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Comment by Telemakhos | Hacker News Reader

The sixties ended before I was born. Why do they have to keep coming back to life? I just keep getting older, but the boomers have an eternal youth of reviving their favorite decade.

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"American Graffiti"; when I was growing up they were going back before I was born too. I don't mind though because, for example, that film is excellent (and is that filmmakers best film ;-)).

Seriously though I have been musing as to how the children of a generation get to define their parent's generation, more or less wrest if from them, in film, etc. Sometimes (often) they take a fairly dim view of the world they grew up in, a dim view of their parents. (And maybe now I am channelling a film like "The Graduate", for example.)

American Graffiti didn't depict boomers, they were kids who had graduated high school in 1962, that was Silent Generation.

It's referred to as a nostalgia movie, which on one hand seems fitting if you've watched it, but on the other hand, it was written in 1972 about a period in time ten years older. Would a movie screenplay written today by a 28 year old depicting being an 18 year old in 2015 be seen as nostalgic in the same way?

I realize that. It depicted 1962 — I was born a few years later. I meant to use it as an example that it has always been generations holding on to their formative years, not just boomers (there are just a lot more of them).

We’ve been reviving the 80s nonstop since The Wedding Singer was in theaters. I was alive for that decade the first time around, and I’m ready for it to be over now. 1990s was really only about a seven year hiatus.

We will be doing the same thing for the 90s soon.

Nostalgia tends to follow a 20 year cycle, so we'e already done that. People are doing it for the 2000s now.

And for over half of a decade already! The award-winning 2017 movie "Ladybird" was a nostalgic look at that distant year of 2002!

bro I missed 2019 for almost six years now

I wonder when we'll ever become nostalgic for anything after 2007...

Nostalgia for those good old times of quarantining in 2020

The traffic was amazing.

I miss being nostalgic for the 80’s

Disney is already remaking movies from the early 2000s. But maybe it's just because they ran out of material.

Don't underestimate a few incompetent leaders.

There's NOTHING that can't ruin.

Yes.

Something not 'polite' to talk about.

But when Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a surge in Nostalgia for 80's/90's Cold War era, Russia is the enemy culture.

Like 'Red Dawn', etc...

Not nostalgia. Putin is what he is. Movies about hitler aren’t nostalgic. Germany under Hitler was an “enemy culture” no? We must never minimize the global disdain for Russia under Putin. How many have died? Nostalgia just isn’t the right word, or it shouldn’t be.

Maybe shouldn't be, but that doesn't mean it isn't.

Nostalgia for a time in the past, but bad things can trigger feelings from the past.

So not Nostalgia for "we really miss when Russia was great".

More like Nostalgia for 99 Luft Balloons, the song, that also came out at same time. And was part of Cold War Culture.

The nineties were the last time I remember a real sense of optimism in the future

It was the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the Internet Age

Climate change was still a distant worry too

The mainstream audience was young and open to new ideas. Folks could create new things that impacted the culture at large and in that way punch above their weight class. In NYC, people could create art movements that would live for the next 50 years. Sort of like the way kids could create new technology in a garage in Silicon Valley in the 70s, or a dorm room in the 00s. It was a time in culture where the doors were open and you could have profound impact. The doors closed again, so people look back and have an appreciation for what was possible and what became and perhaps long for it again.

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