Spotify, YouTube, and others get reimagined as retro anime tech

The likes of Instagram, Spotify, and YouTube might all be high-tech modern internet services, but they all have their roots in another era of analog technology. Now, one artist has imagined what these services would look like if they were actually made for that bygone era, whether it’s an Instagram-branded Polaroid camera, a Spotify cassette player, or a VHS tape player featuring YouTube’s color scheme.

Okay, to be fair, the designs from concept artist Sheng Lam, noted by Kotaku earlier this week, don’t technically name each of the services they’re based on, but it would be hard not to mistake SoundKloud for SoundCloud or YooTube for YouTube.

Lam’s anime-styled illustrations manage to do a convincing job at imagining what the likes of Netflix and Twitter would have looked like in a pre-internet age. Netflix (ahem, sorry, Netflex) is a chunky CRT TV of course, while Twitter (nay, Tweeter) is a Telegraph key, used for sending Morse code messages.

If I had to nitpick, I’d say that SoundCloud’s emphasis on DIY music makes the service a better fit for a cassette player than Spotify does, but the art is good-looking enough that I think he gets away with it.

You can check out the high-res images over on Sheng Lam’s ArtStation page, and there are also prints available on Inprnt.