The Hottest Gen Z Gadget Is a 20-Year-Old Digital Camera

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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/technology/digital-cameras-olympus-canon.html
https://archive.ph/6ChoS

The Hottest Gen Z Gadget Is a 20-Year-Old Digital Camera
Young people are opting for point-and-shoots and blurry photos.
By Kalley Huang
Jan. 7, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Last spring, Anthony Tabarez celebrated prom like many of today’s high schoolers: dancing the night away and capturing it through photos and videos. The snapshots show Mr. Tabarez, 18, and his friends grinning, jumping around and waving their arms from a crowded dance floor.

But instead of using his smartphone, Mr. Tabarez documented prom night with an Olympus FE-230, a 7.1-megapixel, silver digital camera made in 2007 and previously owned by his mother. During his senior year of high school, cameras like it started appearing in classrooms and at social gatherings. On prom night, Mr. Tabarez passed around his camera, which snapped fuchsia-tinted photos that looked straight from the early aughts.

“We’re so used to our phones,” said Mr. Tabarez, a freshman at California State University, Northridge. “When you have something else to shoot on, it’s more exciting.”

The cameras of Generation Z’s childhoods, seen as outdated and pointless by those who originally owned them, are in vogue again. Young people are reveling in the novelty of an old look, touting digital cameras on TikTok and sharing the photos they produce on Instagram. On TikTok, the hashtag #digitalcamera has 184 million views.