How nostalgia helped the Huji app get 22m downloads and Selena Gomez’s vote

Selena Gomez’s Huji-filtered photo / Image courtesy of Instagram

A basic tenet of advertising is that feelings influence buying decisions – or even drive them. Of the range of emotions that humans feel, nostalgia is one of the most powerful, forming part of our identity and affecting the way we view our current situation.

Small wonder why apps like Huji Cam continue to take off. Huji makes your phone photos look like they were shot with 90s-style disposable cameras. The download is free, but a US$1 version allows users to apply the filters to photos taken without Huji.

Since its launch in October 2017, the Huji Cam app has been downloaded at least 22 million times. In July 2018 alone, it was downloaded four million times on iTunes and Google Play, generating more than US$100,000 in that month for its parent company Manhole, according to data from app analytics platform Sensor Tower.

Nostalgic filters are nothing new, though. So what accounts for Huji Cam’s sudden popularity? On Instagram, for example, the hashtag #hujicam is on 496,000 posts and counting.

Part of Huji’s rise to fame can be attributed to Instagram influencers. Singer-actress Selena Gomez and reality television personality Kim Kardashian were among the earlier adopters, posting photos taken with Huji Cam in March.

How Huji Cam works

Using Huji Cam is quite simple – download and launch the app, allow it to access your phone’s camera, point, and shoot. But its interface is strikingly different from that of regular smartphone cameras.

For starters, you’ll have to look for the viewfinder – a very small display at the top left of the screen. The tiny glimpse into the scene you’re shooting mimics the small viewfinders of cameras in the 90s.

This is the part where you realize Huji Cam takes photos only in landscape mode. The only digital control you have over the photo is whether to turn the flash on or off.

After you press the button to take a photo, the app tells you that it is developing the image.

On Huji Cam, though, ‘developing’ takes mere seconds. A button labelled ‘Lab’ leads to your photo gallery. From there, you can save the photo to your phone or share it to other platforms.

Why nostalgia?

Photo filter apps have been around for years, with one of the pioneers being VSCO, which was launched in 2011 – the year after Instagram debuted on app stores.

“Nostalgic filters are just one way to experiment with photos,” explains Bryan Mason, COO of VSCO. “We believe that the need to create and express oneself, which has fueled the nostalgic filter trend, is one of the most basic human urges and isn’t just a trend.”

Sanghoon Kang, CEO of Screw Bar – the maker of photo filter app Gudak – offers a different take. “Gudak’s major customers, who are aged between 18 and 24, have very little exposure to a traditional film camera. Thus, for them, nostalgic filters are not nostalgic, but a new experience. They are consuming exotic nostalgic filters, not returning to the past.”

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