For millennial and Gen-Z consumers, nostalgia is big business. Just look at the runway trends, retail collaborations, television reboots, and music releases that have made headlines over the last few years — think Jennifer Lopez modeling a version of her 2000 Grammys dress on the Versace Spring 2020 runway, the reissue of the Motorola Razr flip phone, or the recent pervasiveness of"The Matrix" as designer inspiration.
Emo kids past and present not only find community at these live events, but also on the internet — particularly through memes, the virality of which have helped skyrocket Emo Nite to over 148K Instagram followers, and helped the brand to expand their reach to fans the world over, including celebrities like Phoebe Bridgers, Post Malone, and the late Lil Peep.
Babs Szabo: Through doing Emo Nite for five years, we've seen a lot of different variations of what emo can become. Pretty early on, we had Captain Cuts start performing during the last hour, and they do EDM mashups of emo and hip-hop songs. Are artists generally down to be a guest at Emo Nite or have you found that they are hesitant to lean too much on nostalgia when they're trying to move forward professionally?
Freed: It takes a little bit of explaining or just seeing Emo Nite firsthand sometimes for a lot of these artists to understand that we're not trying to pigeonhole them as sort of a"nostalgia" act. But once people get involved with it, they understand it a little more clearly. They leave with an understanding of what we're trying to do with the culture.