It’s sort of crept up on me, perhaps subconsciously, but without quite realising it’s slowly become clear to me that I’m really into cassette futurism, or at least that I’ve gotten into this aesthetic in recent years. So I thought I’d write a little about this area, and shine a light on what it is, why it appeals to people, and where it appears in various media.
To explain: cassette futurism is a retro-futuristic aesthetic from around 1970-1985, and is a subgenre of sci-fi that essentially envisions a future through utilitarian, analogue technology. Think tech that was available in that time period: bulky computers, cassette tapes, CRT monitors, physical buttons, VHS/Beta systems, floppy disks, reel-to-reel tapes, Polaroids, dot matrix printers, microcomputers, and so on.
This technology would often feature tactile controls and manual interfaces, with green and amber neon-lit colour schemes for screens, along with distorted, glitchy visuals and, depending on the media, might feature synth-heavy soundtracks and music. Which may put you in mind of cyberpunk as a subgenre, and there’s definite overlap, in a sense. It’s probably why I like this aesthetic, and I’ve written at length about cyberpunk before, in one of my most-read articles.
But there’s a subtle distinction with cassette futurism, I think. Although, again, you may disagree and think they share too much DNA to be separated, which is a fair argument. The films Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982) are two of the best examples, and the video game Alien: Isolation (2014) adds to that. One enterprising person even cut together a video which showcases all the technology pertaining to cassette futurism used in Alien. A must-watch, if you like this aesthetic.
And this video shows someone examining retro-futuristic props from the film Blade Runner 2049 (2017), from spring-loaded eye scanners to Sony image slide readers. All of these props are functional.
Another video game I’ve previously written about is Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet (due out 2027), which, in its trailer, wholeheartedly embraces cassette futurism and its use of mechanical and tactile technology. In the trailer the game’s main character, bounty hunter Jordan Mun, has a conversation with someone on a video monitor. The screen is glitchy. As Mun walks through her ship we see the warm glow of green, white and red lights on interfaces.
The end of the trailer perfectly illustrates this aesthetic. Jordan pushes neon-lit orange buttons to make a Sony carousel CD player come to life. The player selects a disc and starts to play the 1987 synth-pop track It’s A Sin, by Pet Shop Boys. An EQ display of the song’s audio dances up and down. She flips chunky switches and pushes buttons, clicks her seat belt into place, hits more buttons, then pushes a big lever forward, floors the accelerator pedal and the ship blasts into space.
It’s pure cassette futurism, and I loved it.
Functionality, durability and aspirational analogue
Another interesting aspect to this aesthetic that’s worth touching on is that, built into its ethos, is the idea of repair culture and durability and functionality of design. The original Star Wars (1977-1983) films brought this to life, in particular the first film. More recently, TV show Andor (2022-2025) understood how integral lo-fi tech was to the look and feel of the Star Wars universe, and why it appealed to people.
Following Andor’s first season in 2022, The Wall Street Journal published a piece on how the show’s designers had taken it back to the analogue era, using retrofitted functional props with a ‘70s industrial aesthetic, with prop master Martyn Doust saying: ‘Everything in Star Wars is analogue, but it’s got that aspiration of wanting to be digital.’
On that note, one interesting point this article made was that, in a Star Wars future there’s no wi-fi or obvious internet. If you want to interact with computers and mainframes you have to manually plug into things, or hack them if you’re a rebel. In the original trilogy the droid R2-D2 often did this using its scomp link; a retractable arm that plugged into terminals.
The tactile nature of old tech
In this modern age of slick screens, where every bit of tech looks like the same shiny black cube, there’s a huge appeal in the tactile nature of old technology. To the point where mechanical tech is making a return, in the form of buttons, dials, wires and jacks — in cars, phones, the home and other areas. I wrote about this in January.
Japanese anime neo-noir space Western Cowboy Bebop (1998) had numerous examples of tactile and analogue interfaces. There’s even some interesting foreshadowing with one of the bits of tech in the show, as the image at the bottom left below looks remarkably like a Nintendo Switch.
Reddit users picked up on this, but there’s no real evidence to show Nintendo were inspired by Cowboy Bebop when designing the Switch, almost twenty years later. But you never know, stranger things have happened. As a gaming company, Nintendo has always understood the need for tactile controls and physical media, and I admire the fact they largely stuck with physical game cartridges when other console-makers went to discs, or were doing away with discs entirely.
The comfort of cassette futurism
One final area I want to touch on is the comforting aspect of this aesthetic and old technology. There’s a warm and welcoming glow to CRT screens, which often have softer lighting and screen contrast, in green, amber or pale blue text and images on screens. And the plastic finishes to devices and interfaces tend to be in beige or soft creams.
It’s a marked contrast to today’s shiny world of unforgiving black and silver. In some ways, to return to Star Wars, in terms of tech we ended up with the Empire rather than the plucky rebels. Quite the failure of society, in many ways, but I digress.
In 2024, a New York Times best-selling illustrator named Jake Parker posted a piece on his blog showing a variety of early commercial computers that fit this aesthetic.
Other films like Alien: Romulus (2024) and TV show Silo (2023—) are examples of these kinds of soft-glow screens.
Silo, in particular, is interesting, because the setup of the show is that the last of humanity lives in underground silos, and technology is limited and prohibited. We later find out this is to control people (of course). But there’s a split in the show where normal citizens of the silo have extremely limited access to tech, and when they do it’s retro-futuristic at best. Yet those in power have access to far more advanced technology. And so tech becomes a narrative device that frames the wider story and world.
Is cassette futurism the antidote to digital burnout?
I suppose there’s no real conclusion with this piece. I mean, it is a love letter. However, there is some kind of case to be made that cassette futurism is making a bit of a comeback. Physical media sales are on the rise, and a year ago, following the resurgence of vinyl, I wrote about the revival of cassette tapes. And now, apparently, DVDs are the new vinyls, according to the Los Angeles Times. Last month it published a piece about how Gen Z are embracing physical media, with video rental shops reporting record months and membership numbers.
It seems that young people are viewing physical media ownership as a form of cultural rebellion, at least so say the LA Times.
If we look at social media there are over 190k results for ‘physicalmedia’ on TikTok and 148k followers on Reddit (at the time of writing). There is a danger that this could be a performative trend, like a lot of things that we see online and with internet culture these days. But I think it’s more than that, and that many Gen Z (and millennials, if I’m honest) are feeling burnt out by the digitisation of everything, and how, at every turn, you’re faced with something you need to subscribe to, that also subjects you to inescapable adverts.
Now, you own nothing and pay everything for that privilege, from Spotify to Netflix to Microsoft’s Game Pass to Amazon Prime, and countless other media and entertainment services.
Maybe cassette futurism is a way to fight back. No wonder there’s a link to cyberpunk. It all comes down to smashing the system, or at least resetting it. Maybe it’s bigger than just an aesthetic that looks cool. I need to think about it. But until then, let’s end this piece with some words from Cyberpunk 2077’s Johnny Silverhand:
‘Okay, I’ll tell you why I want to destroy Arasaka. But I’ll only tell you once. Wanna hear it?
I saw corps strip farmers of water... and eventually of land. Saw them transform Night City into a machine fuelled by people’s crushed spirits, broken dreams and emptied pockets. Corps’ve long controlled our lives, taken lots... and now they’re after our souls! V, I’ve declared war not because capitalism’s a thorn in my side or outta nostalgia for an America gone by. This war’s a people’s war against a system that’s spiralled outta our control. It’s a war against the fuckin’ forces of entropy, understand?
Do whatever it takes to stop ‘em, defeat ‘em, gut ‘em. If I gotta kill, I’ll kill. If I need your body, I’ll fuckin’ take it!
Fuckin’ hell ... you still don’t see it. But you will one day.’
I was in love with Mother, the computer in Alien
Absolutely loved this piece Mike! I’m so happy I’ve discovered your corner of Substack while researching for an upcoming solarpunk pod episode 😍 will be citing this one for some ideas around DIY & repair culture!