Comment by victork2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by victork2 | Hacker News Reader

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Being relatively young, I don't know if what I am going to describe is new or not.

I am under the impression that the advent of a globalized internet culture has fostered the nostalgic phenomenon. If you are a regular reader of any social websites where people can publish content you can see the extent of this among people from "Generation Y": clothes, old games ( Prince of Persia on Apple 2 anyone ?), actors, movies, music, etc... It doesn't even have to be good, it will be put on a pedestal anyway.

What enables us today is that these old things which use to be forgotten by previous generations can now be accessed at will: old videos are put on Youtube, old pictures are backed up everywhere, memories are slowly becoming immortal.

I am absolutely not a nostalgic person myself so I don't feel the impulsive to think about oldies but I think it's a very interesting thing to analyze, maybe it's even a bit worrying: Could these fond memories hold us back?

As a Gen Xer growing up in the 80s, I remember drowning in Baby Boomer nostalgia for the 60s counterculture, classic rock, cutesy retro advertising, old TV shows on Nick at Nite, Frank Capra movies, and so on. The culture was immersed in it.

Then, starting in the 90s, our generation started to do the same thing, looking back nostalgically at childhood favorites like the Muppet Show, Gilligan's Island, and the Brady Bunch.

So I would say that this sort of nostalgia has a staple of modern life for at least several generations.

In the 90s, tho', everyone looked to the future. Some anecdata, all my friends were cybergoths back then. Now they wish they lived in the '30s... The 1930s. It's a cliche, but it was 911 that turned the world from a certain to an uncertain place. Now people are hankering for simpler times.

>In the 90s, tho', everyone looked to the future.

And yet, here in the UK, Oasis and the Britpop movement were bringing back 1960s style and music.

> It's a cliche, but it was 911 that turned the world from a certain to an uncertain place. Now people are hankering for simpler times.

I have to call you out on this. What the heck are you talking about?

The Cold War had ended, the "new economy" was in full swing, the future looked golden. Historians like Francis Fukushima called it "the end of history". Then the world was plunged back into social, economic and geopolitical uncertainty. People look to the past for comfort.

Our past was much more forward thinking...

Or sometimes we it seems...

Well, everybody is going to have some amount of nostalgia, for better or worse. Especially from things that relate to childhood/teen years.

Not only on the internet space, but "80's/90's parties", reliving the experiences, etc.

In a sense, it's very important. The 70's, the 80's and the 90's have been a period of extreme experimentation and learning in culture and technology. In music, cinema, computers, technology, etc

The appeal of this era, I believe, comes from the limitations and the 'quirkiness' of things evolving. See how 8-bit limitations have created a culture and a aesthetics of its own.

Games don't need MIDI music anymore, resolution is not a limiting factor and we can get almost picture perfect images in real time.

How games were designed on the Apple II has its relevance, in both cultural and technical terms.

The main point of the 'internet culture' is facilitating the storage and sharing of these old contents. In a culture preservation sense this is very important.

How much money is spent by studios to conserve a copy of their old movies. Try playing the old VHS tapes in your (or your parents) basement. Oh you don't have a VCR anymore?!

Storing them in YT (or in a digital format) and sharing can preserve the cultural value of the content.

You leave out the 60's? As far as cultural experimentation, I would argue that was the pinnacle.

Oops! You're absolutely right!

I just 'forgot' about The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan (amongst others)

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