"Beyond their fixation on incredibly thin scarves, ukuleles and ungainly Sharpie art, these ['millennial optimism'] posts seem to obsess over the era’s supposed ease and quirkiness..."

"... to have Natalie Portman put on a Shins song and change your life. To wear ill-fitting running shorts like Michael Cera and seem approachably awkward. At the time, simply listening to superficially 'indie' music could signal some kind of eccentric individualism — yet it was individualism that was increasingly available on a mass scale. If you could identify with Seth Cohen on 'The O.C.,' squeeze into a sweater vest and listen to Death Cab for Cutie: Congratulations, you’re indie.... But for the Zoomers posting these clips, there is a pleasure in the opposite of independence: a homogeneity and cohesiveness that seems welcoming and communal..... That dreamy, half-real, lost world of social media, to Zoomers, is one that seems untethered from hierarchy — not yet tainted by algorithms and calculated recommendations. A cookie-cutter simplicity (or 'basicness,' when critiqued) could emerge: cheugy sunsets and sentimental drives into the country. The sad truth, but also the poignancy, of these videos, is that they fetishize an era that led directly to the one we’re in today...."

Writes Casey Michael Henry, in "Things Are So Bad, People Are Longing for Cringey Millennial Culture/Sepia tones, film cameras and ukuleles are a fast route to an imagined past of ease and quirkiness" (NYT gift link).