Gen Z are currently engaging in offensive behavior that just might be the thing to unite millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers.
The trend doesn’t involve drugs or a boring social media platform. And it has nothing to do with some weird new sex position that’s more exhausting than enjoyable.
Confrontational behavior implies that 2007 Generation Zers items are prized antiques.
“It’s vintage!” an energetic 21-year-old brandished a point-and-shoot digital camera released several years after she was born in 2001.
She was snagged at a party for Rolla’s jeans this week, where the brand’s ’90s aesthetic was amplified by all the cool-looking people in attendance, armed with their (ahem) vintage cameras from the era.
“It’s retro as shit,” another girl said of the cameras that millennials with flat-ironed bangs used to take selfies to post on MySpace while streaming the first CD of Ashley Simpson in 2004.
If the hot pink Sony Cyber-shot is vintage, then the 2007 Mazda 3 is a classic hot rod.
Model Gigi Hadid cooled the yellow Kodak disposable camera about two summers ago. Then came the re-emergence of the 80s and 90s 35mm compact cameras with film rolls. Now the next It-girl accessory is Y2K technology – those crummy little digital cameras with tiny blurry display screens.
“Well, this one is actually my great-grandfather’s,” 24-year-old fashion designer Jade Myriam said of the rectangular silver camera she was holding at the Rolla’s party, as if it were a family heirloom from the 1920s or a kerosene lamp. .
“My grandfather came to my house and said, ‘We’re going to throw them all in the trash’.”
It was about a week ago. Jade knew she had struck gold. She enthusiastically grabbed the outdated technology from her grandfather’s poop bag. The quality of the photos is poor but that’s the whole point.
“It’s crap, but it’s good,” she said.
Phoebe Wolfe, a 21-year-old freelance photographer who regularly shoots events with second-hand cameras, agrees.
“It blurs the skin. The digital camera is of lower quality, so it makes you look better,” she said.
But isn’t that what filters are for?
“Digital is coming back recently because people are blowing their bank accounts trying to afford films and development – it’s about forty dollars minimum for films including development. So many people still want that imperfect effect.
And they will do anything to get their hands on it. Y2K cameras have become hot items.
“They’re hard to get,” Sophia Ast, a 20-year-old model, said while running around Melbourne Fashion Week on Friday, brandishing a camcorder.
Of course, the Y2K bug had infected the city.
“I’ve been to all the op-shops, all the Cash Converters – they’re gone. Exhausted.”
She had wanted a 2000s-style digital video camera for three months and had to take matters into her own hands.
“JB Hi-Fi was sold out and I literally jerked off and said, ‘Give me the demo model’. I slipped a hundred dollar bill on the counter and said, ‘Give me the demo model.’ give it to me right away”.
She then paid $500 for the demo. It didn’t even come with its cables or charger.
“Is she interested in my old Swatch watch?” Author and columnist Kerri Sackville responded when texted from the front lines of Fashion Week about the latest trend.
“My parents have a desktop computer somewhere. It’s really big and produces a very satisfying roar when you turn it on.
There’s an opportunity for all of us over 30 to corner the Y2K tech market and have those Gen Z suckers pay through their noses. Let’s dig through our garages and junk drawers and start selling the relics online at a 600% markup.
We’ll be driven partly by profit, but mostly by spite for those kids who call the hot pink Sony Cyber-shot vintage. Wait until they discover those little MP3 players that don’t have a screen.
There comes a time in everyone’s life when teenage trends are discovered and reused by the next generation. One minute, you are vibrant and young. Then a 21-year-old asks you about “the old days” after you hold up a TV remote and ask, “What is this?” »
Fall Out Boy are the new Rolling Stones. Prepare to see inflatable furniture sold in antique stores.
“If you don’t have a camera on you all the time then you miss this shit, you know what I mean?” Sophia said wisely to capture moments of life.
But don’t iPhones solve this problem? This was part of the reason they were invented. You can slip an iPhone into your back pocket, unlike a cool but ultimately clumsy camcorder.
“It’s crispy. That’s grumpy, Sophia grimaced. “Imagine taking out a phone and holding it in front of someone’s face.”
We looked around the industrial parking lot where Justin Cassin’s fashion show was about to begin. Everyone was taking pictures of each other, pointing their phones…face to face.
She continued, “While you’re holding this and no one even notices you’re holding it.”
She dragged the big plastic camcorder up to her eye.
No one notices?
“Well… they do but that’s kinda cool,” she sighed. “It’s a prop.”
Twitter, Facebook: @hellojamesweir