All the pieces outdated is new once more, and this week’s glad return belongs to Apple‘s iPod Shuffle. For a number of years, younger of us have been repurposing Shuffles as hair equipment, brooches, and extra, utilizing the clips on the again of the units to adorn locks and Levis alike.

Mashable’s Elena Cavender prophesied the development’s progress in 2022, after a December 2021 video of TikTok creator Kira Lyn Vaden utilizing Shuffles as hair clips earned greater than 350,000 likes. And, although we might not have had it on our 2024 bingo playing cards, it is again and higher than ever.

One photograph particularly has set off this yr’s Shuffle styling obsession, and it seems to have been initially posted to Instagram in 2019 by consumer Victoria Camaratta. The picture has had brushes with virality up to now (it gained greater than 21,000 notes on Tumblr in January 2021 and 123,000 like on X / Twitter in September of that yr), however the present curiosity is even increased.

On March 13, X consumer @voguepearls posted the photograph as a part of a set titled “tech as style.” That set was reposted by style influencer Dove Clarke, who added the be aware “this may have gone double platinum on tumblr in 2014.” Clarke’s repost gained greater than 228,000 likes and variations of the picture have since been shared on the feeds of huge combination accounts on Instagram, together with betchys (141,000 followers) and structuredmag (376,000 followers).

Now, the It women are experimenting with the look. On March 14, pop artist Slayyyter posted pictures sporting matching two blue second era iPod Shuffles in her hair, wired headphones dangling from one ear.

Tweet might have been deleted

And on March 17, Instagram and TikTok creator Madeleine White posted photographs, reels, and TikToks of her fourth era Shuffles hair clips in orange and blue. White captioned certainly one of her posts, “Time to raid your father or mother’s random electronics bag.” Upon studying it, this millennial crumbled right into a pile of mud.

Gen Z’s repurposing of Y2K tech has been well-documented by Mashable’s Elena Cavender, and Gen-Z thrifting icon Emma Rogue defined the enchantment in an interview with Mashable final yr. “They’re experiencing one thing they by no means received to,” she says of her era. “They’re transporting again in time.”

That rising curiosity in retro tech has led manufacturers to repurpose it in trendy equipment. Final yr, for instance, style model Coperni teased a handbag that doubled as a CD-player, and a number of client good strains included flip cellphone imagery and iconography of their designs.