Peak tongue ring x cowboy hat combo

2005 = vintage, Vengaboys required viewing, 530 packs of Hannah Montana cards 💞

Jan 09, 2025

First of all, my heart goes out to anyone affected by the catastrophic fires in Los Angeles 💔 As a pop culture writer, it feels particularly dystopian to read coverage of celebrities’ homes who have been destroyed.

When tragedy strikes the center of the entertainment industry, does the public foster more empathy for those we know parasocially vs. strangers in places we’ve never been? When algorithmically-driven social media shapes what we see, does celebrities’ suffering drive relief efforts & awareness, climate activism, clicks & ad revenue, or all of the above? When wealthy people tangibly benefit from broken political and socioeconomic systems, will they take action to disrupt them once impacted firsthand by their devastating effects? In a society where outsized morality is assigned to the rich, famous, and powerful, is the aftermath of loss, death, and destruction is the only true equalizer among us? Stay safe and take care.

In today’s edition, I have links 4u:
🙏 High praise for Nicstalgia!
🎥 The Secret Screening Society is my Wiki scrolling antidote
🎤 Seeking a worthy opponent for Grab The Mic
🎸 530 PACKS of Hannah Montana collectible game cards from 2007
📸 The humbling experience of getting photos developed
👕 Sorry babe, you’re vintage, idk what to tell you…
📼 Millennials who buy houses should be making Blockbuster rooms, tbh
💚 If Charli XCX hates musicals, why does her music mash up perfectly with Wicked?
🤠 The commercial jingle that led me to Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!’s Y2K excellence
✨ Ellie Goulding was right: anything could happen!

Huge thank you to Nicstalgia supporters who I will love forever: Janine, Marie, Liv, Mitra, CY, Chet, and Jack! 💐💐💐

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📲 I’m just a simple girl in a high-tech digital world

Huge thank you to friend of the letter

Matthew Perpetua

for including Nicstalgia in a recent recommendation!! I’m in good company.

Fluxblog: Music Blog

is THE place to go for music discovery, and Matthew is pretty much the only person whose playlists I listen to other than my own.

Nicole Tremaglio writes about pop culture ephemera largely from the late 90s and 2000s with the passionate intensity of a fan and the analytical mind of a cultural theorist. I love the way she can write about mass culture from the not-too-distant past in a way that feels like explorations of deeply esoteric subjects. She’s also really good at coining new critical concepts, like her “paintball theory” of how algorithmic culture accelerates nostalgia and revivals: “what was once a tiny little ball in the distance grows in speed and velocity. It looks larger and larger as it gets closer and closer, until it goes SPLAT!!!”

Friend of the letter Zoe Cope recently launched The Secret Screening Society, where you get access to monthly film selection, decor ideas, hidden production insights, and themed snack and beverage guides. Imagine not having to scroll Wikipedia while half paying attention (me) so you can actually fully enjoy a themed spectacular cinematic experience?! Now THIS is how you do it!!

They made a game – particularly for me – called Grab The Mic. It’s when you are given a word and have to grab the microphone and sing a song with a lyric including that word. I need to play this immediately!!!! Who’s gonna be my worthy opponent??

“I hate having adult $ bc what do you mean I bought 530 PACKS of Hannah Montana collectible game cards from 2007?” As you can tell, among my primary interests is the hunt and consumption of obscure, niche, nostalgic objects teetering on the borderline of obsolescence and resurgence. My goal is to pull a stunt like this and turn it into an art exhibition.

Getting analog photos developed is always a humbling experience. I have a disposable camera that I got from an event at Tumblr a few months ago but haven’t used it yet. Maybe I start today.

Vintage clothing now consists of anything older than this date in 2005. (Vintage = 20-100 years old, antique = 100+) I’m gonna need to lie down.

My future home will likely contain at least one hyper-specific themed room, à la this guy who made a Blockbuster room behind a secret door. Because, in the words of Hilary Duff, why not?

This mashup of Charli XCX’s Party 4 U and Wicked’s Defying Gravity didn’t need to make so much sense, but it did. What I find incredibly amusing is that it’s prefaced with an interview clip from Charli talking about how much she hates musicals – referring to them specifically as “hell come to life, really”. When asked which musical she thinks is the worst: “All of them…Yeah, every one.” (Also see: Popularity is a Knife.)

I recently came across this 2002 Polly Pocket commercial on IG. I’ve tried, but I can’t stop thinking about that fact that its tune is that of Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! by Vengaboys. (Yet another example of songs we didn’t know were inappropriate as kids.) The Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!! music video is a treat of its own, perfectly encapsulating the Y2K aesthetic and its techno-futurism, prominent feature of scantily clad women, and peak presence of the tongue ring x cowboy hat combo.

It’s 2025. A new year. Ellie Goulding was right – ✨ anything could happen ✨ This was literally me all week, because I’ve been teaching Capricorn Season-themed fitness classes, including one with The Veronicas and Ellie Goulding: