There are many examples of when history repeats itself. Throughout my high school journey, I have noticed aspects of our lifestyle are starting to refer back to previous ways and trends are starting to be brought back to life. Things like fashion, music, and technology have been making their way back on top in the past couple of years. People are shifting their interests to the lifestyles of a different generation. Are we just recognizing the lifestyles throughout our history, finding them pleasing and appealing to us, or are we trying to escape the current day to another time? I guess we can never truly know why we are drawn back, but we can recognize all the amazing things that are being restored or influencing us right now.
Music
When it comes to artists in the music industry, they are always building off of each other. They Incorporate beats, lyrics, sound effects, and melodies from other songs to create a new music piece. Nowadays, we can see a lot of songs and artists sampling from songs that came out a while ago, catching people’s attention because of how familiar they sound. Here, a lot of controversy can be found between the original song and the newly created or remixed song, sampling from an earlier creation. The previous generations rightfully remind the younger generations of what they are building off, and younger generations showcase what they have made.
Personally, I was raised constantly around music from the 2000s and back. Artists like Destiny’s Child, Michael Jackson, Sean Paul, Black Eyed Peas, Avril Lavigne, and more, were all a part of my upbringing and are still on my playlist to this day. Throughout middle school and high school, I found others who grew up surrounded by similar music. Recently, I have begun to notice that people who are introduced to this music later are becoming more interested in that generation. They began to search for similar songs from that era. To me, there is a difference between growing up with a song and loving one you heard on the radio. I think this is why some people from an older generation are confused or even bitter when younger individuals listen to or try to hype music that came from an era they grew up in.
Fashion
Fashion trends are always on the move, but fashion now seems to be moving backward as trends from the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, are starting to make their way back into society. Skinny, bell bottoms, worn, low rise, along with baggy and ripped jeans, all from the Y2K era have exploded in popularity. Cargos, polos, and bucket hats from the ’90s have been reintroduced, with overalls, bomber jackets, and bucket hats slowly returning, and acid-washed jeans from the 80s following up behind them.
Between the 2010s and later into the pandemic, what was trendy shifted into the opposite of what was popular in the 2000s and back. The baggy simplified look became dormant and made way for a more slim and fitted appearance. Due to this extreme change in fashion, some generations were not exposed to stylish retro fashion. It is almost as if the fashion trends from a couple of decades ago were newly discovered, more and more people are finding them intriguing, only to find that fashion has simply been reawakened.
Polaroids
As we’re walking through life, the moments around us change, and as time continues, the way we capture the moments around us changes too. Now we mainly rely on our phones and cameras due to their ability to quickly and effectively take and store photos. However, as of 2010, the Polaroid, a vintage film camera that immediately prints out pictures from the front of the camera, began to make its return appearance after it halted production in 2008. The first Polaroid came out in 1948, producing black and white images immediately after taking the photo. They later could print images in color in 1963, but they became most prominent during the 1970s competing against the Kodak camera, a rolled film handheld camera. Now in the modern day, Polaroid has a new competitor, Instax. The most popular camera they’ve created is the mini 12, a smaller camera that prints smaller rectangular photos. The camera has added filters, each specific to a certain environment, to enhance the photos.
All around us, we can find many instances in the modern day that hint back to other times and generations. The influence that music, fashion, and technology have on us is strong, but it seems that through these three things, the customs and habits of the early 2000s and back are being revived. Of course, as we grow and change we often carry our history with us, and is often considered important to understand your past and where you come from. What seems so bizarre in this situation is that society isn’t just recognizing but slowly reverting back to the past.
