by Kayla Miller, Senior Marketing Manager | AMP Agency
Trends among Gen Z can be catch-as-catch-can, as fast as a mob wife meets a clean girl meets a Labubu. One thing that’s endured, however, is this age-set’s penchant for nostalgia and nostalgia-fueled nightmares, what is otherwise known as analog horror. Originating on YouTube and in the archives of 4chan, analog horror is an emerging subsect of the genre that focuses on pre-digital settings, found footage and lost media. For a generation steeped in internet culture, social media and all things digital, a paradox has emerged: the most online generation ever is increasingly mining the pre-digital era for cultural meaning and social touchstones.
Gen Z’s Obsession With Physical Media Is Not New
This is not new. There is a larger digital retreat happening in mindset if not consistent action across Gen Z, a rejection of the latest tech innovations in favor of physical media and considerably less advanced models. They are, after all, AI’s loudest haters. They romanticize the emergence of digital in the 90s and early 00s and highlight the potential this time offered for individual agency and creation, when tech felt more customizable, individuated and ownable. We see this in the uptick of trends like cyberdeck building, the nothing phone, wired headphones, and the massive wave of Gen Z interest in pre-digital music media like CDs, cassettes, vinyls, and even boomboxes.
Tangible Goods & In-Person Experiences Are Back in a Big Way
Gen Z’s nostalgia-fueled digital retreat extends beyond music and physical media. Try searching “frutiger aero ASMR” on YouTube, and you’ll return millions of hits with whispers against a backdrop of lime green, aquamarine, clear plastic and sealife. It seems the youth crave the opposite of the latest reiteration of minimalism, instead taking a wide swing in the opposing direction: reviving malls, meditation, and offline hobbies, to name a few. In fact, what was once deemed Millennial cringe seems to now be perceived as Millennial optimism, a romanticization of an era where social media felt more social and a lot less corporate.
The Horror of Digital Spaces That Lack Authentic Connection
The rise in analog horror, then, is the next step in this generational zeitgeist towards the physical, away from the digital – at least, away from today’s incarnation of digital. By trading their smartphones for camcorders and ring lights for video tapes, analog horror in 2026 reaches for the same romanticized alternate timeline where millennial optimism originates and online spaces haven’t yet been colonized by a handful of corporate entities.
One major breakout hit of the genre is Kane Parson’s Backrooms. Originating on YouTube as the brainchild of a teenager and topping charts with record-breaking sales, Backrooms explores liminal spaces – transitional places where people aren’t meant to linger. Analog horror predates the digital, usually includes some elements of found footage, and often evokes corporate backgrounds as a stand-in for the Big Bad, such as Backrooms’ Async Research Institute. The genre is rife with interpretive room for a generation more distrustful of marketing than any prior.
The genre’s rise on YouTube is no coincidence. This underscores a central tenet at the heart of Gen Z’s yearning: tech should be centered around individuals, not the other way around. The analog days of yesteryear Gen Z craves are inherently rooted in a more localized, individualized experience of technology – walled off from the global, with room for privacy, even intimacy.
The Takeaway for Brands: Make It Meaningful
What does this mean for brands hoping to connect with this famously-difficult-to-connect-with audience?
The options are limitless for brave brands willing to risk what’s safe by reinvigorating a bygone era with an introduction to the modern age.
- Foreground in-person and take a chance on less (or less advanced) tech – 75% of young adults (18-24-year-olds) express a desire to decenter tech and “go more analog” with offline hobbies. If messaging to this demographic, understand the dual impulse to balance the digital world with the reality of “touching grass.” Intentional moments to decenter tech offer an experience where brands can be the catalyst for conversation. A full 52% of Gen Z consumers want brands to host phone-free pop-ups or events, like Pinterest’s 2026 phone-free pop-up at Coachella or Rare Beauty’s recent Rare Offline no-phones-allowed event.
- Make shopping an intentional, holistic experience – 81% of teens and 69% of young adults regularly shop in physical stores, and one thing that hasn’t changed among the generations is the idea of shopping spaces as dual spaces for socializing and hanging out. By crafting an in-store experience that’s about more than just shopping – like what Coach is doing with its cafe-inspired store experiences that invite shoppers to sip and hang while they browse – brands can attract Gen Z shoppers who crave third spaces and intentional experiences.
- Make it material – 63% of Gen Z consumers have purchased a product or service specifically because they were influenced by a promotional item. Moreover, a staggering 90% of Gen Z consumers will recommend a product or service if they offer high-quality promo products.
- Go retro – If we can learn anything from Coca-Cola’s frutiger aero-inspired package design, J. Crew relaunching its physical catalog, or Bose’s recent wired headphones release, it’s that going retro is a way for brands to authentically engage with the analog trend by dipping into their own archives and revisiting brand history with a playful twist.
Gen Z are prioritizing digital detox, tangible goods ownership and time spent intentionally (versus mindless doomscrolling). The rise of analog horror is just one reflection of a larger trend across this generational cohort. Increasingly fatigued by digital transactions and disingenuous marketing, Gen Z’s nostalgia-fueled digital retreat emphasizes what they value: physical connection, meaningful experiences, and authentic expressions of identity. When brands stray too far from those values, that’s when things get scary for this audience.
