The Nostalgia Generation

Today, a break from politics to discuss something that's been on my mind for about the past year.  The Internet has enabled truly unprecedented access to information and media.  The sheer amount of stuff available to be consumed on the Web is simply mind-boggling.  Much of it is brand new - some of it creative, some of it crap.  But I'd like to focus on another aspect of this information overload; namely, the ease to nostalgically remember our favorite pop culture of the past, and the niche industry that has grown up around this ability.  It's something that, I think, has especially struck a chord with people of roughly my age.  This cohort is basically Generation X, though I think it's particularly true with the younger half of that group - children of the '80s and early '90s.

Of course, it's been possible to re-experience cherished pop culture for a long time, especially with regards to such media as books, movies, and music.  But the Internet has enabled access - instantly, in many cases - to almost any media or information about some long-lost pop culture trend in a way that's never been possible before.  Do I want to know about every episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?  I can find explicit details on Wikipedia or fan sites.  Do I want to buy the TMNT show on DVD, or the Nintendo games based on it, or my favorite Donatello action figure?  Cruise over to Amazon or eBay.  Do I want to see commercials from 1990 for those action figures?  They're probably on YouTube.   It is astounding.  The past is being lovingly curated like never before, and anyone with an Internet connection has immediate access to it, and often cheaply.  YouTube is free.  Used media often goes for pennies or a few bucks on Amazon.  Netflix Instant offers dozens of old-school movies and programs for several dollars a month.  And, of course, there are the gray/outright illegal areas of torrents and video game emulation.  If you don't want to pay $100 to actually get a rare Super Nintendo cartridge from eBay, well, it's possible to be playing it on your PC in minutes anyway.

I think Gen-X is particularly susceptible to this "Net nostalgia" because we are old enough that we generally lost access to pop culture from our formative years for a while, but are young enough to be fully plugged in to the modern technology that makes reliving it possible.  As we've grown up and gotten jobs and families in the real world, I think there's a certain longing - as with any generation - to relive the glory days.  And we are the first generation to have an almost limitless ability to do that.

(Note: For expediency I'm not going to link to the sources below; however, they are all easily found via Google or YouTube if you're interested.  Be advised that most of them are not safe for work, due to free-flowing language.)

Young Gen-Xer's have been at the forefront of an Internet industry that seizes on this nostalgia and entertains its audience by joyfully reliving it and often offering insightful perspectives.  New media has made it extremely easy to appreciate the best of old media.  For example, Laser Time is a great podcast in which the hosts examine a pop culture topic every week, playing examples and providing their often humorous takes on it.  Past episodes have looked at '80s era rap commercials, hilariously bad video game music, and the portrayal of time travel in various media.  Retronauts was a very well-produced and informative podcast focusing on old-school video games.  It unfortunately died with the demise of gaming website 1UP; however, a successful Kickstarter project hints that a revival is just around the corner.

Some amateur critics have become true Internet celebrities through their mining of pop culture. 
James Rolfe became the Angry Video Game Nerd by venting at the frustratingly bad games of his youth.  He also has a side series, Board James, that has both mocked and honored classic board games such as Crossfire, Fireball Island, and DragonStrike.  Although no longer active, as the Nostalgia Critic, Doug Walker lambasted a lot of bad stuff from the '80s and '90s, but also paid tribute to quality movies and TV shows, and introduced me to some things I had missed.  He's enjoyable to watch until he gets into one of his screaming fits.  You can skip those parts.

Referencing past pop culture has now even become a popular trend in mainstream pop culture.  How meta.  Homages and parodies abound in TV shows such as The Big Bang Theory and Community (if you came here via my Facebook feed, you're well aware that I find Community to be the far superior show, so I'm not going to get into that here).  The best-selling book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is the definitive referential book for nerds of my age and slightly older.  It pays constant tribute (for some, admittedly, it goes overboard) to cultural touchstones of the late '70s through early '90s, while telling a fun cyberpunk-style story.  Everything from the rock band Rush, to Dungeons and Dragons, to the 1983 classic movie WarGames, to Japanese anime gets its due.  It's definitely a book written for a specific audience, but if you're in that audience, it's a true trip down memory lane.

The question then becomes, of course, is Generation X's new-found nostalgia a natural occurrence and a passing fad, enabled by unprecedented access to our historical artifacts?  Will we no longer care about the best media of our childhood in 2020, having relived them to our heart's content in the early years of Web 2.0?  Hard to tell.  Moreover, what does the Internet mean for the nostalgia of future generations?  While today's kids will certainly grow out of their childhood interests and move on to other things, they will never be permanently separated from them.  If they want to relive them, they'll always be there.  Will they then care as much about them?  To twist a cliche, will the non-absence not make the heart grow fonder?  I have no idea.  But to an aspiring sociology or anthropology PhD, it could make an interesting dissertation topic in about 20 years.