Past or future

Zhu reflects on her state of mind when she and Guo launched their account in March 2024. Fresh out of university and searching for a job, the uncertainty about the future made her long for the carefree days of childhood.

"I don't think nostalgia is a bad thing," she said. "We're shaped by our past — the love we received, the people we knew, the experiences we had. Back then, they might not have seemed important, but years later they can hit you like a bullet. These retro elements are like time capsules, sealed away to awaken memories in the future."

Guo, too, still finds comfort in playing Mole Manor and rewatching old episodes of Gintama. "Memories are my safe haven," she said, explaining how she enjoys creating millennial-inspired aesthetics during breaks from her job in cross-border e-commerce.

"Reality changes too much and too fast, and you can't stop it. All you can do is build a sense of stability for yourself," she added.

But for her, nostalgia isn't just about reliving the past — it's about discovering new meaning. Revisiting old books or items at different stages in life can bring fresh insights. To her, nostalgia can reflect both the present and future.

Ma describes retro gestures like wedding announcements in newspapers as a "sense of substance and history". "Writing on paper means existing on a real, tangible medium. It can become part of history rather than just fleetingly existing online, making the words more enduring and affectionate," he said.

He referenced a theory from The Three-Body Problem, suggesting that newspapers, in his view, are the next best carriers of civilization after stone. "Perhaps when human civilization ends and hard drives are gone, newspapers will still leave a trace," he said.