Thesis- Nostalgia
- Damian
- Sep 29, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 30, 2020
For initial research, I wanted to dive into four main topics that I believe influence retro culture; nostalgia, fashion, technology, and music. All of these I can say have influenced me and my overall style to feel very retro. I feel as though the best approach is to see how these are coming back, and what aspects from each category are returning.
Nostalgia
When it comes to the idea of nostalgia, Generation Z can be coined as “The most nostalgic generation”. Many aspects of our life have been influenced by the last couple of decades, ranging from the 1970s-1990s. Though we are in a time where technology and our way of life is always advancing we always find aspects from the past to become obsessed with. Before I look at what is returning, I need to understand the idea of nostalgia.
Nostalgia can be defined as having an affection or longing for the past. This can be associated with different things, such as clothing, music, and objects from a person’s past. It usually has a good feeling attached to them. The word nostalgia comes from the greek word meaning “Homecoming” and a Homeric word that means “Pain”. Just from looking at the word we get a general sense of how nostalgia can affect someone's mind. We all have something that we see and we think of our childhood. For me it would be my old Gameboy Advance which I found not too long ago. It filled me with flashbacks to a simpler time where all I had to worry about was how to beat a video game. These objects hold power to make us feel our past selves. But how can Generation Z, a generation that has people that are adults and children, feel nostalgic for things that they never grew up with?
How does Nostalgia Work?
After doing some research I found some very interesting information regarding Gen Z. Looking into the year I was born, which is 1999, it starts to get a little hazy to refer to people born in this age as Gen Z or Millennials. In some sources it says one or the other. One thing stays consistent though, and that is the use of the internet. People born in the late 90s grew up with the birth of the internet. In an article by Grazia Daily, a professor of psychology named Dr. Tim Wildschutt states “I think social media is ideally suited to trigger and share nostalgia”. Looking at this we can say that though everyone can feel nostalgic, because of the internet showing us things from the past, we get a sense of nostalgia that those who lived it felt. When asked the question of if Millennials are one of the most nostalgic generations, Dr. Wildschutt stated “ nostalgia is fundamental human emotion, and I think it is unlikely that this suddenly becomes more prevalent in one generation compared to others”. Though this breaks my idea of thinking my generation is the most nostalgic, it does show me that my generation, thanks to the internet, has many outlets and easy access to a past we did not really get to experience. We are able to feed into this cycle of nostalgia and be encouraged by it as well. The internet and social media created the sense of a “sharable” past for my generation. The internet has been able to influence Millennials and Gen Zs hobbies and other sources of media compared to the generations before them. Looking deeper into nostalgia and how we as people experience it is quite interesting. Some believe it is a coping mechanism for when we need to overcome challenges in life. Our brain finds ways to look for a happier time in our lives. In the closing remarks of the article, it had a very interesting take of nostalgia and how it is used. It stated “ There are different types of nostalgia. You can reject the past, selectively pick what was good and take it into the future with you or you can linger, looking longingly at something that was and is no more, as a way to distract yourself from the uncertainty of the present and unknowability of the future”. I think this relates heavily to what we are seeing in today’s culture. With the use of the internet and brands marketing nostalgia to this generation, we are taking things from the past and bringing them into the future for newer generations to experience it. My final look into nostalgia was to see how companies utilize it today and effectively market nostalgia.
Nostalgia Marketing
Everywhere you look, either on the internet or on TV, companies are always using the past to market today’s items. As a nostalgic generation, I believe that marketers have been using this to their advantage. We see that companies that were realistically dead have come back from the grave. Polaroid is a prime example of this, having all of their
factories close except for one. Today, they have been rebranded as Polaroid originals and have created new polaroid cameras for a new generation to consume and use. Vinyls have seen a major increase in sales and have been completely revitalized thanks to my generation’s interest in them. After doing some research, I found out that there is a whole branch of marketing dedicated to this idea, Nostalgia marketing. With this technique, a company tries to tap into our feeling of longing for the past and then push themselves to make you feel that same way. An article by Fund Calibre states “From a marketing perspective, leveraging nostalgia now makes a whole lot of sense. If your content can get people feeling nostalgic, it will also get them feeling good by extension”. It makes much sense for companies to try to do this. They are making people happy about the past. They use actors from tv shows from our childhood which keeps us engaged. Various streaming and TV shows capture this aesthetic of the past, and market it to a new generation to fall in love with. To me this creates a loop of what is old being recycled to a newer generation.
Examples:
After doing this research, I feel as though I have a basic understanding as to how a psychological feeling can influence a whole generation. Though nostalgia is just a feeling, with the use of the internet and various companies marketing the past my generation which is a mix of Millenials and Gen Z can experience a different sense of nostalgia. We feel as though we are connected to these past trends. The internet shows us things that we may have grown up with, but then cycles down a rabbit hole to older trends we have no recollection of. It fuels our fashion, our liking for technology, and our music. Nostalgia in a sense has become a “trend” of its own that my generation loves to follow. Is this generation stuck in a loop? Some believe the over use of nostalgia makes this generation “stuck” in a sense from moving on as a society. However, by understanding nostalgia, I can understand why all of these aspects from the past are returning.
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