Why marketing is stuck in a nostalgia loop

I’m not a hater. Even though everything you’re about to read might suggest otherwise. 

I love marketing. I love the internet as it exists today. They’re the best things to happen since Dragon Ball Z landed on Cartoon Network. That should tell you how old I am, and set context for what comes next. 

There’s a kind of marketing you cannot escape. Not because it’s brilliantly crafted. But because it's everywhere. 

A respected veteran actor stares down the lens and says, “Skibidi rizz energy, “ or “I’m drip maxing this Diwali,” or “It’s giving sad scarecrow chic”. Funny joke. Everybody laughs. LinkedIn claps. 

We are deep in the era of meme bait marketing, where brands are trying to engineer virality through shock and contrast. Brands have every reason to lean into it. We’ve been doing so for the past three years. 

The cheat code is simple: take a nostalgic icon, dress them in Gen Z aesthetic, sprinkle in internet-speak, and hope the mix feels irresistible to young audiences. 

I can say “young audiences” now, because I’m 33. And this trend has aged worse than I have. On paper, it ticks every box: Millennials and Gen X feel the warm glow of recognition, Gen Z gets a chuckle. The internet calls it “clutter-breaking.” Screenshots, case studies and reactions flood LinkedIn. 

It was clever. Now I’m just tired of it.

The seeds of this approach were planted when Rahul Dravid yelled, “Indiranagar ka gunda hoon main.” It grew roots when Vishwanathan Anand tried to say “skibidi” and landed on “Scooby-Doo”. It flourished when Madhuri Dixit, Zeenat Aman, Juhi Chawla, Boman Irani, Dalip Tahil, and Amitabh Bachchan all made their official “Gen Z debut.” 

The tipping point was when Hrithik Roshan, playing an out-of-touch uncle, fumbled through words like “drops”, “dank”, “drip”, and mispronounced “lit” as “light”. In a perfect twist of irony, the comments said what we were all thinking: “This feels incredibly forced and unnatural.” 

This should’ve been a wake-up call. It felt like we collectively walked up to Gen Z and said, “Hey! This is that thing you like, right?!” and the response was an unequivocal, “No.” 

An industry critique put it best: using slang doesn’t earn you an invite to youth culture. It just makes the pandering more obvious. 

So what’s STILL driving this over-reliance on retro icons dressed in Gen Z personas?

A big part of the answer is uncomfortable: we don’t have new icons. 

The current crop hasn’t built the same emotional gravity or aura as their veteran counterparts. Fame today exists differently. My stars are overwhelmingly accessible to me. I’m no longer starstruck when I see them; I’m up-to-date. 

So when brands need cultural weight, they default to “trusted fame”. We bet backwards instead of gambling on the present. 

Zoom out, and you’ll see we’re living in a full-blown comeback era. Studios are reviving old franchises, beloved side characters get spin-off movies, and retro hits are endlessly rebooted. But nostalgia has value when it serves the idea, not IS the idea. 

What’s frustrating is our refusal to read the room. 

We keep asking, “Hey, this is the thing you like, right?” And Gen Z keeps answering, “No”. 

My problem isn’t with veteran icons, it’s with how we’re using them. Marketing should reflect where culture is going, not cling to where it’s been. Trends, whether on the internet or in marketing playbooks, cannot and should not outlive their relevance.

This article is penned by Viren Sean Noronha, CEO & Co-Founder, The New Thing.