In recent years, a fascinating trend has emerged within the horror genre that has captivated the imaginations of Generation Z: analog horror. Cribbing the aesthetics of VHS tapes, public access television, and other analog media, this subgenre is the opposite of retrowave.
Becauuse instead of eliciting nostalgia for simpler times, analog horror taps into the fears of a generation raised on technology.
As a style of storytelling, analog horror mimics the look and feel of media from the late 20th century. It often incorporates distorted video, glitchy audio, and unsettling imagery reminiscent of old television broadcasts or amateur recordings. This genre thrives on creating unease through the juxtaposition of the banal and the disturbing.
Popular examples include web series like Doctor Nowhere and Local 58, which use found footage, faux news reports, and eerie public service announcements to generate dread. These projects often play with the viewer’s expectations, trading on old media’s air of integrity to blur the line between reality and fiction.
At firt it seems odd that analog horror would appeal to Generation Z. But on further consideration, it makes sense. While Gen Z did not grow up in the era of VHS tapes and analog TV sets, retro pop culture aimed at Gen Y has had the unintended consequence of familiarizing Zoomers with old media. So analog horror taps into a collective memory of the “good old days,” but nostalgia fodder for Ys is nightmare fuel for Gen Z. The crackle of a VHS tape that people raised on Blockbuster Video find comforting instead becomes the backdrop for unsettling, otherworldly events.
Related: Blockbuster Bellwether
This blend of the familiar and the frightening is particularly effective on a generation that is constantly navigating the boundary between the real and the virtual. The analog aesthetic, with its imperfections and limitations, contrasts sharply with the high-definition world Gen Z inhabits. To them, the grainy, distorted visuals and fuzzy audio of old media subconsciously register as deformations of reality itself.
Analog horror is also a reflection of Gen Z’s broader fascination with the uncanny—experiences that are at once familiar and strange. Zoomers have grown up in a world where technology is ubiquitous, but they are also quite aware of its potential dangers. Analog horror leverages these anxieties, using outdated tech to symbolize the unknown and the uncontrollable.
Related: Zoomer Uses 1980s Technology for a Week
For everyone else, analog horror offers a refreshing change from the shopworn tropes endlessly recycled in movies, games, and the internet. It relies more on atmosphere and suggestion rather than jump scares and gore. The horror is often subtle, creeping up on viewers rather than confronting them head-on. This slow burn approach is true to the horror of the era it emulates, leaving much to the imagination.
Another reason analog horror is popular with Gen Z is its innovative approach to storytelling. Many analog horror projects are created by independent artists and shared on platforms like YouTube, where they can reach a global audience. This democratization of horror invites a wide array of perspectives, making the genre more versatile and dynamic. The net effect is similar to what newpub did for genre fiction.
Moreover, the interactive nature of these projects—encouraging viewers to piece together clues, theories, and hidden messages—appeals to Gen Z’s love of audience participation. These stories often unfold across multiple videos, websites, and social media platforms, hooking viewers and keeping them interested.
Analog horror is noteworthy for exploiting deep-seated fears with novelty and innovation. By combining the staid with the uncanny and adopting a lo-fi aesthetic in sharp contrast with modern technology, analog horror manages to be uniquely disturbing.
For a generation that has grown up amid rapid technological change, analog horror serves the chilling warning that there is no escape in the past.
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Oooh, something I actually know about! Analog Horror is one of the most interesting Internet phenomena of recent years, IMO. Local58 is great, but I would also recommend Gemini Home Entertainment.
I should also mention the existence and growth of “Digital Horror”, which does many of the same things as Analog Horror, but with more modern digital media (such as, say, Garry’s Mod, or 2000s browser games).
Also, I would recommend the Night Mind Index to anyone interested in browsing Analog Horror or related content. It’s an honest-to-God grassroots effort organised by the community out of shared love for the field.
Thank you for the recommendations.
This all goes back to Marble Hornets (aka the series that made Slenderman popular), or at least that was the first popular series in this vein. The aforementioned Night Mind got his start doing analysis videos of Marble Hornets. At the time it was seen in the vein of ARGs or “Unfiction,” but with the focus on VHS tapes and analog distortion effects it’s hard to not classify it as “Analog Horror” now. You can also trace a lot of the tropes directly back to this series. The use of analog distortion for distortion in reality doesn’t come directly from Marble Hornets itself (where only tapes were distorted in that way; people experienced other effects) but rather from the popular Slender: The Eight Pages game which kept in the iconic effects despite not being taped. Though I guess if you want to dig further, David Lynch did use distortion effects in a similar way in his works, particular in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, so it’s not like the idea was completely unknown.
What’s interesting about tracking things back to Marble Hornets is that it provides a direct link from Gen Y nostalgia to Gen Z horror. Tapes are used in Marble Hornets simply because that’s what you’d have in the time period: it started in 2009, but revolves around the filming of an eponymous in-universe student project from 2006. Tapeless camcorders didn’t enter the market until 2006, and they would have been out of the budget for a group of college students. Of course events recorded before that period would be on VHS as well, and tapes continue to be used for most things past that point because that is the equipment that the characters have been established to have (and the equipment itself gains importance over the course of the story.)
Note that having the characters be in college in 2006 puts them firmly in Gen Y, and the main actor (Troy Wagner) was born in 1988. It’s also worth noting that the fictional Marble Hornets student film was nostalgia based: it’s about a guy returning to his hometown after college and finding that despite his childhood memories he can’t go back to the way things were. I don’t know if old slenderman himself is meant to represent the pernicious effects of nostalgia, you can make a case for it but it’s somewhat of a stretch, but the series was definitely made through a Gen Y lens.
However the audience of the series largely was much younger. I can’t find it now, but I remember an interview where Troy said he was surprised that the audience was not so much the SA college crowd that he expected, but kids around 12 years old watching it while hoping that their parents wouldn’t find out. For a series that was popular around 2010-2016 that would mean people born in 1998-2004, i.e. younger millennials and older zoomers. This audience would have viewed internet videos like youtube as the natural way to watch video content, and so the tapes lost their logical and nostalgic aspects, and instead became a symbol of horror.
Interesting analysis! I would suggest, however, that The Blair Witch Project is the ancestor of Unfiction, and by extension Analog Horror. After all, one of the key aspects of AH and Unfiction is at least presenting a thin veneer of kayfabe that what you’re showing is not fiction at all but actually happened.
Great analysis. You can’t talk about analog horror without bringing up Kane Pixels. Not only did his Backrooms series basically define the setting and inspire endless (inferior) imitations, but his Longest View series is even better and expanded on liminal space suspense in a fresh way.
His work is immediately accessible but very thoughtfully put together, with a great buildup of tension, atmosphere, and judiciously-applied scares. And maybe most impressively, with lore that’s intuited rather than exposited, most of the time. A very talented young creator that gives me hope for Gen Z’s artistic potential.
Are they all imitations? The Backrooms was popular before KanePixels made his series (albeit his still blew everything that came before out of the water in terms of quality).
“…no escape in the past.”
Or from it, apparently.