Your article was very useful in terms of questioning the why of nostalgia, the role of brands in mining these emotional attachments, as well as hinting at the risks....I think there's a bunch of insidious risks worth exploring as a deep dive. For one..."Make America great again" is the ultimate political hijack of nostalgia pulling the American nation into an imagined reality - a time that it was largely not great for the majority of people. I agree that the internet as an ever-growing never-ending churn of content and visuals aids this normalization and nostalgia.
Culturally, I think it also makes us dumber and lazier. Curiosity dies because instead of creating anew we spend our time looking backwards and searching through what has been done to copy or update or rekindle . Openness to novelty and the unexpected diminishes, imagination atrophies and innovation suffers as we fail to engage with and deal with its challenges and opportunities of the present, and create the future that we need.
I think you're onto something that the time spent on screens fuel nostalgia. ( I exclude digital creators - but the vast majority of time spent on screens is spent consuming, NOT creating.)
Could it be that less time on screens might fuel more boredom, more travel, more talking, more discovery and more creativity - or has that horse bolted ?
Your argument on "Make America Great Again" romanticising a time and a place that are definitely more nuanced than what "they" reference is so important. I'd love to discuss this more in person as I'm not a fan of politics through here haha I find it quite scary...
And I totally agree that screens are making us dumber and lazier, but I also try to be careful on this as I also have to acknowledge how much good they bring to culture and society. Ultimately I don't think it comes down to the screens, but to how we use them as a society, I think it's really important to be really active when thinking about these issues (as we are doing) and really try to be active in our ways of interacting with them.
Loved your insights and can't wait to discuss this (and more!) in person.
This is so interesting! I wonder if generations above millennials have a similar relationship to nostalgia for times they didn't live through or if the war years killed that for them, because for millennials nostalgia still wasn't fully tied to the internet, perhaps, we have the analogue kind: vinyls and film photography, a romanticisation of the 60s and 70s. But I do think we are considerably doing this faster and faster - the repackaging of it is now so quick though that, as you said, it's crazy to think about the "nostalgia" Gen Alpha will experience. So many thoughts.
I can definitely see older generations feeling similarly to our nostalgia, which is an interesting thought!
I agree on the pace of nostalgia being driven by online worlds, but also how it affects culture in a deeper and all-encompassing way (i.e. brands using this, younger generations being pulled back, etc).
Your article was very useful in terms of questioning the why of nostalgia, the role of brands in mining these emotional attachments, as well as hinting at the risks....I think there's a bunch of insidious risks worth exploring as a deep dive. For one..."Make America great again" is the ultimate political hijack of nostalgia pulling the American nation into an imagined reality - a time that it was largely not great for the majority of people. I agree that the internet as an ever-growing never-ending churn of content and visuals aids this normalization and nostalgia.
Culturally, I think it also makes us dumber and lazier. Curiosity dies because instead of creating anew we spend our time looking backwards and searching through what has been done to copy or update or rekindle . Openness to novelty and the unexpected diminishes, imagination atrophies and innovation suffers as we fail to engage with and deal with its challenges and opportunities of the present, and create the future that we need.
I think you're onto something that the time spent on screens fuel nostalgia. ( I exclude digital creators - but the vast majority of time spent on screens is spent consuming, NOT creating.)
Could it be that less time on screens might fuel more boredom, more travel, more talking, more discovery and more creativity - or has that horse bolted ?
Such great and interesting points, I love this!
Your argument on "Make America Great Again" romanticising a time and a place that are definitely more nuanced than what "they" reference is so important. I'd love to discuss this more in person as I'm not a fan of politics through here haha I find it quite scary...
And I totally agree that screens are making us dumber and lazier, but I also try to be careful on this as I also have to acknowledge how much good they bring to culture and society. Ultimately I don't think it comes down to the screens, but to how we use them as a society, I think it's really important to be really active when thinking about these issues (as we are doing) and really try to be active in our ways of interacting with them.
Loved your insights and can't wait to discuss this (and more!) in person.
This is so interesting! I wonder if generations above millennials have a similar relationship to nostalgia for times they didn't live through or if the war years killed that for them, because for millennials nostalgia still wasn't fully tied to the internet, perhaps, we have the analogue kind: vinyls and film photography, a romanticisation of the 60s and 70s. But I do think we are considerably doing this faster and faster - the repackaging of it is now so quick though that, as you said, it's crazy to think about the "nostalgia" Gen Alpha will experience. So many thoughts.
I can definitely see older generations feeling similarly to our nostalgia, which is an interesting thought!
I agree on the pace of nostalgia being driven by online worlds, but also how it affects culture in a deeper and all-encompassing way (i.e. brands using this, younger generations being pulled back, etc).
As per usual, love your thoughts hehe