The Meaning of Nostalgia
Commonplace Newsletter #011
There was this schizophrenic guy I used to care for once. One of this delusions, so to speak, one of his lingering worries, was that people were going back in time to steal his past. To mess with it. At the time I thought that was silly. But as I get older I see the resonance of this as a metaphor.
See, I remember the 90’s from the first time around. And so this ongoing 90’s revival we see today has a strange, ominous, funfair hall of mirrors energy to me. It is as if my own dimly remembered lived experience has been tampered with and mistranslated to the present.
Some of the surface details of this neo-90’s are similar- high waisted acid wash jeans, band t-shirts, questionable haircuts- but the core is different.
Back then, as you may recall, there was little to no awareness of the idea that you as an individual are a ‘brand’ or the concept that you project, and thus can manage, a self image (because cameras were not ubiquitous and social media did not exist).
And there was a genuine anti-consumerist, anti-materialist streak that ran through culture (versus the current lip-service to minimalism, though it is largely a different mode of consumption).
The Left™️ were for Localism (I.e. The Battle of Seattle) and the Right™️ were for Globalism, at least in the way that the narrative was presented. And politics was begrudgingly tolerated if not largely ignored. It was only the spectator sport of a small cadre of nerds. Most people had more sense.
And so I think the nostalgia for this period that Gen Z play with is emblematic of something. And as you’ve been kind enough to stop by here I think we should look into it.
All Nostalgia is Nostalgia for Past Optimism
‘I miss the future’
~ Jaron Lanier.
My feeling (because let’s be frank, in this newsletter we deal in intuitions more than we deal in data) is that Gen Z 90’s nostalgia is an attempt by media-saturated youth to build a foundation for a better tomorrow. They sense that there is something in the MTV/ video game/ boom bap/ indie rock decade that is worth learning from.
And of course people who have been trained from birth to deal with only the visual and the surface are going to adopt a distorted and ‘wrong’ version of the fashion labels, colour palettes and haircuts way before they burrow through the sediment to reach the morality and the mentality. Such as it was.
This is only natural.
But you can sense the longing. Or at least I can. Look at some of the comments on YouTube mixtapes of vaporwave or 90’s influenced sample flips. It’s palpable. I read the same sentiment again and again like a refrain:
‘This makes me nostalgic for a time I didn’t experience.’
This is key. A Nirvana-shirted 20 year old never actually saw Kurt and the gang on Unplugged or at Reading or on tour with Tad. A teenager with an eBay MPC2000 never actually wore out their copy of the Purple Tape through constant school bus rotation.
It’s all secondhand and so is more akin to daydreaming in reverse. Which is what happens when the near future is uncertain and threatening.
Your relationship to nostalgia is a bellweather of your sense of optimism. The more you pine for yesterday the more you conversely dread tomorrow. And that’s no way to live.
I’m not talking here about taking influence and studying the history of your medium. That’s healthy. I’m not talking about favouring analogue out of tactile pleasure and aesthetic preference. That’s understandable. I’m talking about that actual felt desire to not be in the now and to not be moving forward through history.
Simply put: there are no do-overs in this life. And what can never be should not be dwelled on. It robs you of precious energy.
Escaping The Siren Song
When everything is in flux people want something in stasis
~ Kairon, Nostalgia and Future Narratives.
Nostalgia is a temptation. It offers comfort and respite. But it is no place to live.
The protective shell of nostalgia will soon stifle you and slow you down. Eventually it will suffocate you. I purchased this particular lesson from the expensive school of experience.
So, the question then is this: how does our hypothetical Zoomer deal with, reconcile and, more to the point, use this nostalgia for a time they have never tasted?
Firstly, they need to focus on this catacomb age and see it for the opportunity it is. I know I am virtually alone in saying this but I believe that certain patches of the coming decentralised culture-scape will thrive and blossom as this decade progresses. Opportunities abound for those willing to take them. They just won’t be in the form of the tired model of taking crumbs of fame from the gatekeeper-guarded table of monoculture.
With this new frame of mind nostalgia cannot metastasise and turn toxic.
Second, study the past through biography and overview. Ignore the magpie urge to settle for mere shiny trinkets and signifiers, the simple reappropriation of past fashions and fads. The key is to parse and play with the philosophy of the time, the weltanschauung
In our 90’s example that would be the localist, DIY, spirit of indie music and film. How could that manifest in 2021 and beyond? What would those people do if they were blessed enough to have the online distribution systems that we have today?
Third, and this is more individualised- what fear is keeping you stuck in ‘back in the day’? Because it is a fear response. Fear of flux, fear of success (and its cousin, fear of trying your best when failure is a possibility), fear of death?
Perform the deep introspection needed to move beyond this.
Because when you do, the past will become a source of inspiration rather than stagnation. It will offer you tones and motifs and wisdom that you can filter through your lived experience, personal vision and sense of the collective consciousness and in doing so you will make something new.
Something that the youth of the future will look back on with a wistful sigh.
And so the cycle continues. And so the world keeps turning.
Oh boï, do I have some thoughts about that "nostalgia" thing !
First, let me confess that I have always been prone to nostalgia as a way not to go forward; there is a deadly comfort in reading old books, watching old films, and analyzing these epochs only from this artistic perspective, to be able to say "What has this world gone to ? My God, I would have been so much happier back then !" That childish and fear-driven idea usually disappears when you talk with people who actually lived during these times, and tell you all the dirty-kitchen stuff you conveniently brushed aside (talk to your grandad about these "golden times" when pneumonia often meant death, or to your parents about the cold war era). When you look back and remember the time spent with an old lover, you usually remember all the good stuff and not the day-to-day nagging and disputes that ended the relationship. I think it is the same with history. Nostalgia is often a way of reframing the past to better cope with it and - hopefully - building your roots to move forward.
Regarding the Gen Z approach to Nostalgia, I think they live in a world far more fractured and atomized than we did in the 90s. We're at the end of an era where everything is pushed to the extreme and the system can only go on as long as it pushes forward. The past 15 years developments of technology have created an atomised world where everyone is his own niche and every artistic trend is subdivided in tens of sub-genres. How can you find a common cultural ground in that? Kids need references, they need "roots" to build their own identity. And the modern world offers none, so it seems only logical that they go and find them in the past, in an era where creativity had more room to flourish and where the "market" had not yet took total control over it. So yeah, they're only taking the attributes and the symbols (like clothing and haircuts), but that's the mandatory first step before going further.
I would also say that we are in a refinement culture that kills the ingenuity and the fun out of every activity. You see it within the sports industry (btw who called sports an industry in the 80s?): everything is über-professionalized, there are so much new rules, regulations and technological sophistication that the only thing that matters is the .001 second you'll have over the oponent. Marketing and PR agencies have effectively weaponized the fun in every cultural activity and I feel that Gen Z teenagers/young adults are craving for a return to something more "humane", more candid. So some of them dive in nostalgia in search for it.
I think that this is one of your best newsletters yet. You can certainly see nostalgia for the past playing a part in people being disappointed by their idols. It's very common with fans of bands, such as Smiths fans bemoaning Morrissey's current political views. At times it feels as if there's a requirement for the individuals you admired in your youth to continually act as a kind of beacon throughout the later years of your lifespan. I'm probably just waffling nonsense, though.
Anyway, I hope that you keep writing these. I look forward to them every Sunday. Cheers.