Taking the Trash Out: How nostalgia became profitable in Croatia

Croatian trash music, sometimes called Cro-Dance, is more than a guilty pleasure — it’s a vibrant genre of catchy pop and dance tracks that defined an era and became a cornerstone of millennial nostalgia in Croatia. As nostalgia becomes more and more present in media and society, it’s clear that this yearning for the past has evolved into a marketable phenomenon.

It’s Saturday evening in Zagreb in 2002. You are a kid watching the Croatian Music Channel (CMC). The newest hit, “Oči boje kestena” (Chestnut-coloured Eyes) crackles from the TV, and you are singing and dancing in your living room without a worry in the world.

It’s Saturday night in Zagreb in 2013. You are a college freshman and are headed into one of the most popular clubs in the city for a new party that is taking place there. Unsure what to expect, you get to the dance podium only to realize that the DJ is playing songs from your childhood. The same familiar hit from CMC is playing, and you know all the lyrics, all the melodies, and happy memories come flooding back. 

It’s Saturday night in Zagreb in 2024. You rarely go out anymore, but when you do, you know where to go. You’ve been a regular guest at the Taking the Trash Out parties, the only event where people still seem to be your age. You still know all the lyrics and melodies, and you enjoy the feeling of familiarity. 

Over the last two decades, the Croatian music scene has struggled to produce pop stars who are able to stay popular for more than a few hits before descending into semi-obscurity. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, a period colloquially referred to as “the golden era of Croatian pop music,” stars achieved a level of popularity unmatched by their successors today. The gap since has been filled with nostalgia — and that’s how Taking the Trash Out was born. 

The first party with this name took place in Zagreb in 2013 — it recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. Based around the Croatian dance and pop music of the 1990s and early 2000s, the parties have attracted huge attendance and gained recognition, almost turning the event into a brand. 

From a party that started out in a small club in the city centre, it has evolved into an always-sold-out event. And as the audiences matured, the party and nostalgia grew with them. This is evident from the scope to the ticket prices, which rose from around €1 in 2013, to €22 in 2024. Now Taking the Trash Out brands itself as “the biggest trash programme in the world”. 

By producing an event that plays with the audience’s collective memories of a specific period, these parties present an example of the commercialisation and commodification of nostalgia, highlighting how it can be both deeply personal and widely marketable and profitable. The event is focused on one group, millennials, and marketing and sales are done accordingly. Taking the Trash Out has found a deep source of income in a nostalgia-driven generation. Millennials now have no problem paying €22 for the comfort of familiar tunes. 

This local phenomenon is just one example of a global trend where nostalgia is not just a personal experience, but a marketable commodity. 

Nostalgia as a commodity

Popular culture has often tried to capture the feeling of nostalgia in many of its forms. Nostalgia has become a lucrative industry, usually targeted at the biggest working group, i.e. the largest consumer base. For example, the resurgence of vinyl records and cassette tapes among Generation X is a reincarnation of the music and physical media of their youth.

This cycle of nostalgia is now aimed predominantly at millennials as the largest working group in the world.

There are many examples of this globally, particularly in the entertainment field. A recent one is the newest Deadpool & Wolverine movie, by itself one huge millennial reference that grossed over $1 billion at the box office worldwide. Remakes, reboots, and sequels of movies and TV shows (Toy Story 5 and Shrek 5 announced for 2026, for example), the fashion resurrection of tracksuits, as well as the revivals of old bands (Oasis going back on tour and the whispers of an NSYNC reunion), have all made evident that our past has returned to the present. 

Millennials are currently the largest working group in the world, which, all economic issues aside, brings them money and some sort of financial stability. And having some money, they are ready to spend it. Some research shows that millennials are willing to spend more money on products that evoke childhood nostalgia than other generations. They remember these objects or stories from their youth, and they remind them of times when they were carefree.

Brands are also catching up to this phenomenon, with marketing campaigns and product developments evoking the past and awakening the feeling of nostalgia in their consumers. Yet this reliance on nostalgic products could limit the development of new cultural experiences for future generations. 

Russian-American artist and cultural theorist Svetlana Boym defined reflective nostalgia as a longing based on personal experience. It is ironic in its distance from the past and precisely what the entertainment industry has tapped into. Reflective nostalgia plays on a deeply personal but also collectively shared memory of the past, turning it into a powerful market force. 

“Jutro donosi kraj” (The Morning Brings the End)

Those who experience Taking the Trash Out events firsthand often describe them as more than just gatherings. 

“It was a place where people met, fell in love, broke up, suffered, cheated, formed new friendships — everything, really,” Anja, 29, says. She was a regular at the events in the late 2010s. 

Valentina, 26, reflects on the same feeling, describing Taking the Trash Out as a nostalgic trip back to childhood — those carefree days when she was seven or eight, singing into a karaoke microphone, belting out “Prava ljubav” (Real Love) by Lana and Luka, thinking no one could hear her. 

“These parties bring nostalgia for me because I hear a song, and I’m instantly transported back to fifth grade, listening to it on a cassette in my room. It evokes that same sense of simplicity, joy, and innocence — when everything felt lighter, happier, and worry-free,” she says.

The memories we create as children and adolescents stay with us for a long time. The entertainment industry learned that it could capitalise on our feelings toward the past, and with that, nostalgia became a phenomenon in popular culture. 

While nostalgia can bring comfort and joy, its commercialisation comes at a cultural cost. By focusing on re-living the past, there is less room for creating new cultural phenomena that will define the future. When industries prioritise nostalgia-driven products and experiences, they risk stifling innovation and recycling the same memories instead of fostering fresh ideas. 

As a result, we might be raising generations whose cultural touchpoints are rooted in second-hand experiences, limiting the diversity and creativity of what comes next.

It’s Saturday night in Zagreb in 2025. The familiar songs are echoing through the club, and you sing along just like before. But as the beat of nostalgia pounds, you ask yourself — how much of your past can be bought and sold? And what will we have to remember when the party is over?