Museum of pre-internet, pre-ai summers


Guided Tour

Alright, welcome.

I'm Siwon, and I'll be showing you round today.

Before we get started, a quick heads-up: you won't find any masterpieces in this museum. No Picassos. No Velázquezs (fit, aren't I?). No fancy interactive screens. Not even AI audio guides.

What we do have is a collection of everyday bits and bobs. Ordinary. A bit tacky. But every single one has one extraordinary talent: they can chuck you straight back into an entire summer in less than a second.

Right then, follow me.

The tour's about to begin.


ROOM I. EVERYDAY MASTERPIECES

Everything in this room was painted straight onto our memories. Don't overthink it. Just have a look.

  1. Spit-covered swimming goggles
    Artist unknown. Ancient anti-fog technique. Weirdly effective.
  2. Giant Nivea beach ball
    Probably the most spotted thing on any Spanish beach between 1990 and 2005.

  3. Blue cool box full of breaded steaks and watermelon
    Greasy oil on plastic. Requires two grown-ups to carry it twenty metres across the beach.

  4. Fingers like wrinkly raisins
    Limited edition. Only appears after three hours in the pool without getting out.

  5. Swimsuit tan lines
    A temporary installation. Only on display in July and August.

  6. Spanish omelette sandwich with sand in it
    Critics are still arguing over whether the sand was actually part of the recipe.

  7. 25-peseta ice pop
    A fleeting masterpiece. Approximate happiness: thirty seconds... depending on how fast it melted.

  8. A plaster on your knee
    A recurring exhibit. No childhood ever managed to get away with just one.


ROOM II. SOUND AND VISION

Please keep the noise down.
If you hear any of these sounds, don't panic...

That's just nostalgia doing its thing:

  • Cicadas buzzing at four in the afternoon.
  • The mosquito zapper humming just before the ZZZT!
  • The fan going clack... clack... clack... every time it turned.
  • "Are we there yet?"... even though there were still another two hours to go.
  • The Doraemon theme tune. Official signal to get out of the pool.
  • The opening seconds of The Simpsons. The most reliable clock summer ever had.


ROOM III. SCULPTURE & TEXTURES

Please don't touch the exhibits.

Mind you... we all know exactly what every single one of them feels like.

  • The rough plastic of a white sun lounger.
  • Your towel after its third day at the beach.
  • Tight skin after spending all day in chlorine.
  • That blue bottle of sun cream that never bloody closed properly.
  • Flip-flops sticking to the poolside.
  • Your swimming cap or goggles pinging out three hairs in one go.
  • A car seat hot enough to brand you after a morning in the sun.


ROOM IV. EXTINCT TECHNOLOGY

Anyone under thirty usually thinks this room is science fiction.

  • A pencil used to rewind cassette tapes.
  • A Walkman that loved eating your tapes.
  • A Tamagotchi that didn't survive the holidays.
  • Tilting your Game Boy at exactly forty-five degrees to find the one tiny patch of light where you could actually see the screen.
  • A roll of film with twenty-four chances not to blink.


ROOM V. INTANGIBLE HERITAGE

These exhibits don't need labels.

We all know exactly where we were when they happened.

  • "Tits out!" And no, it wasn't a nudist beach. It was Aphrodite A. These days, chances are you're the one sunbathing topless.
  • Going home when the streetlights came on.
  • Falling asleep in the car and waking up with no clue what town you were in.
  • Melon for pudding after dinner.
  • Being bored. Probably the hardest exhibit to explain to anyone growing up today.


And that brings us to the end of the tour. Feel free to pop into the museum gift shop. We don't sell fridge magnets. Or T-shirts. Or mugs. Just one final thought to take away with you:

None of these exhibits really belongs in a museum...
and yet every single one of them preserves something that's surprisingly hard to find these days: The ability to make three months feel like they'd last forever.

Maybe we don't actually miss those objects.

Maybe we don't even miss those summers. Maybe what we really miss is living in a time when you didn't have to get your phone out for something to feel worth remembering... When simply being there was enough.


P.S. If reading this made you catch a whiff of aftersun or suddenly feel sand between your toes, then the tour has done its job. And if you're after an aftersun that smells of melon, summer and that cool, fresh feeling—one that soothes sunburn and helps your tan last a bit longer—give our summer bestseller a go: Melonizer.


News