If you opened your TikTok feed or Instagram Explore page at any point in 2025, you’d notice a curious pattern: images of vinyl records, worn notebooks with fountain pen ink, and vintage film cameras cropping up everywhere. This isn’t random nostalgia or harmless aesthetic play. It’s a cultural movement — one driven by a collective desire to slow down, to feel texture, and to be present in a world drowning in digital speeds and algorithmic curation.
This analog renaissance — sometimes called Analog Escapism — sees people deliberately gravitating toward non-digital mediums. Whether it’s playing a record on a turntable, writing by hand in a journal, or using a film camera that forces you to wait for actual development, these activities offer tactile, real-world experiences that screen time simply cannot replicate. In 2025, Gen Z and Millennials alike are embracing these practices not just for aesthetic reasons, but as active resistance to digital overload and attention fatigue.
The appeal of analog isn’t just about looking retro. Vinyl sales have been rising steadily, and analog photography — from disposable cameras to classic 35mm setups — is regaining traction because it demands engagement with the material world. In contrast to the infinite scroll, analog experiences are finite: a roll of film has a limited number of shots; a vinyl record forces you to listen to an entire side before flipping it over. This constraint feels refreshing in an era where digital media tries to optimize every second of attention. truffleculture.com
This isn’t happening in isolation. Broader consumer patterns reflect that people now associate analog media with presence, intentionality, and emotional authenticity. Handwritten journals are not just tools for note-taking but interfaces with the self; film cameras are not just photographic tools but rituals of memory; vinyl records are not just music carriers but aesthetic events. Each action — dropping the needle, turning the page, winding a film camera — reinforces the idea that time and experience should be felt, not just scrolled past.
For a cultural parallel in visual arts, look at how some creators emphasize physicality and expressive texture in their conceptual work — such as in Ursus Wehrli’s playful rearrangements of famous paintings
— which reframe the familiar and prompt viewers to slow their perception down.
Even mainstream wellness trends echo this shift: analog activities like crossword puzzles, watercolors, and journaling are often packaged as antidotes to digital strain, and products marketed under hashtags like #AnalogBag compendiously collect these interests into a single “screen-free” aesthetic.
Whether it’s the crackle of vinyl, the delay of developing film, or the time-intensive craft of handwriting, the current obsession with analog suggests a deeper yearning: for a slower, more intentional, and fundamentally human experience. In a moment when screens mediate nearly every interaction, analog technologies remind us what it feels like to touch life — literally and metaphorically — instead of just observing it through glass.
