My friends and I are loosely that tail end of Generation Y, which was really the last to consciously grow up in the 1990s, which is now a decade highly romanticized on the Internet, as we come of age and long for a sense of an idyllic childhood. As I am an adult (this is up for debate) now, at age 19, I too, have been feeling some sentimentality toward my childhood, as well as observing it in society on a bigger scale. As of late, I have noticed two 90s fads that have made a triumphant comeback: the Polaroid camera and the Tamagotchi. However, both have been slightly revamped for our modern, more technological society. The Polaroid was wildly popular in the 1990s, and had been ubiquitous since the 1970s – everyone I knew owned some iteration of the camera with the fun instant film. Even my dentist’s receptionist had one to take pictures of kids with no cavities to put on the wall. The market for the Polaroid camera declined at the turn of the millenium (even with a slight bolstering with the unforgettable line in OutKast’s 2003 smash hit “Hey Ya!” – “shake it like a Polaroid picture!”) with the advent of the high quality digital camera, and eventually, Polaroid discontinued instant film in 2008. There was outrage from the nostalgia-ridden, and while projects popped up to preserve the classic Polaroid, in practice and in aesthetic (namely, the Impossible Project and Instagram), Polaroid recognized the demand for their once popular products, and recently started reproducing some instant film cameras, but nowadays their focus lies more on the digital.
That’s a picture of the Polaroid Z2300 Instant Digital Camera, which not only lets you instantly print, but edit the pictures in the camera before you do. So we children of the 90s can indulge ourselves in a little nostalgia, but with the comforts of the technology that we are now so used to. The future is now!