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The Stress of Being a Pop Culture Meme
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For seemingly every Internet culture sub-niche—puppies behaving badly, chakra-healing rituals, butt-building exercises—there’s an Instagram account (or 50) associated with it. Many are firmly rooted in the here and now, offering viewers momentary diversion, or in the future, with aspirational insight or actionable advice. But more recently, nostalgia, especially the decade-specific variety, is where this lies. As the popularity of accounts like @oldceline, @virgomood, or @velvetcoke proves, the past increasingly occupies its own sizable share of the Insta culture market.
Take @90sanxiety, the still-anonymous creative force behind one of the accounts leading the charge in this space. Here’s what we can tell you: launched in December 2016, the account is helmed by a man in his early 30s living in Toronto. He’s well-versed in fashion and has been for years but doesn’t work in the industry. At the time of writing, @90sanxiety has nearly 360K followers and typically generates between 6K and 10K likes per post, averaging a number of comments in the mid to high double digits. Some posts, like a circa-1993 shot of the late Anna Nicole Smith sitting cross-legged on a hotel bed with a logo-ed Fendi backpack, have generated over 19K likes; another, a series of goofy theatrical-style headshots from the cast of Clueless, in 1995, garnered over 33K likes and 355 comments.
The reason why posts like these resonate is their transportive nature, which, for @90sanxiety, is intentional. “What I strive to do with a post is try to make people feel how I feel when I look at it, if that makes any sense,” he tells CR. “And there’s an emotional or psychological component—this time, this place, these people, this medium. Most of the time it’s a photograph. It evokes this feeling.” All of which is to say that the image of Smith, while slightly ominous, might evoke her less outwardly troubled Guess girl era, and the first time a viewer glimpsed her ads in a fashion magazine. Likewise, the Clueless cast image not only reminds viewers that Paul Rudd and Stacey Dash don’t age, but that the now-23-year-old film ushered in a plethora of trends like plaid minis, terry polos, and wide headbands. Not surprisingly, a Clueless remake is in development.
By Spring/Summer of 2016, articles had begun cropping up heralding a strong yen for the ‘90s realized through the runway preponderance of grungy flannel, branded leisurewear, and diaphanous slip dresses. Insta-nostalgia for the decade had just begun in earnest when the account started @90sanxiety explains: “There were some [users] that were doing it—they were successful, they were growing, some of them—but almost all of them never focused entirely on the 1990-to-1999 period. So right away I was like, OK, challenge accepted.” Though he initially looked to Instagram itself for inspiration, he didn’t want the account to simply comprise a series of fashionable reposts. The images that do make it onto the account aren’t from a special archive, @90sanxiety says, only a personal one that’s built up over time. Everything he sources can be found online, he adds.
@90sanxiety is a one-man operation, sans ads, sponsorship, or editorial calendars, at least for right now. While he’s potentially open to collaborating with the right people in the future, the autonomous nature of the account allows him to fully compose at will, which typically suits him. Posts are created on the fly, on feeling, or pegged to current events. Shortly after Kim Kardashian West made headlines in an itsy-bitsy vintage Chanel bikini, for instance, @90sanxiety posted a 1996 runway image of supermodel Stella Tennant wearing the original, its side ties cinched beneath her jutting hip bones. While some of the commenters tagged Kardashian or commented on Tennant’s physique, others joked (ostensibly) that this was the perfect suit for their next vacay.
While images like the one of Tennant may be known to vintage aficionados and fashionphiles of a certain age, it stands out as somewhat arcane amongst shots of the still instantly recognizable: Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt. “It’s not all just popular couples or pop culture icons or really popular imagery from that time period,” @90sanxiety says. “There’s also some more obscure stuff that I’m trying to expose people to.” That might take the form of an image for the extended version of the 1994 cult film, Léon: The Professional, or a 1993 French Gap ad with model Beverly Peele.
Because the majority of the featured celebs are indeed world famous, misidentifying them—even once—can come back to bite. To wit, as @90sanxiety speaks to CR, a mini crisis is in fact brewing. A post of Jay-Z and Aaliyah from 1999 had been captioned incorrectly as “Jay Z and Ashanti”—an error that mortified @90sanxiety as the comments, many of them angry, others downright nasty, piled up. “I never want to offend anyone,” he says earnestly. “It’s really tough to navigate because I’m trying to do a good job, trying to please myself but also you know, impress or excite the people that are following the account or that come across it.”
The response is swift. The offending post is deleted, then ultimately reposted later on. New comments, 28 in all as of this writing, feature heart, flame, and thank-you hand emojis. @90sanxiety shares a comment he received and posted to his Instagram stories with CR. In it, @90sanxiety is referred to as “they,” and chastised for being too late to act. He responds by saying there is no “they” here, only him. He also apologizes for a mistake that he himself found awful given both his love for Aaliyah and admittedly scrupulous nature (hence, in part, the account’s name).
The aftermath of the episode naturally leads to a discussion of social media commenting culture and the need to act, if not necessarily react. It also reinforces @90sanxiety’s desire not to associate himself personally (yet) with his increasingly popular account. Holding oneself to exacting standards and seeking to please a large audience can be grueling, but @90sanxiety says he’s building a higher tolerance for antagonism—compartmentalizing at times and trying to cut through the Insta clutter with a more confident, zen-like composure two years in. “I want to make sure that I’m doing a good job,” he says. “So in that sense, though high anxiety still exists, now it’s changed. It’s like, OK, I know what I’m doing.”
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prev link: https://www.crfashionbook.com/culture/a25241023/90s-anxiety-culture-meme-interview/
createdAt:Tue, 20 Nov 2018 19:07:09 +0000
displayType:Long Form Article
section:Culture