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Pettiness is forever ❤️🔥
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Remember crossing out faces in your yearbook? BIC does:
A few months ago, I caught myself doom scrolling on Instagram.
It started with “just one more reel” and ended with “oh look, it’s 2:00am 😅.”
That was the moment I realized I needed to clean house.
I went through my following list, channeled my inner Marie Kondo, and cut out any accounts that “didn’t spark joy.”
These days, unfriending someone on social media is as easy as the click of a button.
But back in the day – when people only had photo prints – unfriending looked a bit different (yes, Gen Zers, we’re taking a trip back in time ⌛).
Before social media, if you didn’t like someone, you had to cross their face out in pen, cut them out of photos, or whatever floated your boat.
Maybe you even wrote about them in a Burn Book (looking at you, Regina 💅).
That’s where BIC’s nostalgic ad comes in.
Targeting older Millennials, Gen Xers, and Boomers – the generations that still reach for pens – BIC taps into a memory only these generations can relate to.
They feature an 80s yearbook with faces aggressively crossed out in pen, paired with the tagline: Unfriending long before social media.
This ad works because it taps into nostalgic irony by connecting old-school pettiness with modern digital culture.
It reframes a contemporary behavior through a vintage lens, reminding us that human drama and self-expression existed long before the Internet.
(And let’s face it… one computer click just doesn’t give the same satisfaction as aggressively crossing someone out in permanent ink 🖊️).
BIC transforms an ordinary pen from a simple writing tool into a powerful symbol of emotional release and identity.
Turns out, the pen is mightier than the block button.
BIC took a stroll down memory lane in their print ad.
This next one breaks free from past generations.
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