I’ve been beta testing Dispo this President’s Day Weekend. The namesake of the mobile app is derived from disposable cameras, a product you may or may not be familiar with depending on your age. As an old millennial, I grew up in a world without digital technology and saw it advance and evolve.

In school, I was known as the storyteller and one who’d capture moments both on and off the record. I didn’t have a job in high school, though my entrepreneurial spirit was alive and well. Though I didn’t have a job, I had a 1x CDR and access to Napster on our epic 28.8k modem. I’d create custom CDs for classmates in exchange for cash, where I’d spend most of my money on disposable cameras purchased from our Fred Meyer department store. In addition to taking photography in high school and printing black and white photos in our darkroom, I’d capture a lot of moments with the disposable cameras. During my lunch breaks, I’d drive to the local camera shop to drop off the film in great anticipation of the next day to see how they turn out; often printing doubles to gift. It wasn’t until my senior year in high school when I first discovered digital cameras. My high school art teacher had one for our photography class. Though I don’t recall the model of camera, I remember Mrs. Frey handing me a compact 3.5” floppy disk to load the camera. I couldn’t believe having a camera where you could save it to a disk at 570x490 pixels.

Fast forward to many years throughout college and my adult life. As digital technology advanced, so did the amount of photo storage. You can now easily get one terabyte of storage for personal photos. To put it in perspective, that’s 500 disks for your Jaz drive. I deleted my Facebook account in 2018 but remember how overwhelming the photo experience was for me. Looking at photos that each told a vivid story now became an influx of data in a feed. I’d remember friends tagging me in photos and I wouldn’t even recall that experience at all. Storing photos does not equate to memory.

I grew up in a family where my parents captured a lot of moments and would create physical photo albums. Some of the best memories were sitting with my mom and having her tell the story of each photo. I believe my parents did this because photography was so inaccessible when they were in Vietnam. I can count on one hand how many photos I’ve seen of my grandmother (on my mom’s side). That’s the only mental model I have of her. Each photo is supercharged with such memorable emotions that I can vividly recall.

For example, here’s a photo of me during my 5th birthday with Dino, the dinosaur my mom bought for me at the local Safeway.

I remember walking through every aisle in the grocery store with my mom, hugging the dinosaur that was about the size of me. I loved him so much. Mom bought him for my birthday and he got to join our family. This photo was right before I made sure that Dino had a party hat. I remember not only the memory of this but the emotion of joy it made me feel. I’m happy to share that Dino is still alive and living at my brother’s house in Seattle.

Photos can also represent moments you no longer have, almost like a visual relic for what you no longer have. I lost one of my best friends, Jake, at the age of 25. To this day, I miss him so much every day. If you’ve lost a friend at a young age, you might know the pain of small moments in the day that can trigger your grief, which happened today for me as I was driving home and Spotify played “Me & My Homies” by Nate Dogg and 2Pac, a song we often listened to. I burst into tears on Interstate 10 thinking of my friend. It feels so strange to grow older while he remains the same age in my memories.

In high school, we had a tradition to have a campout at the end of the year. the juniors and seniors would often coordinate this and drive to an undisclosed location to stay up all night and party, coming into class the next day reeking the smell of campfire smoke among other things. I packed a bunch of disposable cameras to capture moments (off the record of course) of that night. I still have this photo of Jake and I.

Yes, I used to have blonde hair as it was the Dru Hill era. Though Jake and I spent about every single day together since we were 11 years old, this is one of a few photos left of us, something I hang on to dearly. Every time I look at this photo, his memory lives with me again.

There are many reasons I’m excited about Dispo, like how it’s such a golden age for exploring consumer apps again. What makes me appreciate Dispo so much is the emphasis on living in the moment and makes you wait until 9 am the next day to let the digital photos develop. Instagram used to be so simple, but after many years it’s become a business owned by Facebook. It feels like you hardly see photos on Instagram these days, instead, it’s memes, knock offs of other apps, and the modern QVC shopping experience. Dispo encourages us to capture the moment not overtly edit what we want people to perceive.

It’s not like the analog disposable camera days, but the Dispo experience is great nostalgia for me that brings so much joy. Thank you, Dispo.

If you’re on the beta you can find me @davidhoang. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed sharing photos again digitally. Thanks for taking me back while looking forward to the future.