Since the free internet in the United States is probably not long for this world (just a feeling I get, nothing official I've heard about), it's time to discuss something that's going to make me extraordinarily unpopular.
I don't much care for Frutiger Aero. I was around for the so-called "era" of Frutiger Aero, though it wasn't called that. It wasn't really called anything, it was just the design that everyone used. I've always thought of Frutiger Aero on the same level as "Orinoco Flow" by Enya, or "Take on Me" by a-ha. It's the bit of pop culture that nostalgia junkies seek out and then marinate in, ignoring everything else.
That's the worst bit about nostalgia; it's a weapon used by the corporate feudal state to sanitise memories and erase the desire to learn. People treating Frutiger Aero like the pinnacle of nostalgia are looking at a superficial representation of one insignificant part of history and sighing "I was born in the wrong generation, I belong there." We weren't all walking around in green fields against deep blue skies back then. I could provide you a litany of things that sucked, but the only thing I want to bring up is that, back in the so-called "Frutiger Aero era", we were nostalgic for Y2K. Back in the real Y2K, we were nostalgic for the '80s. Back in the '80s, they were nostalgic about the '60s. Nostalgia in general is a conceit that the past was always better and we should all try to get back there.
Frutiger Aero is particularly insulting because of how it's been deployed: as a shield against the atrocities currently being committed by so many countries, not just Trump in the US, but everything happening in Palestine, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, refugees from the Global South fleeing military coups and civil wars only to be turned back at the border of a wealthy, predominantly white country, certainly the continued onslaught of deaths from COVID-19, any number of things that could be affected through action on a grassroots level. Instead, we have people retreating onto Tiktok, Bluesky, and Neocities, and erecting veritable fortresses of skeuomorphic stencilling and reflective button graphics.
When I was in school, I was taught that the power of the people can move mountains— except, on mountain-moving day everyone stayed home and listened to their Frutiger Aero playlists on shuffle while staring at old desktop wallpaper images while the government destroyed the mountain.
You can keep your Frutiger Aero archives, and your Frutiger Aero inspired websites, and your J-Pop playlists, just look outside every once in a while. Come down from your crystal fortress and walk amongst the regular people. Go to a protest, write your elected officials, donate something to a few Palestinian fundraisers, see what the corporate feudal state is trying to distract you from.