Gen Z Leans Hard into Nostalgia to Spur Music and Content Discovery: Study
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Vevo commissioned 'Then is Now: A Study on Modern Nostalgia,' surveying 1,800 consumers evenly split across the U.S., U.K., and Australia and across Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z cohorts, finding 64% of Gen Z say nostalgia strongly influences their content choices and 88% say it deepens emotional experiences.
- Gen Z posted the highest 'borrowed nostalgia' rate at 65% — yearning for eras they never directly experienced — compared to 55% for Millennials and 54% for Gen X, with Vevo attributing the trend to digital natives accessing decades-old content through streaming.
- Sade's 'No Ordinary Love' spiked 52% on Vevo after FX's 'Love Story: John F. Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette' debuted in February, while Beatles catalog views climbed 62% after Disney's multipart 'Anthology' docuseries released in November 2025.
- Harry Styles' 'Sign of the Times' video surged 547% on Vevo after Amazon MGM Studios' 'Project Hail Mary' featured the song, and Kelis' 'Milkshake' saw a 66% bounce after Gap used it in a marketing campaign last year.
- Rob Christensen, Vevo's executive VP of global sales, told Variety that new releases serve as a 'springboard' for discovering or rediscovering library content, and is pitching the upfront marketplace on nostalgia-driven engagement over raw scale.
Why it matters: Vevo — jointly owned by Sony Music and Universal Music Group — now has hard data and named spike examples (547% on Harry Styles' 'Sign of the Times,' 62% on Beatles material) to sell advertisers on nostalgia-driven moments rather than raw reach, giving the music-video platform a concrete angle in upfront negotiations where it competes with sports and broader streaming services.
