Sorry Been MIA, What IS My Problem
MDAP update, Weezer bra, Brenda Song stans rise, Thank you Kristen dundst 💞
Since 2017, I have never taken more than 6 days off from creating social media content. Ever. Now it’s been almost two weeks without so much as posting a story. I’m enjoying the break. Reminds me of Fedez lyrics from Vorrei ma non posto, which translate to, “Every memory is more important to share than to live” and “The iPhone has taken the place of a part of the body, and in fact, there is a competition to see who has the biggest one.” Oooop. A friend of mine said something last year that’s resonated with me ever since: Lean into reality. And I have. Getting back into the physical world significantly more than maintaining relationships primarily online – especially as an extra extrovert – feels soooooo good. I teetered on the brink of burnout for a minute, but it’s still good.
January has already been (and will continue to be) a collectively turbulent month, so I’m trying to keep my head down and get all my ducks in a row before releasing my book of essays into the world in Q2. (This is an accountability post lol.) I’m also writing a piece for [redacted] and [redacted] and acquired [unhinged nostalgic items 1, 2, and 3] that I will tell you about later, so there is never a dull moment here at Nicstalgia HQ.
Today’s edition:
👩🏻🏫 My Digital Archiving Project Stage II complete: personal media shaping identity
👙 I do need this Weezer (Blue Album) lacy pushup bra
💜 My new favorite nepo baby
🏀 In this house, we stan Brenda Song
♦️ “Thank you Kristen dundst I needed to hear this”
🎡 Baz Luhrmann has better things to do than be on social media tbh
👜 “A TikToker named Bethenny Frankel”
🚿 My new second favorite shower curtain (after the Night Time, My Time one)
💞….and of course, more!
Huge thank you to Nicstalgia supporters who I will love forever: Janine, Marie, Liv, Mitra, CY, Chet, and Jack! 💐💐💐
👩🏻🏫 My Digital Archiving Project Stage II complete!
My Digital Archiving Project was inspired by my fascination with digital media ephemerality and its impact on memory. The downloading stage was about revisiting long lost memories and reexamining faded digital footprints, and the cleanup stage was about exploring and refining my personal media collection to shape identity, enrich context, and create continuity. I finally finished archiving all my photos through 2024, wrapping up Stage II, at least for now. My Google Photos contained everything I’ve documented since 2020. (I don’t use iCloud because I still don’t understand what it is.) As you may know, my phone basically shut down and refused to let me do anything until I freed up storage, so this stage was initiated by necessity.
At first, I was using 64.18 GB of the 100 GB I have on Google Photos and had 6,793 photos and 779 videos on my iPhone. As the year progressed, these numbers skyrocketed. By November, I’d accumulated 91.69 GB in Google Photos and had 10,372 photos and 818 videos on my phone. (Psychotic.) I’m pleased to announce that my Google Photos now only contain 28.6 GB of data, and I will continue to delete more. I still have to go through the slop repository/cess pool that is my camera roll; it’s currently at 9,389 photos and 749 videos. I was recently invited to be a beta tester of a new app, but I can’t do it until I free up more storage to update my iOS. The saga continues, but it’s so much more than just deleting or replacing pictures. It’s an active practice in world-building, taste-making, self-awareness, and even self-actualization.
This 2020-2024 cleanup process required me to confront versions of myself (and others lol) that I did and did not like, as well as past circumstances that took me a long time to come to terms with. Though my online and offline selves are essentially fully integrated at this point, both have significantly changed and evolved over the years. I’ve had a public-facing account since 2016, was a Content Creator from 2020–2022, and am more of a Content Destroyer from 2023 onward 😇 I don’t want to necessarily delete the past iterations of my brand, or of myself, but I sure as hell don’t want to look at them with any meaningful frequency. MDAP is like pulling overgrown weeds and getting rid of what doesn’t serve you anymore. I need space to grow, figuratively and – due to my data storage limits – literally. This journey through the past provides a refreshing opportunity for autonomy over who you are and clarity on who you want to be.
In building and reinforcing Nicstalgia’s brand integrity, I’ve landed on the “What U See (Is What U Get)” approach as what feels the best to me personally when taking photos/creating content/documenting life. Although I am a Peak Millennial and absolutely succumbed to the ‘do it for the ‘gram’ NYC Girlboss culture of the peak IG Influencer 1.0 era, I no longer post or curate feeling like I have something to prove. I now just let my Aquarius Venus freak flag fly. The word “authenticity” has become a bastardized internet buzzword, but authenticity imbues photos with meaning.
MDAP showed me how much my documentation behavior has shifted over time. I used to use a LOT of GIFs/stickers in my Instagram stories in 2017-2019. (It was the culture of this nascent product feature at the time.) But I’d always wished I’d saved the images without all the unnecessary text, stickers, and overlays that were “ruining” my original picture or video. Now, it’s the opposite. I take photos for Instagram Stories with the intention of keeping the contextual blurb. (I even set my camera’s default orientation to 9:16.) The volume of pictures I’ve taken over the years keeps increasing so dramatically, I’d otherwise forget why I took the picture or what story I was specifically trying to tell. One photo alone isn’t the story; it’s a puzzle piece in the grand scheme of things.
My Google Photos are the result of what I call The Nicole Show™, the outlet for my online presence. The Nicole Show™ includes the foundational lore, deep cuts, bits, recurring themes, and personality quirks that inform a consistent, contextualized stream of content. Billy Shakespeare once said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I’ve been dancing and performing on stages since I was five years old. What makes internet-based platforms any different? I love having bits, inside jokes, and genuinely silly, unnecessarily deep conversations in my in-person “real life” – but now, the internet is real life too. Once I stopped taking everything so personally and started treating the content I create as a performance where I am the shining star, post-algorithmic social media FINALLY became fun again!
Joy and fun have been the key tenets of the Nicstalgia brand since the beginning. Nicstalgia is not an alter ego. It’s not a nickname. It’s a concept that represents wholehearted, unbridled appreciation, celebration, joy, and respect for your inner child and whatever tf she wants to do. Playing with layers of irony also brings me joy as a creator and frees me from the endless cycle of restlessly self-commodifying and mining my personal life for content. MDAP surprisingly made me realize I’m actually more likely to archive personal-life photos while keeping memes, videos, or reference photos (pictures tied to my bits and recurring stories) locally on my computer. I love having bits, inside jokes, and genuinely silly but also unnecessarily deep conversations in my “real life” – but now, the internet is real life too. Looking back at my personal media archive now makes me happy instead of cringey because it finally feels like Me. I no longer feel the need to be inspirational, aspirational, relatable or really anything. I’m just Me.
Ultimately, archiving isn’t solely about decluttering or clearing up space – it’s about recognizing, acknowledging, and being at peace with the versions of your past and present self. Every photo, video, screenshot, and meme reinforces your brand narrative, and to some extent, your self-concept. Sounds deep because it kinda is!!!! The process of sorting through memories and discerning what’s worth taking up space on your hard drive is so freeing. It’s your life, memories, taste, and perspective, and you always have the opportunity to decide what matters.
📲 I’m just a simple girl in a high-tech digital world
I do need this blue lacy pushup bra with a bedazzled front enclosure featuring the artwork from Weezer (Blue Album).
How can people born in 2004 – the year AFTER Transatlanticism came out – be turning 21 and going to bars when I am still 25? Make it make sense.
Loved this Bustle interview with Brenda Song. The best parts IMHO: She’s always loved style icons Mary-Kate & Ashley; before she had a cell phone, Lindsay Lohan convinced her to buy a two-way pager while they were filming DCOM Get a Clue; Macaulay Culkin had never been to Costco before they started dating; she’s a huge sports fan, once had to go to the hospital due to hyperventilating during a Lakers game, and had a life-size cardboard cutout of Kobe Bryant in her Suite Life dressing room.
Richard E. Grant’s daughter had a prom themed 36th birthday and insisted he wear Clifford’s purple suit from Spice World, which had been ‘zipped up in the loft for 28 years!’ ICONIQUE!!!!! Now that’s my kind of nepo baby.
This viral video of a mom doing her daughter’s hair seems to be very polarizing. By ‘babydoll hairstyle’, they mean tying in a baby doll head into the ponytail. I think it’s hilarious – aptly set to Justin Bieber’s “Baby” – and I can’t stop watching it.
A girl’s room IS a museum!! Now I need to scan and 3D print, well, everything.
I have to fully flesh out my 2025 DIY project list, but I definitely want to make my clothes into little magnets, or perhaps paper doll clothes à la American Girl Magazine. (Anyone remember this?)
My favorite kind of comments are the ones that are completely unrelated to the video at hand but make a thoroughly salient point. Like when a girl who extremely vaguely looks like Kirsten Dunst proclaims it’s Sims vibes only for 2025 and someone comments, “Thank you Kristen dundst I needed to hear this”
I appreciate the continuity of Baz Luhrmann’s visual brand and was intrigued by his 2025 social media manifesto and accompanying collage. “I have never been very consistent on socials because, to be honest, I’m so absorbed in the work. So apologies for that.” Real.
The Hmm named “Dior Bags” the Internet Word of the Week. This phrase spread on TikTok to circumvent platform censorship around recent drone sightings in New Jersey, started by “A TikToker named Bethenny Frankel,” as The Hmm called her. (Screaming.) The most interesting part to me is that Bethenny said, “Truth is stranger than fiction, and fiction has become reality.” Super meta coming from a former reality TV star.
You’re lucky my shower has a glass door, otherwise I would stop at nothing to acquire this Camp Rock shower curtain.
I leave you with this lovely drawing by, apparently, a really good artist! Will never forget how me and my best friend would sing “Butterfly” on her karaoke machine in 2001. Simpler times.
🦋 Social butterfly
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