Why they want the things we left behind

Hi {{first_name | there}},

My almost twelve-year-old has asked for a digital camera for her birthday. Not a phone — a camera, and one that looks almost exactly like the one I was given at the same age.

I didn't understand it. We can already take better photos, more easily, on the phone in her pocket. It turns out there's a reason, and it isn't really about photos.

That's what they call it. Not vintage, not retro — Y2K, meaning roughly the clothes and objects of the early 2000s, and they use it as a category the way we'd say a colour.

It isn't just her. Search interest in "digicams" has surged, and alongside the cameras there's a real appetite for the clothes we wore — actually worn, not as fancy dress. The cameras come with little beaded straps, which is its own thing: charms have spread from bags onto phones, water bottles, shoelaces. So it isn't only a camera. It's something you wear.

The odd part is that these things are worse. Bad low light, no filters, clothes that aren't new. That seems to be the appeal — a photo that looks like a particular year instead of like every other phone photo.

Some of it is the wheel turning; fashion often revives styles after roughly twenty years. But there's a name for the rest. Historical nostalgia is longing for a time before you were born, and adults have it too. Researchers have found that when young people encounter an older person's memories, they can start to feel nostalgia themselves, for a time they never had. Which puts a different light on a child asking for the things you had.

When I asked mine why, she said it's cute and it takes interesting pictures. I went looking for something underneath that. There may not be much. This kind of nostalgia isn't necessarily about historical accuracy — it's about how a thing looks and feels, which is roughly what she told me.

Try asking: "If you could go back to any time before you were born, when would you pick?"

Both of mine got seriously into it. Not just buying things — knowing them. Ingredients, what each one supposedly does, which ones you can't use together. They started giving me advice about my own face, which was humbling.

My thirteen-year-old went through a stage of wanting sunscreen to walk from the house to the car. That's the level of seriousness I mean.

Mostly I wondered why either of them needed any of this at eleven and thirteen.

Here's what I found. Researchers at Northwestern set up accounts declaring their age as 13, then collected 100 skincare videos from the feed they were served. Across them: 260 products, an average of six per routine. Among the most-watched, routines averaged eleven potentially irritating actives — including acids and retinols that many young users don't need. Three quarters contained a recognised allergen, usually fragrance. The researchers' conclusion was blunt: little to no benefit for the children being targeted.

And sunscreen — the one step that reliably does something — appeared in only about a quarter of the daytime routines.

So the fluency is real and the knowledge is genuine. It's just pointed at whatever the videos emphasised, which is not a failure of sense on their part. It's what they were taught.

And it's worth asking why skin, of all things. One possibility is that it's the part of you that's in every photograph, it changes on its own timetable at exactly this age, and unlike most ways of trying to look better it's entirely respectable — nobody worries about a child who washes her face carefully. A routine offers something rare: a bit of control over the thing being looked at.

Good to know: Skin does change at this age, so the interest isn't silly. But for most young skin, simple is enough: a gentle cleanser if needed, an unfragranced moisturiser and sunscreen. The useful conversation is also about where the instructions came from — and whether every confident new recommendation is actually meant for their skin.

You may already say this one. To clock something is to notice it — usually the thing someone hoped you wouldn't.

Today’s use of “clock it” has roots in New York’s ballroom scene — competitive events created largely by Black and Latino LGBTQ+ communities, with their own fashion, performance and language. To “clock” someone was to notice or call out something they were trying to hide. The phrase later spread through drag culture, reality television and TikTok. So “clock it” means more than “I noticed.” It means: “I noticed, and I’m pointing it out.”

You may also see it accompanied by a tiny finger clap — thumb tapped against the middle finger. The gesture also comes from ballroom culture, where it functions as silent applause, although social media has more recently attached it to "clock it." If you've watched your child do that across a table and assumed it was fidgeting, it was probably saying something.

Means excellent, impressive or stylish. The clothes are tuff. The tan lines are tuff. Like “sick” or “wicked,” it’s a positive word even though it sounds as if it should mean something negative.

And yes, when used as slang, it is usually written “tuff,” not “tough.”

Praise laid on so thick it curdles. If one child tells another to stop glazing, they're saying: you're overdoing it, and everyone can tell.

It sounds like an insult and adults often read it as one. It's closer to teasing about effort — the crime is trying too obviously, not being nice.

Use it yourself? Better understood than attempted. Your child will almost certainly clock the effort — and may accuse you of glazing yourself for trying.

If you want the reason any of the above grips as hard as it does, this is probably it.

Researchers put 69 people aged eight to twenty-three into a scanner and told them a camera in the headrest was showing their face to someone their own age. A screen said whether it was off, warming up, or on.

There was no camera.

Believing a peer was watching was enough on its own to produce self-conscious emotion — rising through childhood, peaking in adolescence and fading in adulthood. The body’s stress response was strongest in the teenagers. Even the “warming up” screen produced much of the effect.

That last part is what I keep thinking about. It wasn't only being watched. It was expecting to be.

For parents: This may help explain why reassurance about how they look doesn't always land — the discomfort may be less about their actual face than about the feeling of being evaluated. Acknowledging that feeling — "It's hard when you feel everyone is noticing you" — may work better than insisting there's nothing to worry about. And it's worth knowing this peaks and then eases, which is more than most of us were told at the time.

Have you seen any of this in your own house — or does it look completely different for your child? Hit reply and tell me. I'd also love to know which part of this issue you found most useful.

And if you know a parent who'd find this useful, forward it on. Still Close works better when more parents are in the conversation.

Stay curious. Stay connected. Stay close.

Mia

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