Sentimentality, scrapbooking, memory boxes and why Gen Z are emotional hoarders, especially when it comes to core memories.
We’re living in a world that screams “delete, refresh, move on.” But me? I’m in my memory-hoarder era. I treat experiences like they’re shiny trinkets at a flea market: random, mismatched, maybe a little dusty, but too precious to let go. Every bus ticket, every receipt from a midnight Pizza Baker’s order where they spelt my name wrong, every slightly blurry Polaroid where someone’s eye is half-closed, all of it goes in The Memory Box™.
If you’ve ever felt insane levels of attachment to a Bhursa’s take-away cup because it was from that day, or kept a literal pebble from a random road trip because it “felt like the moment,” welcome. You too might be a core memory collector, and trust me, it’s more than just clutter: it’s emotional anthropology.
Trinkets as Time Travel Machines
Objects are portals. That random wristband from Oneiros that everyone hated but bought because they missed Coldplay? The second I touch it, I’m back under lights, screaming Ishq by Rauhan Malik with my friends, living like exams didn’t exist. Trinkets collapse timelines because they let you reinhabit emotions that should’ve expired but refuse to.
Sure, minimalists will say, “It’s just stuff.” WRONG. It’s not stuff. It’s proof. A pressed flower says, “I loved once.” A scribbled napkin doodle says, “We laughed that day.” A movie stub says, “I was here, alive, breathing, feeling something.” Tell me that isn’t priceless.
Scrapbooking Is Basically Therapy in Drag
Look. Some people go to therapy. Some people scrapbook. I could do both, but one is cheaper and comes with glitter glue. Scrapbooking is how Gen Z romanticises survival. It’s us saying: my life is chaotic, mid, even tragic at times, but if I paste it on coloured paper and slap on some washi tape, suddenly it’s aesthetic.
Memory-keeping is rebellion against time’s eraser.
When we scrapbook, we’re literally screaming into the void: “I refuse to be forgotten, even by myself.” Every sticker, every messy handwriting scrawl is a middle finger to the idea that we’re supposed to just “move on.”
Inside Out and the Cult of Core Memories
Inside Out lied to us and told us core memories are just five glowing orbs. Wrong. They’re infinite. They’re messy. And they live in shoeboxes, playlists, and camera rolls that should’ve been decluttered years ago.
But here’s the truth: the film was onto something. One moment really can power a whole personality island. That one karaoke night? Boom, Friendship Island. The walk where someone handed you a beg. puff? Boom, Food Island. The day you aced a presentation against all odds? Welcome to Confidence Island, population: you.
Collecting trinkets is basically making your own headquarters; except instead of glowing orbs, you’ve got crumpled Polaroids, ticket stubs, and friendship bracelets stacked like souvenirs in your brain.
Digital Hoarders Anonymous
Our parents saved love letters. We save screenshots of texts that said “reached safe” because that’s modern affection. Our camera rolls are graveyards of 45 versions of the same group photo. Our Google Drives? PowerPoints titled “lol don’t open” that we’ll never delete.
And don’t even get me started on Notes app confessions. Gen Z doesn’t just hoard trinkets; we hoard WORDS. Entire unsent paragraphs, birthday captions drafted in advance, inside jokes preserved in the cloud like they’re in a museum. Emotional hoarding, but make it iOS.
Playlists as Emotional Scrapbooks
Tell me you’re sentimental without telling me you’re sentimental: you have a playlist named after a vibe that doesn’t exist anymore. “March Feels 2022.” “Healing But Dramatic.” “Him But Not Really.”
Every song is a time capsule. You don’t even need a diary when you’ve got Spotify receipts. Two notes in and suddenly you’re back in that car ride, wind in your face, feeling invincible. Playlists are proof that sometimes soundtracks remember for us when our brains are too busy glitching.
Scent Memories Are the Ultimate Core Memories
If you know, you know. One whiff of a perfume and BOOM, you’re transported. Suddenly you’re seventeen again, standing at a fest, or eight years old in your nani’s kitchen.
Scents bypass logic; they go straight to the heart. That’s why we’re obsessed with perfumes, candles, even saving T-shirts that smell like someone. It’s not creepy, it’s science. It’s survival. It’s bottling a moment so you can open it later like a time capsule.
Comfort Shows and Rerun Culture
Let’s not pretend our Netflix histories aren’t part of this. Reruns of Friends, The Vampire Diaries, or literally Ninja Hattori? It’s not laziness, it’s emotional archaeology. We don’t just watch shows, we revisit them like sacred sites, because they remind us of who we were when we first watched them.
Gen Z has made comfort-watching a coping mechanism. Life is unstable, but at least Joey will always ask “How you doin’?” and Klaus will always be hot’.
But Babe, Don’t Drown in the Box
Here’s the elder-sis PSA: keep the receipts, the notes, the silly friendship bracelets. But don’t let your memory hoard become a mausoleum. Life is still happening outside the scrapbook. You’re allowed to let go of that boy’s hoodie or that festival pass that smells like sweat and regret. The point isn’t to live in the past; it’s to honour it, then step forward with it in your pocket like a talisman.
So yeah, I’m a shameless collector of core memories. I line them up like trinkets on a shelf, not because I can’t move on, but because I want proof that I was here. That my life isn’t just deadlines and Wi-Fi crashes, but also glow-stick concerts, train rides with snacks, scent trails, reruns, and unhinged 8 a.m. sleep-deprived laughter.
Core memories aren’t clutter. They’re soul jewellery. They’re our own glowing orbs, messy and mismatched but radiant all the same.
For more chaotic chronicles, caffeine-fuelled confessions, and campus survival cheat codes, you know the drill — slide into Her Campus at MUJ. And if you catch someone in hostel lovingly stroking a bus ticket like it’s the Kohinoor? Yeah, that’s me, Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ.