Anyone who has been following the news or paying attention on the streets and public transportation over the past week may have noticed that corded earbuds are hot again. No doubt sparked by famous influencers casually posing on their socials with - yes - the old-fashioned earbuds in. With a wire that is not (yet) tangled. What brand will quickly capitalize on this? Will we all soon be lining up again for the new Apple earbuds with tangled cords? I can't imagine it, but maybe I'm old-fashioned in that sense. Retro and vintage, especially among young people, has been the future for a while.
Last year, while cleaning out my storage room, I found two 20-year-old digital cameras among the box of cables (which I think I will need someday) and put them on the marketplace.
I was barely laughed at home for going to this trouble for probably 5 or 10 euros. In the days that followed, however, a considerable bidding war ensued for the Canon Ixus 85IS and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35. Within a week there was a happy Gen-Z'er at the door who was going on a trip around the world and -just like me 17 years ago- wanted to capture memories with my oldskool digital camera.
The yearning for using products from previous decades is a fascinating trend that doesn't seem to be over anytime soon. Look at record stores that just won't disappear from the scene because LPs and CDs are gaining popularity.
The reason behind the popular love of products a previous generation grew up with is not always emotional in nature but sometimes functional. A good friend and father of three young children told me he had a conversation during a parents' evening about their children's use of cell phones. Should you facilitate that or not? One solution suggested was the old-fashioned home phone. Then the boyfriends and girlfriends can just call each other but are not tempted to go gaming or get swallowed up in the worldwide web. Apparently, many millenial parents have that phone back in the house that they laughed at their parents for just a few years ago. Things can get crazy.
You also hear more and more Gen-Z'ers about phasing out phone use. Over-stimulation and addiction is at the root of it. And many are putting their money where their mouth is. Demand for old cell phones, such as brick-like Nokias, Motorola's and Samsung folding phones, is exploding.
When I started at Media House nine years ago, I often jokingly heard from acquaintances and colleagues that print is dead.
While its reach is declining, what may give hope is that reading books are in demand among young people. Again, influencers, the so-called BookTokkers and Bookstagrammers, play an important role. Reading books makes you more attractive on social media and on dating apps, research shows. Performative reading is deliberately showing that you read, such as by displaying books in public or on social media and even in your dating profile. Print is certainly not dead, rather alive and kicking. Millions of people still read the paper newspaper. Only the share among young people who read the paper newspaper is low. But perhaps newspaper influencers will soon be on... The future cannot be predicted but it would still be interesting for us media minded people if in a few years we see Gen Alpha's on the terrace or in the train opening the paper newspaper en masse again. Not only because it's cool, but also because you learn something.
