Translated by Benedetta Calice
For a substantial part of the European Generation Z, the Nineties are not a memory but an archive to be explored. Yet, this very "borrowed" nostalgia is becoming one of the most powerful cultural languages of the present. This is not just about Y2K aesthetics, eurodance or Britpop: it is the way a generation that did not live through that decade is trying to give shape to a future that today appears uncertain, fragmented and perpetually in a state of emergency.
The crucial question is not whether the Nineties were truly better, but why they are imagined as a time when the future still seemed like a collective project. The answer has to do with the contrast between the media image of that period and the daily experience of young Europeans today.
Why the Nineties?
In the imagery circulating on social media, musical archives and fashion aesthetics, the Nineties appear as an era of relative confidence. These are the years of Europe without internal borders, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and a globalization perceived more as an opportunity than a threat. It is the period before September 11, before the 2008 financial crisis, before the pandemic, and before the war in Ukraine. Even though that decade was marked by conflicts, inequalities, and tensions, the media memory highlights above all a promise: technology would improve life, mobility would increase, and culture would be more open.
This image clashes with the present. For young Europeans, the future no longer appears as an expansion of possibilities, but rather as a succession of crises to be managed. According to the 2024 Eurobarometer, 40% of young people aged 16 to 30 indicate rising prices and the cost of living as their primary concern for the European Union, followed by the environment and climate change (33%), as well as the economic situation and job creation (31%). Meanwhile, 45% place the protection of human rights, democracy, and peace first—a sign that global stability is perceived as fragile.
In this context, the Nineties become a symbol: not so much a real past, but an idea of "pre-polycrisis", meaning a time perceived as preceding the normalization of emergency. Nostalgia is not about historical facts, but about the feeling that the future was still shareable.
What does this nostalgia do socially?
This nostalgia without memory is not harmless. It produces concrete effects on society, culture, and the way young people position themselves regarding the present.
First, it has a consolatory function. Faced with housing precarity, unstable work, war at the EU's borders, and the climate crisis, imagining an era when the future seemed brighter offers an emotional refuge. It is no token coincidence that 60% of Generation Z dreams of a world without smartphones, despite never having known one: it is the desire for a time perceived as less saturated with connections, performance, and digital anxiety.
Second, Nineties nostalgia performs a critical function. When young people listen to eurodance, watch Y2K video clips, or dress in Nineties aesthetics, they are not just consuming a retro product. They are highlighting, by contrast, what is missing today: spaces of physical sociability, a culture less tied to content production, and nights experienced as common time rather than an extension of work or study. Musical revival and club culture become places where people seek sociability unmediated by platforms, even if only for a few hours.
Third, this nostalgia creates an identity function. In a Europe marked by economic, linguistic, and cultural differences, the Nineties offer a shared repertoire: the same songs, the same TV series, the same consumer goods, the same aesthetics. This common language allows young people from different countries to recognize themselves in a transnational imagery, which often transcends national identities.
However, there are also risks. Nostalgia can become erasure: forgetting the wars in the Balkans, mass unemployment in certain countries, and the inequalities of globalization. It can turn into consolatory consumption, where Y2K aesthetics are just a product to be sold, emptied of any critical meaning. Finally, it can be used to construct reassuring national narratives, as happened with Britpop and "Cool Britannia", where music was instrumentalized to promote an edulcorated national identity.
A nostalgia that demands a future
The political question is not whether Nineties nostalgia is "right" or "wrong", but who owns it and for what purpose it is activated. If it remains confined to consumption, it offers only temporary evasion. Instead, if it becomes a language to speak about the present, it can transform into a collective question: how to recover accessible cultural spaces, how to imagine safer and more inclusive nights, and how to build a Europe that promises a future again instead of just managing emergencies.
Gen Z's nostalgia is not a desire to go back in time. It is an attempt to recover the ability to think about tomorrow together, using the past as a repertoire and not as a destination.
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