The Nostalgia Pill

Lately I’ve seen plenty of videos and articles saying “older was better”. Be it movies, TV, books, music or the like, it feels like inherent cynicism for the new is overtaking the conversation, with people pining for the past. While I’m sometimes guilty myself, it genuinely feels like the internet has embraced Peter Pan Syndrome. And it’s tiresome. It’s tiresome listening to, it’s tiresome engaging with, it’s tiresome all around. It also begs the question: what is it about nostalgic art that piques our curiosity more than current art?

First, let’s understand what nostalgia is. Taken from the Greek words “nóstos” and “álgos” (aka “a painful longing for home”), the phrase was conceived to describe soldiers abroad who had homesickness. Over time, it morphed to be about longing for the past in general. After all, the past was known, understood and fixed. The future, however, was unknown, mysterious and fluid. Since people are pathologically averse to what they can’t understand, it makes sense gravitating to the past.

Nostalgia isn’t inherently bad. Not only does the past teach us about the present, it also can be reevaluated when looked back on. That’s why art exists in “The 30-Year Cycle”, as artists mature and reflect on their childhoods. And given how political culture’s reactionary, for good or bad, having that nostalgic framework allows us to understand how societies progress or regress. Also, nostalgia, on some level, is comforting.

Nevertheless, that pining for nostalgia is dangerous when not checked with reality. There’s a twofold reason: one, it’s not healthy to stay in the past, especially at the expense of the present. And two, your understanding of the past is different than someone else’s, with biases based on privilege. Not everything about the past was great, and ignoring that hurts progress. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our current political zeitgeist.

Additionally, pop culture nostalgia, while fun, often blinds people to what’s current. Don’t like how a show ended? Claim it didn’t live up to its start. A rebooted or legacy franchise turned out differently than you expected? State that it’s lost its edge. Something’s gone on too long? Call it out. All of these responses are flooding the internet, and it makes having conversations difficult.

A while back, I saw a video analyzing how 2000s movies were more immersive because they focused first on world-building, something lost with modern storytelling. It was interesting, to but I found it reduced an entire medium to black-and-white metrics. There were plenty of 2000s movies that were non-immersive and preachy. I grew up then, after all! Subsequently, there are many modern movies that are immersive and not preachy in the slightest.

I think nostalgia played a huge factor, if unintentionally, in the underlying thesis. To reference a response to the comment I left, everyone remembers being 12 years-old. Cinematic storytelling ages, and not always the way we intend. What might’ve been revolutionary when you were younger might not hold up now. And your nostalgia sometimes clouds your judgement.

Perhaps this can be understood via MovieBob’s “Really That Good” episode on Transformers: The Movie. Bob states upfront that the movie isn’t great: it’s messy, sloppily-written and exists to merchandise newer toys. Additionally, many of its celebrity voices, like Orson Welles, clearly didn’t care, only agreeing to be there for a paycheque. However, Bob acknowledges that the movie still made an impact because it resonated with so many people. Fair enough.

However, I wonder if the movie should be reevaluated now that we’ve had two critically-acclaimed Transformers entries, Bumblebee and Transformers One, released theatrically. Both were labours of love, even if they were based on toys, and both told genuine stories. For the former, it was “a girl and her dog” premise akin to The Iron Giant. For the latter, it was a “friends to enemies” origin for Optimus Prime and Megatron. Both have gone on to become cult classics, too. Essentially, is nostalgia the only element keeping Transformers: The Movie relevant?

I have fond memories of garbage movies and shows. I loved Inspector Gadget as a kid, once watching it every day for a week, but the adult in me knows that it sucks. I loved Pokémon when I was younger, despite recognizing it pales to the games it was based on. Like Bob and Transformers: The Movie, I also have examples of art that I still connect with despite recognizing that it existed as vehicles for merchandising, the Digimon franchise being a prime example. However, my nostalgic attachments have kept these properties relevant, even if they’re not great-actually, Digimon Tamers holds up. But my point stands.

This unwillingness to live in the present, no matter what franchise, has ruined people’s ability to be honest about media. And while this isn’t a new problem, contrary to what some claim, I do think it’s gotten worse as the internet has become more of a mainstay. Videos that wouldn’t have been popular even 10 years ago are now mainstays for views and engagement thanks to algorithms promoting them over even-keeled analyses. It’s why so many videos complaining about Stranger Things, particularly its final season, exist versus those defending the show. Nostalgia, like anger, sells more than honesty, especially online.

What can be done? I don’t know. My words alone won’t fix anything, as I’m as guilty of looking to the past as anyone else. But I do think a re-framing of how we perceive engaging with art needs to happen. And it should happen soon. There’s only so much looking back we can do before the well runs dry permanently. That’s never a good sign, in other words.

So yes, nostalgia can be comforting, but also dangerous if not tempered with reality. The sooner we realize that, the better off we’ll be.