Is there a hole in the space-time continuum? Consider the evidence. Freaky Friday (2003) is back, in the form of this year’s Freakier Friday. Anne Hathaway is filming a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada (2006). Pamela Anderson, goddess of the Nineties, is everywhere.
We’re hooked on Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte (on And Just Like That, but always with Sex and the City in our hearts – 1998 to 2004, may it rest in peace). Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 to 2003) is being resurrected, while Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson, aka Joey and Pacey (Dawson’s Creek, 1998 to 2003) have cracked open our jaded hearts by being photographed together amid reports of a new project.
Oasis are back, as are The Verve and Pulp, and Topshop is planning a return to the high street. So what year is it anyway? And why are we swimming in pop culture from the turn of the millennium?
If you’re in your late thirties or forties, you’re probably finding this déjà vu quite comforting. Here are all the shows, bands and stars we loved so dearly in the most tender years of our lives, and they’ve produced a whole load of delicious new content. Seeing these moments on social media and consuming them with our friends feels great too; researchers have shown that nostalgia boosts our feeling of ‘social connectedness’.
Still, the sheer quantity of it is a bit weird right now. Though we loved our teenage obsessions, we dutifully let them go many years ago; now we like The Bear and Pedro Pascal and Charli XCX. We didn’t expect them all to come back.
If you want to make sense of it, you need to know that people spend money more easily when they’re nostalgic. Studies suggest that the warm sense of community makes our need for cash feel less important. No wonder TV execs, film studios and record labels want reboots: retro stuff is big, lucrative business.
This glut of culture from 25 years ago, then, tells us exactly whose money they’re after. Yes, Generation Z is enjoying it all for the first time, but the main target is an audience of Millennials and Generation X. Last year, NielsenIQ and World Data Lab found that Millennials (then aged 29 to 44) held 22.5% of the global population’s spending power, and Gen X (then 45 to 60) another 23.5%. That’s 46% of the world’s spending coming from 41% of the population: we punch above our weight.
It’s good news for anyone who’s been feeling a bit middle-aged. We’re actually entering our most economically powerful years, or our ‘The world is designed for us’ era. Culturally, we couldn’t be more relevant – you could say we’ve been rebooted.