevant: 12 extinct 90s fashions.
The eye gel would definitely work for your futuristic aesthetic. And maybe the cargo pants, if they were silver.
posted by emjaybee at 8:23 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
The eye gel would definitely work for your futuristic aesthetic. And maybe the cargo pants, if they were silver.
posted by emjaybee at 8:23 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
If you hang around certain types of queer people and/or mall goths, you have never, ever been away from glitter eye gel. Or glitter body gel. Or glitter products generally.
Also, honestly, I know a bunch of people for whom 1996 never left - people who were rockabilly punks in the mid-nineties and who, yea verily, still are today. Baby bangs and fifties dresses and mid-century spex forever. It makes me extremely aware of the passing of time. When I'm around people my age who are dressed in a roughly contemporary way, I can feel as though we are all sort of young still; when I'm around people my age who are dressed as we dressed in Summer 1997, I am reminded that Summer 1997 will never come again and that we all have wrinkles and grey hairs now.
Honestly, I really enjoyed 1997. I was working in China for much of it, then I returned and went on a big road trip with a friend, then I got an okay job and took some classes I really enjoyed. It was definitely one of my better years, also I had a really great quilted black silk jacket that I'd got in Shanghai that I could not wear now due to cultural appropriation reasons but I loved that thing and wore it every day that wasn't actually summer. And I had some really good boots, and the thrift stores weren't picked over yet - I had such a pretty cashmere cardigan in a sort of Art Nouveau blue and green. My mother was in good health, my childhood cat was still alive, I felt like I had potential instead of being a washed up pink collar worker...good times, and I will certainly engage in a lot of nostalgia if I get to relive them a bit.
posted by Frowner at 8:58 AM on May 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
Also, honestly, I know a bunch of people for whom 1996 never left - people who were rockabilly punks in the mid-nineties and who, yea verily, still are today. Baby bangs and fifties dresses and mid-century spex forever. It makes me extremely aware of the passing of time. When I'm around people my age who are dressed in a roughly contemporary way, I can feel as though we are all sort of young still; when I'm around people my age who are dressed as we dressed in Summer 1997, I am reminded that Summer 1997 will never come again and that we all have wrinkles and grey hairs now.
Honestly, I really enjoyed 1997. I was working in China for much of it, then I returned and went on a big road trip with a friend, then I got an okay job and took some classes I really enjoyed. It was definitely one of my better years, also I had a really great quilted black silk jacket that I'd got in Shanghai that I could not wear now due to cultural appropriation reasons but I loved that thing and wore it every day that wasn't actually summer. And I had some really good boots, and the thrift stores weren't picked over yet - I had such a pretty cashmere cardigan in a sort of Art Nouveau blue and green. My mother was in good health, my childhood cat was still alive, I felt like I had potential instead of being a washed up pink collar worker...good times, and I will certainly engage in a lot of nostalgia if I get to relive them a bit.
posted by Frowner at 8:58 AM on May 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
I know a bunch of people for whom 1996 never left - people who were rockabilly punks in the mid-nineties and who, yea verily, still are today.
You can tell when someone gave up by the date of their style
posted by bendybendy at 9:06 AM on May 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
You can tell when someone gave up by the date of their style
posted by bendybendy at 9:06 AM on May 19, 2016 [9 favorites]
I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which is (one of the) spots the youth are congregating these days. The 90s are everywhere in ways that make me feel strange here in my 34th year.
On the one hand the raver style is in effect and the goth style and I think that triggers my middle/high school self, a bit, a nerd then, and the kids who were rocking the looks were Too Cool, Clearly Having More Fun, And Also Sex. I was into the old stuff then, still am.
And then some kids listening to early Britney Spears on the subway platform, like, I don't even know how to process that.
One thought that keeps occurring to me (often when I'm sitting in a particular hip neighborhood cafe with bad art on the wall and a half-shitty tiled counter) is that there's something in the 90s that was in its way a refusal of cool. Okay the goths and the ravers had cool scenes, but when Marcy Playground and Harvey Danger and Pearl Jam is on the box in 2016 I think there's something there that is actively pushing against the clean lines and pared-down aesthetics you see elsewhere in the borough.
I'm still sorting through it.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:07 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
On the one hand the raver style is in effect and the goth style and I think that triggers my middle/high school self, a bit, a nerd then, and the kids who were rocking the looks were Too Cool, Clearly Having More Fun, And Also Sex. I was into the old stuff then, still am.
And then some kids listening to early Britney Spears on the subway platform, like, I don't even know how to process that.
One thought that keeps occurring to me (often when I'm sitting in a particular hip neighborhood cafe with bad art on the wall and a half-shitty tiled counter) is that there's something in the 90s that was in its way a refusal of cool. Okay the goths and the ravers had cool scenes, but when Marcy Playground and Harvey Danger and Pearl Jam is on the box in 2016 I think there's something there that is actively pushing against the clean lines and pared-down aesthetics you see elsewhere in the borough.
I'm still sorting through it.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:07 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I live in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which is (one of the) spots the youth are congregating these days. The 90s are everywhere in ways that make me feel strange here in my 34th year.
Last weekend I was in the East Village, my old stomping grounds in the late-90s and early-00s, and I swear to god it looked like the 90s again except this time everyone forgot about hip-hop for some reason.
posted by griphus at 9:12 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Last weekend I was in the East Village, my old stomping grounds in the late-90s and early-00s, and I swear to god it looked like the 90s again except this time everyone forgot about hip-hop for some reason.
posted by griphus at 9:12 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
I mean to be fair it's been happening for 5+ years now, but like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot I didn't realize the extent of it until I was cooked.
posted by griphus at 9:15 AM on May 19, 2016
posted by griphus at 9:15 AM on May 19, 2016
No, the goths were never cool. Goth was cool for about five minutes at the start of the eighties. Goth was a dork subculture in 1992 and never changed, although I say this with tremendous sympathy and affection. Goth was what dorks thought was really, really cool - you got to wear all black! and transgressive hairstylings! and boots with a lot of chrome! Everyone I knew who was into goth anything in the nineties had been a role-playing-game dork out in the suburbs somewhere and their idea of cool was Shadowrun.
But the thing is, there were so many nineties. Obviously there's mere periodization, and I guess I'd say that the nineties qua nineties really began in about 1992; the grunge nineties were about 1992-1996; the poptimism nineties maybe 1996-1998; the matrix nineties maybe overlapping 1997-1999; and the glittery-paranoia nineties were just 1999. One thing I do remember is that embroidery and decoration came back in women's clothes right at the end of the nineties - I remember being surprised by it.
But in addition to mere periodization there's region, class and age - your 1997 would look very different as a high school student in the midwest than as an adult on the West Coast, and so on.
And a big shift that happened in the nineties - the offshoring of clothing production was pretty much completed. There's a lot of early nineties higher-end mass production clothes that are still made in the US; by the end of the nineties they're all offshore and the quality has dropped. The roots of fast fashion are definitely in the nineties.
posted by Frowner at 9:22 AM on May 19, 2016 [10 favorites]
But the thing is, there were so many nineties. Obviously there's mere periodization, and I guess I'd say that the nineties qua nineties really began in about 1992; the grunge nineties were about 1992-1996; the poptimism nineties maybe 1996-1998; the matrix nineties maybe overlapping 1997-1999; and the glittery-paranoia nineties were just 1999. One thing I do remember is that embroidery and decoration came back in women's clothes right at the end of the nineties - I remember being surprised by it.
But in addition to mere periodization there's region, class and age - your 1997 would look very different as a high school student in the midwest than as an adult on the West Coast, and so on.
And a big shift that happened in the nineties - the offshoring of clothing production was pretty much completed. There's a lot of early nineties higher-end mass production clothes that are still made in the US; by the end of the nineties they're all offshore and the quality has dropped. The roots of fast fashion are definitely in the nineties.
posted by Frowner at 9:22 AM on May 19, 2016 [10 favorites]
::pokes head out of the 70s::
::looks around::
Naw. Sorry.
::pulls head back in::
posted by Splunge at 9:31 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
::looks around::
Naw. Sorry.
::pulls head back in::
posted by Splunge at 9:31 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
But the thing is, there were so many nineties. Obviously there's mere periodization, and I guess I'd say that the nineties qua nineties really began in about 1992; the grunge nineties were about 1992-1996; the poptimism nineties maybe 1996-1998; the matrix nineties maybe overlapping 1997-1999; and the glittery-paranoia nineties were just 1999.
I totally agree with this but boy my perception of this is so different as a dude who came of age in the middle of hip-hop/rap/R&B supremacy and spent time fighting against it in that dumb teen way for reasons that in retrospect were pretty dumb teen reasons. But, like, in my recollection of what was the Cultural Powerhouse was 1992-1996 was Wu Tang, Tupac and Biggie and the start of the huge R&B explosion with Mariah Carey and so on, and then 96-99ish was Puff Daddy and post-Biggie Bad Boy Records and then the peak of R&B with Brandy, Monica, Aaliyah you name 'em as well as weird-but-still-mainstream hiphop getting big like Missy Elliot and Bustah Rhymes.
And the weirdest thing is the aesthetic matches. Take a look at an early Wu-Tang video and an early grunge video and there's more overlap than one would think! And all those late-90s rap videos with fisheye lenses creating soft curves and abstract mirrored/shiny backgrounds fit right into the Y2K aesthetic.
posted by griphus at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2016 [8 favorites]
I totally agree with this but boy my perception of this is so different as a dude who came of age in the middle of hip-hop/rap/R&B supremacy and spent time fighting against it in that dumb teen way for reasons that in retrospect were pretty dumb teen reasons. But, like, in my recollection of what was the Cultural Powerhouse was 1992-1996 was Wu Tang, Tupac and Biggie and the start of the huge R&B explosion with Mariah Carey and so on, and then 96-99ish was Puff Daddy and post-Biggie Bad Boy Records and then the peak of R&B with Brandy, Monica, Aaliyah you name 'em as well as weird-but-still-mainstream hiphop getting big like Missy Elliot and Bustah Rhymes.
And the weirdest thing is the aesthetic matches. Take a look at an early Wu-Tang video and an early grunge video and there's more overlap than one would think! And all those late-90s rap videos with fisheye lenses creating soft curves and abstract mirrored/shiny backgrounds fit right into the Y2K aesthetic.
posted by griphus at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2016 [8 favorites]
I know a bunch of people for whom 1996 never left - people who were rockabilly punks in the mid-nineties and who, yea verily, still are today. Baby bangs and fifties dresses and mid-century spex forever.
I think it was Tom + Lorenzo's blog on the styles in Mad Men that made me start being able to date people based upon their clothing style rather than how old they seem to look.
Then again -- even expensive clothing is generally awful these days, and there's some modern styles (skinny stretch jeans, I'm looking at you) that just don't work for me. Why shouldn't I stick with the clothing I'm familiar with? (And that's gendered, too -- older men's clothing looks distinguished, while older women's clothing looks dated.)
And again again, if we want to talk about horrifically dated styles, there seems to be a revival of the mid-1970s leisure suit, at least among some college students I've seen. Which is horrifying. The first time I saw someone in one of them, I had to call my mother to find out if I actually remembered it from my father's wardrobe. (I did.)
posted by steady-state strawberry at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
I think it was Tom + Lorenzo's blog on the styles in Mad Men that made me start being able to date people based upon their clothing style rather than how old they seem to look.
Then again -- even expensive clothing is generally awful these days, and there's some modern styles (skinny stretch jeans, I'm looking at you) that just don't work for me. Why shouldn't I stick with the clothing I'm familiar with? (And that's gendered, too -- older men's clothing looks distinguished, while older women's clothing looks dated.)
And again again, if we want to talk about horrifically dated styles, there seems to be a revival of the mid-1970s leisure suit, at least among some college students I've seen. Which is horrifying. The first time I saw someone in one of them, I had to call my mother to find out if I actually remembered it from my father's wardrobe. (I did.)
posted by steady-state strawberry at 9:33 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
since nobody else has, relevant.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:37 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:37 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
In 2017, we'll have the 2010 aesthetic revival.
In 2020, we'll have the 2015 aesthetic revival.
In 2025, we'll have the 2024 aesthetic revival.
In 2030 we'll have the 2030 aesthetic revival.
In 2035 we'll have the 2037 aesthetic revival.
posted by beerperson at 9:37 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
In 2020, we'll have the 2015 aesthetic revival.
In 2025, we'll have the 2024 aesthetic revival.
In 2030 we'll have the 2030 aesthetic revival.
In 2035 we'll have the 2037 aesthetic revival.
posted by beerperson at 9:37 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Was there ever 40's nostalgia? I don't really recall it. Of course that doesn't prove much!
posted by thelonius at 9:50 AM on May 19, 2016
posted by thelonius at 9:50 AM on May 19, 2016
I totally agree with this but boy my perception of this is so different as a dude who came of age in the middle of hip-hop/rap/R&B supremacy and spent time fighting against it in that dumb teen way for reasons that in retrospect were pretty dumb teen reasons. But, like, in my recollection of what was the Cultural Powerhouse was 1992-1996 was Wu Tang, Tupac and Biggie and the start of the huge R&B explosion with Mariah Carey and so on, and then 96-99ish was Puff Daddy and post-Biggie Bad Boy Records and then the peak of R&B with Brandy, Monica, Aaliyah you name 'em as well as weird-but-still-mainstream hiphop getting big like Missy Elliot and Bustah Rhymes.
You are a bit younger than me, IIRC...and definitely I'd say that my generation of white people was the last generation where you could plausibly grow up with little familiarity with hip-hop without actually seeking to avoid it - and that's only true for people like me who grew up in a very white part of flyover country. I really had very little access to rap or hip-hop as a junior high or HS student - music distribution was so different then. And even when I was in college, it wasn't at all like it is now - like, I would never think that someone was musically literate (at least in terms of popular music) if they knew nothing about hip-hop or said that they hated it or whatever, which was not the general understanding in the white social circles I moved in during the nineties.
Part of this was sheer racist dumbassery, of course; part of it was musical distribution being so difficult Before The Internet; part of it was living in really segregated places. Part of it was knowledge-loss - all kinds of hip-hop that might have interested me, and all kinds of narratives about hip-hop that might have interested me, were so obscure in my social circle that I just literally could not know. And again, racist dumbassery - in the early nineties, respectable white newspaper commenters could opine that rap was just noise, and obscene noise at that, and even if you were pretty skeptical of white newspaper commenters, you might easily have no access to other discourse if you were a white kid in a flyover suburb. So while you (and by "you" I mean "me") might assume that rap was not actually terrible and stupid and that the newspaper commenters were a bunch of boring idiots, you certainly didn't have the kind of information, videos and music available that folks have now.
So that's a really important point - my nineties is a pretty white nineties, musically. And I guess race should be another variant on nineties-ness along with region, class, etc.
posted by Frowner at 9:53 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
Punks will be wearing Dick Cheney shirts in 2025.
I've seen a few different people wearing Reagan Bush '84 T-Shirts lately. They're new shirts and made to look new, not distressed or aged. I'm not sure where or why they got them. These were middle-class 40-somethings in the suburbs. I really don't know if they want a return to the 'good old days' (I do live in a VERY red city/county) or if it's some version of 'ironic' but regardless I will not be surprised when my grandkids wear Bush Cheney '04 shirts.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 9:54 AM on May 19, 2016
I've seen a few different people wearing Reagan Bush '84 T-Shirts lately. They're new shirts and made to look new, not distressed or aged. I'm not sure where or why they got them. These were middle-class 40-somethings in the suburbs. I really don't know if they want a return to the 'good old days' (I do live in a VERY red city/county) or if it's some version of 'ironic' but regardless I will not be surprised when my grandkids wear Bush Cheney '04 shirts.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 9:54 AM on May 19, 2016
I doubt that nostalgia for former decades will go much further. As far as time goes we're almost at the singularity. The internet has made everything from ten years ago instantly accessible. Nostalgia needs distance, a little bit of forgetfulness, and then rediscovery. Who the hell says, "I haven't heard this song in years!" any more? Nobody, because it's probably on your phone or easily findable on Youtube. Things won't age as they once did, for they'll be endlessly and effortlessly revisited. It's just a long today, and it will get longer. People born after, say, the year 2000 will have a completely different conception of personal history.
It works backward too. "The past is a foreign country", except now we're all temporal cosmopolitans. You can read Victorian women's magazines while listening to obscure 1960s comedy albums while wearing shelltoes. If you like women's short fiction from the late 1800s or Allan Sherman or a certain pair of trainers, you're neither an expert, a weirdo, or a nostalgic. They're becoming as accessible as anything else.
The internet is lifting the veil of time, and soon we will forget just how profoundly it used to effect us. Nostalgia is one of those things which could only exist under former conditions. We're almost done with it.
posted by Emma May Smith at 9:56 AM on May 19, 2016 [22 favorites]
It works backward too. "The past is a foreign country", except now we're all temporal cosmopolitans. You can read Victorian women's magazines while listening to obscure 1960s comedy albums while wearing shelltoes. If you like women's short fiction from the late 1800s or Allan Sherman or a certain pair of trainers, you're neither an expert, a weirdo, or a nostalgic. They're becoming as accessible as anything else.
The internet is lifting the veil of time, and soon we will forget just how profoundly it used to effect us. Nostalgia is one of those things which could only exist under former conditions. We're almost done with it.
posted by Emma May Smith at 9:56 AM on May 19, 2016 [22 favorites]
Was there ever 40's nostalgia? I don't really recall it. Of course that doesn't prove much!
A lot of Blitz Kids and New Romantics generally worked some forties looks. There's some forties-ness in old goth, and there's a lot of forties style in Bladerunner.
In the mid-nineties, there was some forties stuff in grunge. I recall one really lovely and politically bad photo from Vogue - I think it was a Marc Jacobs editorial - that riffed on a very famous immediately post-war British fashion photo of a woman posed against a bombed-out house. And anyway, this Marc Jacobs photo - the hair was wartime hair, very long in a soft, high updo with big curls; the suit was a forties suit, narrowly cut with decorative lapels; and the shoes were forties-style platforms; the model was posed against a ruin. The make-up was forties and seemed to me to derive from the famous "volunteer for the Red Cross" ad with....hm, was it Katherine Hepburn? Maybe. All those nineties platforms were seventies revival of twenties deco, but they were also revival of forties wooden-soled wartime platforms.
The forties don't get as much play - for good and understandable reasons, I support this in fact - as other decades, but there has been some.
posted by Frowner at 9:57 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
A lot of Blitz Kids and New Romantics generally worked some forties looks. There's some forties-ness in old goth, and there's a lot of forties style in Bladerunner.
In the mid-nineties, there was some forties stuff in grunge. I recall one really lovely and politically bad photo from Vogue - I think it was a Marc Jacobs editorial - that riffed on a very famous immediately post-war British fashion photo of a woman posed against a bombed-out house. And anyway, this Marc Jacobs photo - the hair was wartime hair, very long in a soft, high updo with big curls; the suit was a forties suit, narrowly cut with decorative lapels; and the shoes were forties-style platforms; the model was posed against a ruin. The make-up was forties and seemed to me to derive from the famous "volunteer for the Red Cross" ad with....hm, was it Katherine Hepburn? Maybe. All those nineties platforms were seventies revival of twenties deco, but they were also revival of forties wooden-soled wartime platforms.
The forties don't get as much play - for good and understandable reasons, I support this in fact - as other decades, but there has been some.
posted by Frowner at 9:57 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
I recall one really lovely and politically bad photo from Vogue - I think it was a Marc Jacobs editorial - that riffed on a very famous immediately post-war British fashion photo of a woman posed against a bombed-out house.
This one?
Cecil Beaton. The building is the Middle Temple.
posted by Emma May Smith at 10:04 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
This one?
Cecil Beaton. The building is the Middle Temple.
posted by Emma May Smith at 10:04 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
The internet is lifting the veil of time, and soon we will forget just how profoundly it used to effect us. Nostalgia is one of those things which could only exist under former conditions. We're almost done with it.
Pls back my kickstarter, I'm going to live a pre-internet life free of technological conveniences and distractions -- and blog about it!
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:04 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Pls back my kickstarter, I'm going to live a pre-internet life free of technological conveniences and distractions -- and blog about it!
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:04 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
The forties don't get as much play - for good and understandable reasons, I support this in fact - as other decades, but there has been some.
I wonder how much of that is because the generational fashion nostalgia is, inherently I guess, a pop culture nostalgia and 40s-era pop culture specifically being way too uncomfortably patriotic for a time when so many people have so much beef with the government and the wars it has involved us in. Like it's as if there's about 20-year gap between ~1930 and ~1950 of Off Limits Nostalgia just because it's almost impossible for white people to rose-lens that particular era of US history in a way that, for instance, they (sigh, we) can with the Gatsby '20s or the Rockin' '50s or whenever even though those were eras of pretty intense turmoil for a lot of people.
posted by griphus at 10:06 AM on May 19, 2016
I wonder how much of that is because the generational fashion nostalgia is, inherently I guess, a pop culture nostalgia and 40s-era pop culture specifically being way too uncomfortably patriotic for a time when so many people have so much beef with the government and the wars it has involved us in. Like it's as if there's about 20-year gap between ~1930 and ~1950 of Off Limits Nostalgia just because it's almost impossible for white people to rose-lens that particular era of US history in a way that, for instance, they (sigh, we) can with the Gatsby '20s or the Rockin' '50s or whenever even though those were eras of pretty intense turmoil for a lot of people.
posted by griphus at 10:06 AM on May 19, 2016
Was there ever 40's nostalgia?
Yes. In the 80's.
posted by antinomia at 10:22 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Yes. In the 80's.
posted by antinomia at 10:22 AM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
The internet is lifting the veil of time, and soon we will forget just how profoundly it used to effect us. Nostalgia is one of those things which could only exist under former conditions. We're almost done with it.
I miss nostalgia.
posted by Kabanos at 10:29 AM on May 19, 2016 [7 favorites]
I miss nostalgia.
posted by Kabanos at 10:29 AM on May 19, 2016 [7 favorites]
I remember after the original iMacs came out, everything was being marketed in translucent blue and I also remember thinking, "that's going to look so late '90s real soon".
A pc recyling place with a retail store i really like recently put out a bunch of those imacs priced at $200
Two hundred dollars.
I think they sold. That's an item that not even a year ago thrift stores couldn't give away for $9.99, and some wouldn't even accept because they don't take anything with a CRT because it's heavy, doesn't sell, and is then annoying to recycle.
Next up, and i'm calling it now, is the mid 2000s white plastic ipod/imac/general plasticy white product era. I bet it wont even take very long. Some of the cool people i know are already rocking early ipods again...
posted by emptythought at 10:33 AM on May 19, 2016
A pc recyling place with a retail store i really like recently put out a bunch of those imacs priced at $200
Two hundred dollars.
I think they sold. That's an item that not even a year ago thrift stores couldn't give away for $9.99, and some wouldn't even accept because they don't take anything with a CRT because it's heavy, doesn't sell, and is then annoying to recycle.
Next up, and i'm calling it now, is the mid 2000s white plastic ipod/imac/general plasticy white product era. I bet it wont even take very long. Some of the cool people i know are already rocking early ipods again...
posted by emptythought at 10:33 AM on May 19, 2016
There's an small but expanding CRT bubble going on right now because knowledge that certain brands of CRTs are really much better at displaying certain sorts of media (old videogames, mostly) than LED/LCD/Plasma screens and that also they're not making any more CRTs so there's a limited supply. It's going to be fun to watch that play out.
posted by griphus at 10:36 AM on May 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by griphus at 10:36 AM on May 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
I knew there was a reason I hadn't thrown out that giant Sampo monitor yet!
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:40 AM on May 19, 2016
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:40 AM on May 19, 2016
As I understand it the really in-demand ones are Sony CRTs that were used for medical imaging as they are generally the clearest by necessity.
posted by griphus at 10:41 AM on May 19, 2016
posted by griphus at 10:41 AM on May 19, 2016
ᵂᴱᴸᶜᴼᴹᴱ ᵀᴼ ᵀᴴᴱ
ｖ∘ａ∘ｐ◦ｏ∘ｒ∘ｗ∘ａ∘ｖ∘ｅ ａ∘ｅ∘ｓ∘ｔ∘ｈ∘ｅ∘ｔ∘ｉ∘ｃ
posted by egypturnash at 10:45 AM on May 19, 2016
ｖ∘ａ∘ｐ◦ｏ∘ｒ∘ｗ∘ａ∘ｖ∘ｅ ａ∘ｅ∘ｓ∘ｔ∘ｈ∘ｅ∘ｔ∘ｉ∘ｃ
posted by egypturnash at 10:45 AM on May 19, 2016
Do you want clear for videogames? The sprites are generally designed with a little bit of blur in mind.
posted by Artw at 10:47 AM on May 19, 2016
posted by Artw at 10:47 AM on May 19, 2016
Ok I found out what kind of insufferable hipster I want to be. I want to be the guy who plays an original Sega Master System hooked up to a medical imaging CRT.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:48 AM on May 19, 2016 [13 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:48 AM on May 19, 2016 [13 favorites]
The CRTs do the pixel blur "correctly" because even the sharpest ones don't display individual pixels.
Here's a two-hour long podcast about this which is where I found out about the medical imaging CRTs.
posted by griphus at 10:49 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Here's a two-hour long podcast about this which is where I found out about the medical imaging CRTs.
posted by griphus at 10:49 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Insufferable hipster as William Gibson character.
posted by Artw at 10:49 AM on May 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:49 AM on May 19, 2016 [4 favorites]
Next up, and i'm calling it now, is the mid 2000s white plastic ipod/imac/general plasticy white product era. I bet it wont even take very long. Some of the cool people i know are already rocking early ipods again...
posted by emptythought
Old iPods selling for thousands of dollars on eBay. Not sure if anyone actually paid those prices.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:59 AM on May 19, 2016
posted by emptythought
Old iPods selling for thousands of dollars on eBay. Not sure if anyone actually paid those prices.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:59 AM on May 19, 2016
Oh man, I was so cheesed when I dropped a dumbbell on my 4th-gen iPod and got the sad face. A friend gave me her disused iPod Mini to replace it, which was loaded with pretty much nothing but Y2K boy band music. Topical.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:14 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by uncleozzy at 11:14 AM on May 19, 2016 [2 favorites]
There's a lot of early nineties higher-end mass production clothes that are still made in the US; by the end of the nineties they're all offshore and the quality has dropped.
I can remember having conversations with my girlfriends in the late 1990s about how clothing wasn't holding up like it used to. Naive children that we were, I don't think it occurred to us to check the labels for manufacturing location. But yeah, that was the decade that incubated fast fashion.
posted by sobell at 11:16 AM on May 19, 2016
I can remember having conversations with my girlfriends in the late 1990s about how clothing wasn't holding up like it used to. Naive children that we were, I don't think it occurred to us to check the labels for manufacturing location. But yeah, that was the decade that incubated fast fashion.
posted by sobell at 11:16 AM on May 19, 2016
As I understand it the really in-demand ones are Sony CRTs that were used for medical imaging as they are generally the clearest by necessity.
Yup, and broadcast/production monitors(which in fact those were).
There was recently a guy in Seattle giving away a huge pile of those Sony monitor. I got two, and apparently the guy had gotten literally continuous messages all day.
There's also a lower, but definitely there demand for decent quality CRTs like the sony WEGA trinitrons and certain early 2000s high end computer monitors. Those still go for peanuts or free on craigslist regularly, though.
posted by emptythought at 11:24 AM on May 19, 2016
Yup, and broadcast/production monitors(which in fact those were).
There was recently a guy in Seattle giving away a huge pile of those Sony monitor. I got two, and apparently the guy had gotten literally continuous messages all day.
There's also a lower, but definitely there demand for decent quality CRTs like the sony WEGA trinitrons and certain early 2000s high end computer monitors. Those still go for peanuts or free on craigslist regularly, though.
posted by emptythought at 11:24 AM on May 19, 2016
Whenever anyone I know buys a Trinitron I always ask how much it was per pound bc an equal volume of bricks would prob weigh less.
posted by griphus at 11:26 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by griphus at 11:26 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Old iPods selling for thousands of dollars on eBay.
*checks price of circa-2000 Palm Pilot that is hidden somewhere in the closet*
Ten bucks. :(
posted by Kabanos at 11:46 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
*checks price of circa-2000 Palm Pilot that is hidden somewhere in the closet*
Ten bucks. :(
posted by Kabanos at 11:46 AM on May 19, 2016 [1 favorite]
Old iPods selling for thousands of dollars on eBay.
Only brand new ones. My slightly scratched up 1st gen ipod(with the real rotating wheel!) is still only worth like $50. Which is basically, linearly, exactly what it cost when i bought it for "super cheap" in like 2006.
posted by emptythought at 12:24 PM on May 19, 2016
Only brand new ones. My slightly scratched up 1st gen ipod(with the real rotating wheel!) is still only worth like $50. Which is basically, linearly, exactly what it cost when i bought it for "super cheap" in like 2006.
posted by emptythought at 12:24 PM on May 19, 2016
Out of all the fashion that came out of the 90s, I'm really, really, really surprised that sagging jeans have stayed a thing with the kids. You can tell which men in my area were 90s teens because they still have the "JNCO" aesthetic of HUGE denim jackets and those huge, wide jeans, usually with elaborate embroidery on the pockets, and the young bloods laugh at their outfits. No one around here wears anything shiny or in wild, fluorescent colors, though.
I've got clothes that I still wear what I bought in 1983. Lacoste polos and Sperry Topsiders are forever, I guess.
posted by droplet at 2:29 PM on May 19, 2016
I've got clothes that I still wear what I bought in 1983. Lacoste polos and Sperry Topsiders are forever, I guess.
posted by droplet at 2:29 PM on May 19, 2016
*checks price of circa-2000 Palm Pilot that is hidden somewhere in the closet*
Phtt, Handspring Visor, dude. That's the future.
posted by bongo_x at 2:30 PM on May 19, 2016
Phtt, Handspring Visor, dude. That's the future.
posted by bongo_x at 2:30 PM on May 19, 2016
Wasn't the whole swing music revival '40s nostalgia?
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:28 PM on May 19, 2016
posted by The Card Cheat at 3:28 PM on May 19, 2016
Wasn't the whole swing music revival '40s nostalgia?
I'd say so. You could probably date the origins of big band jazz to the '30s--Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" came out in 1932, for example--but a lot of the '90s swing revival stuff seemed to reference a later sound.
Also from the '40s: Film noir, Bugs Bunny, and Batman.
posted by arto at 7:06 PM on May 19, 2016
I'd say so. You could probably date the origins of big band jazz to the '30s--Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing" came out in 1932, for example--but a lot of the '90s swing revival stuff seemed to reference a later sound.
Also from the '40s: Film noir, Bugs Bunny, and Batman.
posted by arto at 7:06 PM on May 19, 2016
"It works backward too. "The past is a foreign country", except now we're all temporal cosmopolitans. You can read Victorian women's magazines while listening to obscure 1960s comedy albums while wearing shelltoes. If you like women's short fiction from the late 1800s or Allan Sherman or a certain pair of trainers, you're neither an expert, a weirdo, or a nostalgic. They're becoming as accessible as anything else.
The internet is lifting the veil of time, and soon we will forget just how profoundly it used to effect us. Nostalgia is one of those things which could only exist under former conditions. We're almost done with it."
I was thinking about this too — I think that it's something that's beyond the internet, though the internet has accelerated it. I think it has to do with how much more persistent recorded media has made everything — it's been a growing thing since Gutenberg. But that, like, '60s music still has a fair amount of cultural currency — it's 50 years old. It's like if young people in the '70s were still really into '20s music.
But I disagree about it destroying nostalgia — the increase in persistence hasn't eliminated ephemerality, especially as distribution costs fall. It's just that the trends will cycle more quickly and that the idea of big, cultural touchstones will largely be supplanted. Even as Frowner mentions, people are nostalgic for different '90s.
posted by klangklangston at 8:31 PM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
The internet is lifting the veil of time, and soon we will forget just how profoundly it used to effect us. Nostalgia is one of those things which could only exist under former conditions. We're almost done with it."
I was thinking about this too — I think that it's something that's beyond the internet, though the internet has accelerated it. I think it has to do with how much more persistent recorded media has made everything — it's been a growing thing since Gutenberg. But that, like, '60s music still has a fair amount of cultural currency — it's 50 years old. It's like if young people in the '70s were still really into '20s music.
But I disagree about it destroying nostalgia — the increase in persistence hasn't eliminated ephemerality, especially as distribution costs fall. It's just that the trends will cycle more quickly and that the idea of big, cultural touchstones will largely be supplanted. Even as Frowner mentions, people are nostalgic for different '90s.
posted by klangklangston at 8:31 PM on May 19, 2016 [3 favorites]
Sitting down at the piano now with my 1992 hair to play through the Gem Dance Folio For 1941.
posted by enf at 10:25 PM on May 19, 2016
posted by enf at 10:25 PM on May 19, 2016
My niece listens to Nirvana and wants Doc Martens for her birthday. Every now and then I ask her: "What year is it?"
Nostalgia won't die though. It's such a personal thing. If anything, the Internet will make it worse because that obscure Egyptian Elvis commercial you vaguely remember in a morning haze will be available on Youtube. Suddenly that summer of 1982 will come roaring back. And you'll post it somewhere and there will be friends and strangers who will get all nostalgic with you.
posted by honestcoyote at 1:27 AM on May 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
Nostalgia won't die though. It's such a personal thing. If anything, the Internet will make it worse because that obscure Egyptian Elvis commercial you vaguely remember in a morning haze will be available on Youtube. Suddenly that summer of 1982 will come roaring back. And you'll post it somewhere and there will be friends and strangers who will get all nostalgic with you.
posted by honestcoyote at 1:27 AM on May 20, 2016 [2 favorites]
I may have been flippant in my first comment, but most of my favorite bands (Devo, Sparks, OMD, Kraftwerk...) had their biggest hits before I was even born. Not long in some of those cases, but still before.
As for a tech aesthetic revival, I only want a vintage iPod if someone slaps a high-capacity SSD in it. I can't fit all my music on my iPhone.
posted by SansPoint at 12:43 PM on May 20, 2016
As for a tech aesthetic revival, I only want a vintage iPod if someone slaps a high-capacity SSD in it. I can't fit all my music on my iPhone.
posted by SansPoint at 12:43 PM on May 20, 2016
Frowner: "I mean, "Is the Y2k aesthetic set to return"? Of course it is, because the engines of capital require that everything return, eventually."
I look forward to codpieces coming back.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:09 AM on May 23, 2016
I look forward to codpieces coming back.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:09 AM on May 23, 2016
I'm suprised that the Spaceman advert, which I thought of as being a part of this aesthetic, was actually way back in 95. 20 years since everyone being briefly excited by then disappointed in Babylon Zoo!
posted by Artw at 11:16 AM on May 23, 2016
posted by Artw at 11:16 AM on May 23, 2016
I look forward to codpieces coming back.
Check your memail.
posted by bongo_x at 3:37 PM on May 23, 2016
Check your memail.
posted by bongo_x at 3:37 PM on May 23, 2016
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In 2020, we'll have the 2015 aesthetic revival.
In 2025, we'll have the 2024 aesthetic revival.
posted by SansPoint at 7:54 AM on May 19, 2016 [7 favorites]