I can still remember clutching my beloved mirrorless camera while reading the headlines a few years back: Digicams, the so-called crappy cameras of the Y2K era, have surged in trends. As a photographer, I initially wrote off the trend as temporary, but more than three years after the digicam started making a comeback, the nostalgic point-and-shoot has only gained in popularity.
According to data from Google searches, the terms “digicam” and “digi cam” both have continued to climb in popularity in 2026, bringing searches to a ten-year high.
The transition from film to digital hit in my teen years, and I can still remember how excited I was to get my first digital point-and-shoot. Yet, the earliest digital cameras were low resolution and slow, and I eagerly made the upgrade as tech progressed to DSLRs and then mirrorless.
But then, sometime around 2022 and 2023, the digital cameras from the Y2K-era began to see a resurgence in trends, driven in large part by Gen Z and a wider trend for nostalgic tech. Searches surged for older point-and-shoot cameras with megapixel counts in the single digits, scooped up by digging through closets or searching on secondhand websites.
As a professional photographer, I was originally befuddled by the trend for low-fi cameras that take what many would argue are “crappy images” by today’s standards. I thought the trend would fizzle out quickly.
But, two key things have happened in the ensuing years that have left me, despite my original reservations, ecstatic to see the digicam trend continue. The Y2K digicam trend surged right around the time when generative AI images were becoming widely accessible – and I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
Fast forward three years, and generative AI has become better at fixing the tell-tale anomalies, like wacky fingers, and even more widely accessible. But generative AI hasn’t lost the term “slop,” nor has the trend for imperfect retro photos seemed to slow down.
The other key thing that has happened over the last few years is that the digicam isn’t necessarily something that can only be found abandoned in attics or on secondhand websites. The number of new-in-box cameras launching with lower resolution and compact designs seems to have exploded – just look at the viral 1.6MP Kodak Charmera.
The nostalgic tech trend has also sparked adjacent trends, like the screen-free camera, low-resolution compact cameras that come packed with retro filters but without the smartphone distractions (or AI).
I wasn’t truly convinced of the return of the low-fi digicam when the trend first started to emerge – and I’m still shooting with my mirrorless camera. But, I’ve grown fond of pulling out a compact camera when I want to ignore my iPhone without the bulk (and the photo editing) that comes with shooting my mirrorless camera.
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