Taylor Swift What Have You Done Now?

The biggest news to break this week? Taylor Swift is engaged to Travis Kelce. Their Instagram post nailed it: ‘Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.’

And because it’s Taylor, that wasn’t even the only headline…

She’s just announced her new album. You can stream it, of course. You can even get it on vinyl.

But here’s the real throwback: she will be selling it on cassette tape.

Cassette tape! That clunky rectangle we used to rewind with a Bic pen when the ribbon got chewed up, iykyk.

For some of us, a cassette is an instant time machine to our youth. For others, it’s a total mystery. And that’s the thing about nostalgia: it doesn’t just make us remember, it makes us feel.

Think about it: one whiff of chlorine and you’re twelve again at the public pool. One Spice Girls track and suddenly you’re back in your bedroom, hairbrush microphone in hand. That emotional time travel is exactly why nostalgia is pure storytelling gold.

But nostalgia isn’t universal. Some people get the immediate hit of recognition. Others are left out, blinking. The skill is to make nostalgia inclusive.

Don’t just drop a reference and hope it lands. Paint it so vividly that even people who never lived through that era can still feel it.

In one of my keynotes, I talk about the ’90s dial-up internet and I actually make the screeching modem sound live on stage (yes, really). Half the room howls with laughter and recognition. The other half looks baffled until they hear the sound, and then they get the joke.

Nostalgia works in storytelling when you give people an entry point, whether it’s a sound, a scent, or even a cassette tape.

Taylor Swift so gets that, giving us not just music, but memories.

PS: Anyone still got a Tamagotchi alive? Asking for a friend.

Photo Credit by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash