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? a i g l a t os N Why are we so obsessed with
The good old days… “When I was a kid”… For everyone who waxes lyrical about their childhood and what they did and didn’t have, there’s someone who doesn’t know what a Walkman is. Seriously? And cassette tapes. What? And even nostalgia itself is subjective, for everyone who fondly remembers the K-Tel Record Selector, there is someone else who had a Cabbage Patch Kid or Teddy Ruxpin. But it seems that nostalgia is becoming more and more prevalent in culture. The further away we get from the 80’s the more things from the 80’s are cool or are being rebooted, rehashed or just plain repurposed. Just thinking about how many TV shows that have been rebooted like MacGyver, Dynasty and Fantasy Island, boggles the mind. With yet another installment of the Jurassic franchise and the Top Gun sequel in cinemas, nostalgia buffs are spoilt for choice. And the less said about the multitude of Star Wars TV shows coming out the better. Even music is experiencing a bit of a time warp. One of the most popular artists — who recently won three Grammys — has built her entire brand on the nostalgia.
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Olivia Rodrigo (who currently has her own documentary on streaming service Disney +) is bringing the Y2K lifestyle back in a big way. An impressive feat for someone who was born in 2003.
But it does seem like the old adage “there are no new ideas, only recycled ones” is true when it comes to prepackaged pop culture artifacts.
IS THERE A DEEPER MEANING? We could be cynical and look at the surface of pop culture and see some creative bankruptcy in the decisions made, particularly across the entertainment landscape. After all there is so much content avaialble to consume across mutliple streaming services, there is a constant need to appeal to a broad demographic. There is nostalgia for the cash grab and then there are the more nuanced throwbacks which frame storytelling. Stranger Things is an excellent example of this (its fourth season now on Netflix). Who doesn’t remember their bowl cut and playing D&D with mates, while riding around the neighbourhood on our Dragsters? Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers designed these elements as ornaments more than scaffolding for their creepy story about the Upside Down. They connected us to our collective childhoods, all
the while telling a deeply nuanced story about a family with connections in both the real and supernatural worlds.
But digging deeper what does this influx of redos and retreads and reruns say about us? Why do we love the experience of re-experience? What is it about our past that we find so appealing?
Nostalgia’s a funny thing precisely because it’s entirely subjective. Every persons’ experience — like our taste in music, movies and television – is different and unique. Sometimes a piece of music or a smell can transport you back to your childhood. But one persons’ joy can be anothers’ pain, loss, fear or even trauma or depression. Even now, it’s likely your mind just traveled back to some of those places—happy or sad, depending on where you were in the paragraph. When all is stripped away – artifice and entertainment — this is the human experience, moved by the power of suggestion.
