I Got Hit Clips for Christmas

'23-'24 trend recap & predictions, my fav newsletters & books, The OC NYE 🎊

Hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season! I’ve been knitting a scarf and watching Gilmore Girls for the first time. Babbo Natale got me an espresso machine and a pasta maker, so now I’m going to host monthly open houses where my friends can come over and eat pasta and affogato. My sister got me a Hit Clips boombox among other nostalgic things, which I’ll share more about in next week’s newsletter!

In this issue:
📲 A Year [Online] In Review
🔮 Nicole’s Crystal Ball
💌 Year of The Newsletter
📚 Nicstalgia Book Club

See you next week! I hope you are spending New Year’s with people you love. If not, I hope that they run into the door to kiss you – at the last second, right before midnight – a la Ryan Atwood. Just make sure to thank them when they tell you they love you. 🎲

Support Nicstalgia with a paid subscription for less than a Hit Clips boombox with accompanying 30-second clips of your favorite songs from 2001.

📲 A Year [Online] In Review

2023 was the year of Barbiecore, gorpcore, quiet luxury, the Eras & Renaissance tours, and ‘sports mania’ (aka. blokette, or as I like to call it, Sporty Spice chic). Y2K was the top category on Depop!! They are predicting Sleaze Academia, Lazy Luxe, Post Romance and Sports Quest as the most popular trend categories on their platform in 2024. Depop also says “Dual Reality” will be a theme in 2024, which is interesting because I’m already working on a Nicstalgia episode about the layers of irony.

Social Media Trends Roundup:
• Year on TikTok 2023
• TikTok What's Next 2024 Trend Report
• 2024 Instagram Trend Talk
• 2024 Pinterest Predicts

More recaps/predictions/commentary on the year:
• 2023 Roundup (Sociology of Business)
• Going Backward Was the Biggest Trend of 2023 (New York Times)
• The 21 Most Defining Memes of 2023 (Rolling Stone)
• Despite trend fatigue, these TikTok aesthetics ruled 2023 (Mashable)
• What Will Be The “It” Beauty Look Of 2024? (Beauty Independent)
• What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report (Netflix)

---

🔮 Nicole’s Crystal Ball

Talked with Anna at Usurpator Mag recently about how TikTok has democratized trend forecasting…so not to be a trend forecaster….BUT random things pop in my head intuitively, and I feel compelled to share.

My 2024 predictions with absolutely no particular reasoning:
• Metal accessories, key chains, jewelry, dog tags, etc. Like what you would make in tech ed in middle school
• Wide belts, a la 2007 (I’m still rooting for dresses over jeans btw)
• Niche hobbies (i.e. pressing flowers, birdwatching; anything a historical American Girl doll would do)
• Speaking of AG, little coin purses like the velvet one Samatha Parkington has. SLGs need to have another big moment.
• 2000s scrapbooking renaissance!!!!!! Rubber stamps, Mod Podging, collaging, stickers, the whole nine yards.
• More mainstream physical media/hardware renaissance: CDs, tape cassettes, camcorders, iPods, etc.
• Dairy having its greatest impact since Got Milk? (butter, milk, sour cream, even heavy whipping cream)
• Something with psychedelics (might be a little early on this, but maybe they get decriminalized in more states after the election and a new edibles category emerges, like a successor to adaptogenic mushroom chocolate)
• Smells but in formats that are not jarred candles: incense, weird/random plug-in scents, those wax melt things, candles shaped like food, etc. I could also see celebrities endorsing scents that are not just traditional fragrances, i.e. laundry detergent, cleaning supplies.

These were some of my 2023 predictions:
• Offline activities. Big. Well, at least in extremely niche NYC scenes. See: Club Chess, Reading Rhythms, Perpetual Stew.
• Pickle ball. Absolutely huge. I saw pickle ball rackets in the dollar section at Target the other day. Making a Racket is also a Pinterest trend for ‘24.
• Grandma stuff. Coastal Grandmother was already an aesthetic, but I meant like tacky, outdated, kitschy grandma. I diedddd when these Danish Butter Cookies nails went viral. This might have been an early call; Eclectic Grandpa and Kitschens are also Pinterest trends for ‘24.
• Fashion Stuff: Business Casual, Going Out Tops, Peplum Tops (definitely but we’ll see more I’m afraid); alternate leather goods (definitely; see Coachtopia); Tory Burch wrap bracelet, Michael Kors watches (might be a little early on these; I heard someone say Tory was gonna blow up again); Alexander McQueen skull scarves. I SAW ONE IN MY LOCAL TJ MAXX LAST MONTH!!!!! 2012 ME IS IN DISBELIEF!!!!
• Mass panic about AI. Wasn’t as bad as I thought. We did see a lil mainstream moment when people were doing that 90s yearbook trend on Instagram.

---

💌 Year of The Newsletter

2023 was the year I started looking forward to checking my inbox. People are surprised to hear that I receive virtually no promotional/shopping emails; it’s all newsletters, editorial, and journalism with my talented friends and favorite writers at the helm. I highly suggest:
• Pop culture and digital culture: Dirt. If you need a starting point, here were my fav pieces from 2023.
•

The Sociology of Business

by

Ana Andjelic

• Art and internet culture: (¯`*•.¸,¤°´✿.｡.:* 𝐈'м ᶤℕ 𝐥𝐨𝓥ᗴ ŴιＴʰ 𝕄𝕐 𝓹𝓸𝐫т@𝐥 *.:｡.✿`°¤,¸.•*´¯)by

Molly Soda

• Gen Z trends and youth culture: After School by Casey Lewis
• Consumer business news: Feed Me by Emily Sundberg
• Living a life of leisure:

Palm Report

by Poolsuite
• Astrology: The Curiosity Report with Aliza Kelly

---

📚 Nicstalgia Book Club

I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve read for the past several years. The end goal was always to finish the book. My friend from writing club suggested to instead keep track of books you’ve started! What I’ve also enjoyed doing, instead of making reading a task, is to write down where/how I acquired the books. I went to so many cool and unique bookstores and library sales, so it’s nice to keep track of the experiences.

nicoletremaglio

A post shared by @nicoletremaglio

My favorite books I read this year:
I don’t think I’ve ever preordered a book as fast as I did with Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo's Mainstream Explosion 1999-2008 by Chris Payne. The oral history format is super interesting, and no matter how much you know or remember about the scene, I guarantee you’ll learn something new. I am particularly nostalgic for this era and found the book, as was the accompanying playlist, very interesting. Chris is a friend of the show (His appearance Nicstalgia was the top-watched episode on YouTube this year!) and I had a great time at his book signing event in NYC!!

In the celebrity memoir sub-category: The Woman in Me by Britney Spears (duh) and Down the Drain by Julia Fox. I listened to Julia’s audiobook and was super pleasantly surprised to hear her speak at length about her bicultural Italian-American upbringing between Northern Italy and New York City. (Her pronouncing Italian words made my heart happy.) TW: It’s quite harrowing and absolutely not for the faint of heart – like the movie Thirteen, except WAY worse, if you could imagine – but I enjoyed it and am fascinated by her.

Under the identity/social sciences/sociology/sociopolitical umbrella: No Logo by Naomi Klein (20 years old but still so relevant, esp in the age of fast fashion), Status and Culture by W. David Marx, and Aesthetic Labour: Rethinking Beauty Politics In Neoliberalism by Ana Sofia Elias, Rosalind Gill and Christina Scharff were my absolute favorites. These are the kind of books I stay up at night and think about!!!!!!! I’m going to be writing about aesthetic labor x artificial intelligence more in 2024; this is as topic I’m VERY excited to immerse myself in.

fembiotic

A post shared by @fembiotic

In the “deep conversations about superficial things” category, we have Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer. (TW: it contains some intense subject matter.) I think about this topic sooooooo often. Monsters not only depicts many examples of well-respected or revered yet deeply problematic men; it also makes a point about the deep seated societal and cultural biases that define what we even call “iconic”, “historic”, “relevant”, “influential”, etc. in the first place. What about women who are monsters? Are you a monster? There really isn’t an answer here about where we “draw the line” about horrible celebrities who commit heinous crimes AND also make art and culture that we love. It’s subjective. Adryan wrote a great piece about this too – what happens when a now-icky favorite shows up on Spotify Wrapped?? Monsters was a deeply interesting and thought-provoking book.

---

🧨 Spice Up Your Life

Connect with Nicole on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok

Support Nicstalgia by pledging a monthly or annual newsletter subscription

Collect the Nicstalgia digital flip phone on Zora

Watch and subscribe to the Nicstalgia podcast on YouTube

Watch, follow, and rate the Nicstalgia podcast on Spotify

Listen, follow, review, and rate the Nicstalgia podcast on Apple Podcasts

Act like it’s the 90s and simply tell your friends about Nicstalgia!