Gen Z is obsessed with point-and-shoot digital cameras and minimalist

Courtney June no longer reaches for her phone when she’s in need of a camera. These days the 24-year-old uses a point-and-shoot digital camera to capture life mementoes and nights out with friends.

June, who’s based in Pennsylvania, is among the growing hoard of Gen Zers whose obsession with 2000s culture has in turn breathed new life into physical cameras and minimalist smartphones, both of which were emblems of the era. “Everyone’s photos kind of look the same on social media and have for many years, even with quality improving with every iPhone,” June says. With a point-and-shoot, though, June finds she’s able to more easily manipulate image settings like exposure and optical zoom to produce “that certain vibe” of the early aughts.

Gen Zers are often billed as the “digital generation,” the first to have grown up in a smartphone-dominated with an ever-present internet connection. But that might also explain why they’re yearning for more simplicity and disconnect. Plus, influencers continue to showcase older cameras on TikTok and Instagram, fuelling the demand cycle. After Kendall Jenner featured a Canon PowerShot ELPH 350 in an Instagram post, the discontinued camera quickly sold out on secondary marketplaces. It now goes for $399. Other popular point-and-shoot cameras, like the Canon G7x and the Contax G2, have been sold out and backordered for months (much to older photographers’ confusion). 

“The resale market for digital cameras has gone up because it’s just a limited supply,” Tiffany Zhong, a 27-year-old entrepreneur and photographer based in San Francisco, tells Fast Company. “A lot of influencers are using a specific camera, like the Canon 7Gx, or Contax G2, which is around $1,000 or more — and a lot of them are sold out.” (Resale listings for the Contax G2 have seen as high of a markup as $1,750.)

Zhong noted that it can take a month to receive a camera that’s in high demand. 

TikTok influencer Nathasya Abiniel, 24, has also noticed rising costs and competition for 2000s cameras. “Even the older version of digital cameras now can cost the same as newer and more modern digital cameras just because they’re discontinued and rare to find,” said Abiniel, who’s acquired four digital cameras in the last year. 

Abiniel and others think the craze for “nostalgia” in photography is because iPhone photos are almost too sharp that it almost looks too close to reality, and every photo sheen ends up looking the same.

“A camera from 2007 gives off a certain vibe that something like an iPhone can’t produce,” says June; Abiniel described that “vibe” as warm-hued “vintage-looking photos that makes us feel like we’re living back in the 2000s.” 

Zhong thinks toting a separate device for picture-taking allows Gen Zers to live more in the moment. “It requires more intention than taking 100 photos on your phone [because] you have to sift through them to choose which ones you transfer,” she says.

And it’s not just cameras: So-called “dumb phones” have also become en vogue. Swiss company Punkt markets its phones and accessories as “tools for sophisticated simplicity” and “their low-key elegance also contributes to that lack of intrusiveness.” Auckland-based BoringPhone bills itself as “the minimalist smartphone” for people “who want to spend less time on their phone.”

Their “touch grass” philosophies also come at a premium price. Punkt phones retail for $749 and BoringPhones go for a little over $300 USD. In contrast, flip phones used to cost millennials about $150-200 in the early 2000s and phones unveiled years later with similar smart capabilities cost no more than $400 at the time. Of course, inflation can account for these padded prices, but experts say savvy branding and advanced functions are also important factors.

Amruth Laxman, a founding partner of the telecom company 4Voice, says the phones, much like point-and-shoot cameras, carry a certain status. “We all know that a generic cereal costs less than the branded one,” he says. “Gen Z people are geared toward trends, designer labels, and such.”

Zhong admits that paying more to have less tech is at the very least “ironic,” but she doesn’t imagine the trend will be going away anytime soon. “Nostalgia is back,” she says.

Courtney June no longer reaches for her phone when she’s in need of a camera. These days the 24-year-old uses a point-and-shoot digital camera to capture life mementoes and nights out with friends.

June, who’s based in Pennsylvania, is among the growing hoard of Gen Zers whose obsession with 2000s culture has in turn breathed new life into physical cameras and minimalist smartphones, both of which were emblems of the era. “Everyone’s photos kind of look the same on social media and have for many years, even with quality improving with every iPhone,” June says. With a point-and-shoot, though, June finds she’s able to more easily manipulate image settings like exposure and optical zoom to produce “that certain vibe” of the early aughts.

Gen Zers are often billed as the “digital generation,” the first to have grown up in a smartphone-dominated with an ever-present internet connection. But that might also explain why they’re yearning for more simplicity and disconnect. Plus, influencers continue to showcase older cameras on TikTok and Instagram, fuelling the demand cycle. After Kendall Jenner featured a Canon PowerShot ELPH 350 in an Instagram post, the discontinued camera quickly sold out on secondary marketplaces. It now goes for $399. Other popular point-and-shoot cameras, like the Canon G7x and the Contax G2, have been sold out and backordered for months (much to older photographers’ confusion). 

“The resale market for digital cameras has gone up because it’s just a limited supply,” Tiffany Zhong, a 27-year-old entrepreneur and photographer based in San Francisco, tells Fast Company. “A lot of influencers are using a specific camera, like the Canon 7Gx, or Contax G2, which is around $1,000 or more — and a lot of them are sold out.” (Resale listings for the Contax G2 have seen as high of a markup as $1,750.)

Zhong noted that it can take a month to receive a camera that’s in high demand. 

TikTok influencer Nathasya Abiniel, 24, has also noticed rising costs and competition for 2000s cameras. “Even the older version of digital cameras now can cost the same as newer and more modern digital cameras just because they’re discontinued and rare to find,” said Abiniel, who’s acquired four digital cameras in the last year. 

Abiniel and others think the craze for “nostalgia” in photography is because iPhone photos are almost too sharp that it almost looks too close to reality, and every photo sheen ends up looking the same.

“A camera from 2007 gives off a certain vibe that something like an iPhone can’t produce,” says June; Abiniel described that “vibe” as warm-hued “vintage-looking photos that makes us feel like we’re living back in the 2000s.” 

Zhong thinks toting a separate device for picture-taking allows Gen Zers to live more in the moment. “It requires more intention than taking 100 photos on your phone [because] you have to sift through them to choose which ones you transfer,” she says.

And it’s not just cameras: So-called “dumb phones” have also become en vogue. Swiss company Punkt markets its phones and accessories as “tools for sophisticated simplicity” and “their low-key elegance also contributes to that lack of intrusiveness.” Auckland-based BoringPhone bills itself as “the minimalist smartphone” for people “who want to spend less time on their phone.”

Their “touch grass” philosophies also come at a premium price. Punkt phones retail for $749 and BoringPhones go for a little over $300 USD. In contrast, flip phones used to cost millennials about $150-200 in the early 2000s and phones unveiled years later with similar smart capabilities cost no more than $400 at the time. Of course, inflation can account for these padded prices, but experts say savvy branding and advanced functions are also important factors.

Amruth Laxman, a founding partner of the telecom company 4Voice, says the phones, much like point-and-shoot cameras, carry a certain status. “We all know that a generic cereal costs less than the branded one,” he says. “Gen Z people are geared toward trends, designer labels, and such.”

Zhong admits that paying more to have less tech is at the very least “ironic,” but she doesn’t imagine the trend will be going away anytime soon. “Nostalgia is back,” she says.