Nostalgia and NFTs: why we're being sucked in

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Nostalgia, I choose you

this month, McDonald's puts out limited edition Happy Meals for adults.

the nugget or Big Mac combos are a collaboration with fashion brand Cactus Plant Flea Market and come with retro branding and Hamburgular figurines (if you’re lucky).

McDonald’s Halloween tubs are also back from the mid-80s, hitting restaurants later in October.

why?

piggy-backing on positive childhood memories is an easy way for brands and products to earn trust & loyalty points. so much so, nostalgia is now a dominant sales tactic for today’s big studios and streaming services.

reboots and franchises want you to remember how it felt when you first watched Star Wars, read a Spiderman comic, or played The Last of Us, using those good vibes to get back into your wallet.

sometimes, it’s a direct repackaging of familiar material, like with the Marvel Universe, LEGO for adults, or endless Assassin's Creed games. other times, it’s about nostalgia-adjacent content that carries the warm, cinnamony aromas of childhood. think:

• Stranger Things with its D&D details

• every horror movie set in a Stephen King-esque New England town

• clothing collections with subtle nods to the 80s, 90s, 00s

• art styles that are deliberately low-res, hand-drawn, or analog

you could even think about ‘nostalgia content’ as anything that uses an audience’s childhood as a shortcut to familiarity and positive vibes.

nostalgia’s doing big numbers

influencers and studios are spending, and making, serious money on nostalgia right now. none more so than Disney, who spent over $4 billion to acquire the entire Star Wars ecosystem, making that investment back within six years.

they did the same with Marvel’s catalog of characters back in 2009, and Pixar (banking on future nostalgia material) in 2006 for over $7 billion.

meanwhile, Logan Paul is busy dropping millions on Pokemon cards and revealing them in popular unboxing videos.

elsewhere in the world of retro card games, franchises like Magic: The Gathering have seen sustained post-pandemic spikes in popularity, with around 10 million active players as of last year.

and scientists say its effects are real

this is what Psychologist Dr. Clay Routledge says about nostalgia in HBR:

• people experiencing nostalgia may be more able to “cope with life’s stressors, build strong relationships…and become more creative.”

• nostalgia “motivates the pursuit of important life goals by increasing a sense of meaning.”

• shared nostalgia trips within communities or organizations “make people more committed to the group.”

so what about NFTs?

like traditional media, some NFT collections smash the nostalgia button, while others are more delicate in the way they create nostalgic vibes.

NFT content that millennials associate with childhood memories isn’t hard to find – whether it’s 90s brands looking to cash in, or projects that spark nostalgia in less tangible ways.

what is it about BAYC that seems nostalgic?

maybe it’s just me, but there’s something in the characters and drawing style that gives Saturday morning cartoon feels. I also can’t look at a Bored Ape without thinking about the equally disaffected animated 90s primates, Gorillaz.

even the rebellious atmosphere of BYAC (likewise, CryptoPunks) seems to recall the days before we all agreed to become 00’s corporate yuppies.

Nickelodeon’s Rugrats and Hey Arnold! NFTs and the Pog Digital collection are more obvious examples of straight-up nostalgia grabs – and they’re pretty unpopular as a result.

perhaps it’s no surprise that NFTs often call back to the 90s, seeing as the decade was the last time we witnessed a major change in home computing.

what other art style would be as fitting for the next online revolution as the pixel art of Punks and a million other generative collections? harking back to Windows 95, NES, Game Boy Color, and super-concentrated pitchers of Kool-Aid.

it’s those early, egalitarian days of the web that many web3 evangelists also look to when formulating their metaverse ambitions. so maybe nostalgia is built into the wider web3 experiment?

the 90s were a blur of video games and collectibles. from Quake to Mario and Mortal Kombat, it was the decade that birthed many of today’s biggest franchises.

for NFT creators who want to reintroduce retro video and card games to a now-digital audience, it makes sense to keep the visuals consistent and benefit from a blast of warm familiarity.

the list of nostalgic NFT games is ever-increasing. there’s Tamagotchi-like games such as Aavegotchi and My DeFi Pet, Pokemon-inspired creature battle games such as Axie Infinity, and fantasy card games like Gods Unchained.

same goes for fine artists and musicians in the NFT space. 90s visual artists who were active in the early days of the web are now seeing some of their work gain new traction.

RIP Coolio.

all this without mentioning a collection that’s drawn a decent amount of popularity by explicitly promoting itself as a 90s nostalgia trip – 90s Babes.

more 90s X web3 crossover:

• VeVe is an app-based NFT marketplace that specializes in digital collectibles inc. Spiderman, Ghostbusters, and a ton-more nostalgia-ready IP

• Gather is a remote work and meeting platform with a Nintendo-style pixel art interface

• in August, Sandbox and Coinbase Wallet launched a 90’s themed contest where participants reimagined 90’s icons using The Sandbox’s VoxEdit tool

• 90s Forever was the theme of this year’s NFT NYC Afterparty, hosted by 90s Babes.

final boss thoughts

talking about pixel art in the New Yorker, Kyle Chayka says its newfound popularity is “a quest for the kind of variety and texture that massive social-media networks have gradually banished, a harkening back to a messier, more human moment in our digital lives.”

I think that’s true. but it’s important to remember that corporate studios & brands (and social networks) are sneakily good at using nostalgic art and content to make themselves messier, more human, and more desirable.

the scary thing is that so much of what we find nostalgic was IP from the start, bankrolled by corporations who knew the value of setting up home in the minds of 80s and 90s kids.

which could leave independent creators wondering if there’s any room left for smaller projects to get nostalgic with their content?

– I think there's still loads of potential for NFT projects that can use nostalgia in subtle and sensitive ways. not by trying to profit off much-loved childhood toys or trends, but by cleverly referencing the shared memories that tie the first digital generations together.

to do list: create a web3 project that captures the feelings and experiences of growing up alongside the internet.

…trading cards for high school memories?

you can pick up a Cactus Plant Flea Market x McDonalds box at participating branches starting October 3rd.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this article/newsletter should be considered financial advice. The purpose is to inform readers of the current trends and news in the web3 space. We encourage every reader to do their own research and not act upon information put forth by Decentra Daily.