The Boring Phone is a response to the yearning for a simpler time. Many GenZers want to revert to a romantic idea (the reality notwithstanding) of the 1990s-2000s.
Gen Z, it seems, wants to turn back the clock. Half a century after the first hand-held phone — the “zero generation” phones — was launched by Motorola in 1973, the Milan Design Design Week paid an ode to the retro for the unveiling of the Boring Phone. Created by Heineken Beer in collaboration with fashion retailer Bodega, the Boring Phone is not “smart”. It doesn’t have apps or maps. No calorie trackers or cameras with enough megapixels to pick out the smallest pimple. The tagline at the launch read, “There’s more to social life when there’s less on your phone”.
The Boring Phone is a response to the yearning for a simpler time. Many GenZers want to revert to a romantic idea (the reality notwithstanding) of the 1990s-2000s. In 2017, HMD Global brought back the Nokia 3310, popularly referred to in India as the “dabba” phone. In 2018, the “newtro” trend — “new” and “retro” — kicked off in South Korea: Old tech, snacks,TV shows, etc, were modernised and brought back. In India, Campa Cola – the cold drink of the pre-liberalisation era — was rebooted in 2023. Around the world, fashion from eras gone by has made a comeback with companies reporting massive hikes in sales of Y2K cargo pants, intermittently trendy bell-bottom denims and the self-consciously kitschy butterfly clips.
The appeal of the “boring” phone makes sense in the tech-first world of today. It taps into the allure of an ever-evasive nostalgia by co-opting the aesthetics of an era gone by. One doesn’t need the latest, most updated phone every year, or even the newest model of the car or the playstation, whatever might be one’s poison. For a generation which has grown up with shouts of “the future is AI” and the “next big thing in tech”, going backwards instead of forward may be the language of rebellion.
