Power of Analog
Courtesy of Miu Miu
We’re going backwards, and how wonderful that is! Even as AI reigns supreme and our digital day-to-day grows more consuming, we continuously return to older forms of technology. The early 2010s saw the vinyl revival, a trend we’re still experiencing today. The popularity of film and disposable cameras has overtaken the Instagram filters designed to replicate them. To say this is all nostalgia, while accurate, simplifies the complexity of these slow-moving trends. Analog media has that effect, but its physical presence in our lives, and what comes of it, is why we always return to it.
The Texture
The crackle of a record. The grain in a photograph. The edge of a page between your fingers. Analog media possesses a tangibility that digital media lacks. It brings back physicality into our ephemeral, digitalized existence. Seeing, hearing, and feeling the texture of physical media grounds us in the here and now.
The Ritual
Analog media encompasses a certain ritual, a sacredness. Take vinyl, for instance: the steps involved in listening to a vinyl record are methodical. You remove it from its sleeve, clean the surface, and place it on the turntable. You must even hold it a certain way to protect the record. This act demands your attention, and so you listen more intently. In contrast, streaming music on Spotify is done with the touch of a screen, often just to fill the silence during a drive to work. When you are actively involved with your media, from turning a page to flipping a record, you develop a greater appreciation for what it offers and what it represents.
The Curation
There’s something special about having a physical photograph of your friends, isn’t there? Through the ownership of physical media, we curate our lives. The photos we display, the books we own, they enrich our lives. It is a way to collect memories. It gives us a certain ownership of what we care about most, something unachievable with a streaming service.
The Gratification
These facets of analog media culminate in the practice of intentionality. Don’t let talking heads on the news tell you younger generations want everything now. These trends speak to a desire for a slower life in which we are active participants. Digital life encourages passive consumption, endlessly scrolling, swiping, or tapping. But something like taking a photo on film forces you to think about what you are photographing, while still letting you move on from the single moment of the photo until you return to it with a print.
