ramble on 2000s media and frutiger aero

I loveeee 2000s art and design if that's not evident by my page. But I feel like the aesthetic goes deeper than just the nostalgia factor. Sci-fi or anything similar during that era was amazing no doubt, though what makes it different from today's? 2000s media is a strange combination of nostalgia from the use of old technology with a feeling of newness; a future we never saw/never will see. I think this is what gives shows like Lain its inherent charm—advanced technology shown on bulky Macs for example.

 This appeal can be applied to the Frutiger aero aesthetic as well—how (at the time) new technology tried its best to look futuristic through gloss, bright colors, etc. The aesthetic is almost a paradox: dated futurism. And while I love the Frutiger aero aesthetic, bringing it back would ruin the thing that makes it it. frutiger aero stands as not only a style but a symbol of its time, “bringing it back” would ruin that. If you take any design class now, gloss is taught to be “outdated”. I hate to admit it, but Frutiger Aero finds at least some of its charm in just being associated with the 2000s. In addition, perhaps Frutiger aero gives us a sense of peace because of its association of nature with the future. The future, which was now introduced to the people of the 2000s, was filled with opportunities and could be filled with their ideas. So, they chose the future to be peaceful. A key factor in Frutiger aero aestheticism is nature, whether that be water, aquatic creatures, or lime-green plains stretching forever. This combination of nature with futurism brings us peace, which may also be why a widely different aesthetic, brutalism, is appealing to us. Comments on the Frutiger aero aesthetic are similar, with people saying that "this is what they thought the future was going to be", or even "this is what I wanted the future to be". Loving this aesthetic can almost be an outlet to grieve, to grieve the future we never got and never will get. All this to say I think that the reason 2000s aesthetics are so appealing to us is that it could give us the future we wanted--a peak into both our memories and an alternate dimension where these aesthetics persisted. While Frutiger aero is almost fantasy, the modern, flat aesthetics of Apple today show the bleak future of modernity—perhaps due, in some parts, (ironically) to technology that was being improved during the 2000s. Anyway, reject modernity embrace tradition (Frutiger aero tiktok slide shows).

--meri<3