In the past year or two, the buying and selling of classic film machines on second-hand trading platforms has become increasingly active and expensive. Disposable film machines have topped the hot selling list of related shopping platforms, and once closed film processing shops have reappeared on the streets and alleys. The "# Film" topic on Xiaohongshu has exceeded 3.8 billion views... In today's era where digital photography dominates, film photography is quietly re entering people's lives, and its fans have expanded from film photography enthusiasts to ordinary young people. Nostalgia plays an important role in this seemingly counter current cultural phenomenon. For some film photography enthusiasts, the photography process of the film era is full of ceremony, from carefully loading the film into the camera to patiently developing the photos in the darkroom. The slightly primitive manual operation method contrasts sharply with modern fast-paced digital photography. In addition, film photography enthusiasts, out of nostalgia for film photography, have purchased and collected classic film cameras in large quantities, held film photography exhibitions, and sparked a retro trend in the photography industry. After all, film photography enthusiasts are a minority, why do young people who are not audiophiles also have a huge passion for film photography? As the younger generation of 'digital natives', they have not experienced the golden age of film photography, so they naturally cannot talk about nostalgia for film photography. They fell in love with film photography more to experience the uncertain photography process - film quality, development formula, liquid temperature, development time, and processing environment, each factor affecting the final imaging effect. These make film a unique "imaging blind box", and many young people regard taking and developing film photos as a "unboxing" ritual to satisfy their curiosity. The so-called blind box refers to a box in which consumers cannot know in advance what products are inside, and uncertainty is the most important characteristic and charm of blind boxes. Every time a blind box is opened, it is like opening a mysterious door or embarking on a small adventure. Research on the psychology of mass consumption shows that "it is uncertain stimuli that strengthen repetitive decisions." When the tension brought by uncertain expectations is transformed into satisfaction brought by deterministic outcomes, consumers' psychological feelings will improve, even better than giving them direct results. Over and over, people have fallen in love with the feeling of "unboxing". Therefore, blind box consumption has gradually become a popular cultural consumption method among young people in recent years. Statistics show that by 2023, the size of China's blind box market has exceeded 200 billion yuan. The return of film photography, in a sense, is an upgrade of blind box consumption. Of course, there are still some differences between the "imaging blind box" composed of film and traditional commodity blind boxes - the photographer is not dismantling surprises in the complete unknown, but salvaging time in the gap between known and unknown. When the photographer presses the shutter of the film camera, the outline of the memory is already formed in the mind, so the developed photo frame will not completely deviate from expectations, but also carry the surprise of development deviation. The charm of film photography lies in the perfect combination of "expectation" and "surprise". In blind box consumption, what consumers care most about is not the specific items inside the blind box, but the emotional change of "expectation surprise" from purchasing the blind box to opening it. Film photography is no exception. For photographers, it is not only the photograph that carries meaning, but also the process of shooting and developing. This reflects the change in public consumption concepts and consumer psychology - from valuing the practical value of goods to pursuing process experience and emotional value. In the future, with the upgrading of consumption, experiential and emotional consumption like film photography may become an increasingly popular trend. (New Society)