I miss kindergarten. I miss begging for toys from “As-Seen-on-TV” ads, running through sprinklers in the yard, coveting pizza Lunchables my friends ate, not to mention wearing those clear, sparkly jelly shoes that came with princess costumes, inevitably bringing blisters. There was something about those days, when Google still used a serif font and when a party meant stumbling to Just Dance 4 instead of body glitter and burning oneself with curling irons.
Nostalgia is a specific feeling albeit one that is hard to define; not quite sadness, not quite melancholy and not quite fondness. The etymology denotes very Odyssean values. Nostalgia comes from the Greek words nostos, meaning homecoming, and algos, meaning grief. Altogether, nostalgia is the grief of homecoming. Today, we assign the word to mean a yearning for the past, viewing it as a homecoming that can never happen.
I am grounded in memories. I study English, History and Creative Writing, a combination of disciplines that often look to the past to make sense of the present moment. As such, I find the future terrifying. I, like many people, find the things I do not know ominous and sickening. In British author Charles Dickens’ novel “A Christmas Carol,” the past is a shifting, sad and beautiful ghost, and the future is portrayed as a grim, doom-bringing figure. In director Greta Gerwig’s 2019 movie adaptation of “Little Women,” the past is portrayed with a warm filter, while the future is portrayed using cooler, distant tones. Songs like country artist Don Mclean’s “American Pie” ruminate about good old days and past lovers. Our media portrays the past as something to be desired, something cozy, because this is how many people perceive the world. I have experienced the past, and therefore I feel that the past and I have an understanding.
I am oriented backwards, so I can comprehend why other people are too.
As with anything people love, corporations have quickly and coldly latched onto nostalgia as another thing off of which to profit. This is not a new trend, but I have recently been flooded with advertisements on Instagram showcasing products that only satisfy some kind of nostalgic itch, especially around the holidays. I also continue to see videos created by artificial intelligence that try to capture the feeling of past times, and in my opinion, fail to do so. It is almost ironic that AI clips depicting autumn in warmly lit 1990s homes have become popular, a clash between nostalgia and the exact thing people want to escape from.
Netflix’s hit show “Stranger Things” used 80s nostalgia to entice viewers of all ages, pulling in those who yearned for a time they possibly never even experienced. There is a specific term for nostalgia experienced by people who never lived in the time they are nostalgic for: anemoia. Coined by Duke University Professor of psychology Felipe De Brigard, anemoia is most often felt when people feel dissatisfied with their current situation. So, of course, streaming giants, corporations and politicians use this version of nostalgia to get something out of people. For example, President Donald Trump’s original “Make America Great Again” campaign tagline sought to create a collective memory of America “before,” without even specifying the time period his campaign claimed to recreate. Anemoia is often even more successful than nostalgia as bait, because it relies on people’s inexperience. Nostalgia and anemoia are ultimately just stories we tell ourselves, and corporations prey upon these stories in order to sell their product.
Nostalgia has also become a way for people to create their own in-groups, encouraging intergenerational conflict in a time when it seems like division is already the norm. I am ashamed to admit that I have fallen for millennial and boomer rage-bait, notions like “Gen Z probably does not even know what a cassette looks like!” Frankly, I do not live under a rock, and with the rise of analog forms of media, cassettes, DVDs, CDs and more have gained new popularity amongst my generation. Bluntly, nostalgia should not be exclusionary. Nostalgia should be shared amongst people.
Right now, people want an escape from a reality that offers them nothing but adult stressors, the destruction of the natural environment and the ever-looming question of authenticity in the age of AI. There is a sense that it was easier back then, and in a lot of ways, it was. Many of us were children concerned only with problems like people cutting in the lunch line and band-aids decorating our knees. So, to feel better about not being able to buy a house in this economic climate, or to gain employment within the bounds of a nightmarish job market, we buy products. We buy products that promise to recreate that warmth and comfort, since on our own we cannot recreate the ease with which we existed and hoped for better things to come. I feel this way too, often. I find myself hating the present moment, wishing to go back to something that no longer exists for me. It is comforting to remember.
So sure, take me home to 2012. Nostalgia is not an inherently unhealthy thing, despite the corporations and people that abuse it to generate revenue and create in-groups. Nostalgia is something to be shared amongst people, a tool for connection and enshrinement of precious things. So please, do not take me home on the back of your AI-generated video-playing Christmas ornament or on your poorly conceived plastic imitation “My Little Pony” toy that ‘only 2010s kids will remember.’ I would rather be transported through art, scrapbooks, scents and memories with friends over coffee. I too love to grieve for a home to which I cannot return, so long as that home is mine.