Nostalgia

Aongus Von Bismarck

I'm a man in his early 30's. I've been noticing a trend lately whereby mawkish sentimentality and romanticised views of the 80's are things my peer group are indulging in. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy an episode of Reeling in the Years as much as any punter. I'm also a keen dilettante of modern Irish history.

It's this cheap nostalgia that I don't understand. If it isn't people posting videos on facebook of terrible 80's power ballads, it's sites like the journal looking for clicks by posting articles like: "These are 12 things you'll love if you grew up in the 80's". Usually tired and generic lists about going to bed after Glenroe and the tape recorder on the C64 not working. Something to do with a sodastream as well.

What causes this cheap nostalgia? I like to look continuously towards the future, and the opportunities it will present. Not harping back to a decade that was fairly awful when analysed against almost all social, economic and artistic barometers.

solomafioso

Ah j'member? Ah deh maudlin', j'member all the hings? Ah, was great back when. Ha? Maudlin.

Fr_Dougal

Tell us the story about managing wealth funds for individuals of high net worth in Germany again....

wretcheddomain

Usually people who harp on about the 80s don't really have much ambition to progress into the future - after all, why would they? The good times have already passed.

It's just old people trying to make themselves feel better than the current young generation by fantasizing about a feigned reality that never really existed in the first place. But, if you tell a lie over and over again, people are bound to believe it, and unfortunately, many of these people really believe their deluded waffle.

Peregrine

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

it's sites like the journal looking for clicks by posting articles like: "These are 12 things you'll love if you grew up in the 80's".

Considering almost half of thejournal.ie articles are Top 8/10/12 lists, I'm not surprised. They probably did one for every decade of the last two generations.

Aongus Von Bismarck

TheZohan wrote: »

Tell us the story about managing wealth funds for individuals of high net worth in Germany again....

If you have nothing of value to add to the discussion then you might want to consider not contributing to the thread. Have a cup of tea and a fun size Kit-Kat or something.

I'm talking about nostalgia. Why does it have such an emotional draw for some people. While some of us don't get that need to post our memories of white dog shíte, green Dublin buses, and yellow chocolate cigarettes.

Chucken

The 80s were great:)

Birneybau

Nostaliga, ain't nostalgia, which ain't what it used to be.

4zn76tysfajdxp

You never heard anyone talking about nostalgia when I was a kid.

TheBeardedLady

Those lists are just click bait and I think people just read them to kill a few minutes. I wouldn't take them so seriously.

Leave the eighties alone. There's no night better than a night sitting in, supping on cheap wine, and blaring out the eighties tunes.

I WANNA LIVE FOREEEVEERRRR. I WANNA LEARN HOW TO FLY.

monkeysnapper

Aaagghhh the c64 , brings back so many happy memory's, I wrote this back in the 80s in 8 bit. ...I was such a amateur back then

http://youtu.be/G7HVrOkhuLw

catallus

I think nostalgia is just people trying to get positive reaffirmation of their past; to look back and remember things as they used to be, with a certain level of disconnect, is a way to recharge the batteries. The frisson of being able to say "Yes I was there then" and to be also able to say you are still here looking back, is a great comfort to lots of people.

AnonoBoy

Would you not be partial to an auld rewatch of Wall St. every now and then Aongus?

FloatingVoter

I remember trying to tighten my belt when Haughey told us to. It turned out we didn't have enough money for fancy things like belts. Bit of rope had to do me.

Pumpkinseeds

Chucken wrote: »

The 80s were great:)

Yeah, but the 90s were better.:)

Custardpi

Yeah, nothing wrong with a little bit of nostalgia, but the constant lists about a period which really wasn't that long ago are getting seriously tired by now. Especially those which imply that having lived through the 80s/90s imbues people with some kind of special wisdom & understanding of the world. Very good pisstake of the phenomenon in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJcoy0O54g0

Aongus Von Bismarck

TheBeardedLady wrote: »

Those lists are just click bait and I think people just read them to kill a few minutes. I wouldn't take them so seriously.

I don't take them seriously. Rather like posts 3-6 in the majority of AH threads, they tend to be shallow and quick written pieces designed to either get a few thanks or a few clicks.

My question is more about why people in their 30's are becoming so nostalgic? Did previous generations get this way, or has the Internet inspired a generation of people in their 30's to start posting silly videos and tired posts about a decade that really wasn't the May West?

sarkozy

Nostaliga? What's that? Feeling nostalgic for Liga biscuits?

Actually, there's an interesting German word for this sentiment, sehnsucht. Nostalgia is a generational thing, but more and more, I think it's also deliberately and cynically exploited for marketing purposes, especially when culture has run out of new ideas.

Chucken

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

Yeah, but the 90s were better.:)

Ah but are you analysing the 90s against almost all social, economic and artistic barometers.;)

FloatingVoter

The 80s gave us one great cultural achievement - designer stubble. Thanks to Don Johnson I can walk about looking like I slept in a ditch and get away with it.

solomafioso

Ah j'member dis thread? Ha? 'member the debayte and deh way we ust' t'talk and be with deh banter n'all. Ah, boards. Back in the day. Ahhhhhhh.

This thread was amazing at 22:12.

ceadaoin.

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I'm a man in his early 30's. I've been noticing a trend lately whereby mawkish sentimentality and romanticised views of the 80's are things my peer group are indulging in. Don't get me wrong; I enjoy an episode of Reeling in the Years as much as any punter. I'm also a keen dilettante of modern Irish history.

It's this cheap nostalgia that I don't understand. If it isn't people posting videos on facebook of terrible 80's power ballads, it's sites like the journal looking for clicks by posting articles like: "These are 12 things you'll love if you grew up in the 80's". Usually tired and generic lists about going to bed after Glenroe and the tape recorder on the C64 not working. Something to do with a sodastream as well.

What causes this cheap nostalgia? I like to look continuously towards the future, and the opportunities it will present. Not harping back to a decade that was fairly awful when analysed against almost all social, economic and artistic barometers.

Maybe the 80s were fairly awful when analysed objectively, but most people don't take those things into account when remembering their childhood. Looking back on something from a personal viewpoint rather than in a broader economic and social context doesn't make it 'cheap'.

I suppose people that are in their early 30s, myself included, might feel like they are getting old or are going though life changes like having kids or getting married. Possibly looking back to a simpler time is a way of dealing with this, who knows? Does it really matter? Not really.

Aongus Von Bismarck

sarkozy wrote: »

Nostaliga? What's that? Feeling nostalgic for Liga biscuits?

Actually, there's an interesting German word for this sentiment, sehnsucht. Nostalgia is a generational thing, but more and more, I think it's also deliberately and cynically exploited for marketing purposes, especially when culture has run out of new ideas.

I live in Germany. They have words for every type of cultural trope or fleeting emotion. They even have a word to describe why they can't invent new words that display brevity.

I think you've reached the crux of my point. Has the internet almost made a festish out of the 80's nostalgia scene? Youtube has thousands of terrible music videos from the 80's; those in their 30's are the first generation who grew up with the internet as part of their post-childhood experience and have disposable income; articles about a romanticised past are quick and easy to fire out. It all seems shallow.

Shakespeare's Sister

Speaking of Germany, "Ostalgie" was a thing in Germany 10-12 years ago, involving fetishisation of the days under communism ("Ost" meaning "east"). Ultimate example of smoothing out the rough edges of the past. Never mind naive Irish rose-tinted specs re the 80s.

AnonoBoy

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

My question is more about why people in their 30's are becoming so nostalgic? Did previous generations get this way, or has the Internet inspired a generation of people in their 30's to start posting silly videos and tired posts about a decade that really wasn't the May West?

Happens to everyone as they get older.

It's nothing new.

People just do it via lists online now as opposed to conversations about the things like in the old days. Conversations? Remember them?

Sure nothing's new anyway. In the 1970s people in America used to take photos of their cats and mail them to each other with funny slogans written on them. Now why does that sound familiar?

Chucken

I like to look continuously towards the future, and the opportunities it will present.(from OP)

I have an ex like this. He now 'has it all' apparently. He's 56 years old and has only ever been on one foreign holiday. Doesn't holiday at home either. All work and no play etc. He can tell you anything about 'his plans for the future' but god forbid you bring up the past. He's spent his life running from it. I've spent many years wondering why. Sad really.

Sunnyisland

80,s ppfft it's the 70,s where it was all at,

Shakespeare's Sister

Goodbye Lenin! is a great movie though.

Aongus Von Bismarck

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

Speaking of Germany, "Ostalgie" was a thing in Germany 10-12 years ago, involving fetishisation of the days under communism ("Ost" meaning "east"). Ultimate example of smoothing out the rough edges of the past. Never mind naive Irish rose-tinted specs re the 80s.

It was a "thing" in Germany about 15 years ago amongst a certain subsection of self-loathing middle-class graduates who pined for an era that they barely remembered. It culminated in a movie called Good Bye Lenin, and a couple of bars with cheap Soviet tat on the walls - all now long closed (rather like the ideals that they sought to romanticise).

nullzero

The 80's were sh1t. But looking back the 80's wasn't as sh1t as we thought at the time. A lot of the music seemed crap at the time but has aged quite well, although some of it remains crap.
People will always be nostalgic about their childhoods, it doesn't mean the nostalgia is completely warranted but it's never completely unwarranted either.

If you want to blame someone for 80's nostalgia, it all started in 2002 when GTA vice City came out (remixed versions of featured songs filled the charts for months afterwards). That made the 80's seem glamorous and exciting. The real 80's were nothing like that in Ireland but I suppose it's nice to pretend we really lived in some Miami Vice type fantasy instead of the reality of mass emigration and being designated as part of the developing world.

Karl Stein

Some good synth-pop was created but most of the music was pretty bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mvwam3GLBY

Davarus Walrus

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

Goodbye Lenin! is a great movie though.

If you like accounts of East German life then I'd recommend Red Love: The Story of an East German Family by Maxim Leo.

Shakespeare's Sister

Karl Stein wrote: »

Some good synth-pop was created but most of the music was pretty bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mvwam3GLBY

Are you saying that's a good or a bad song? Because I think that song is fecking ace! :pac:

I think the 80s was brilliant for pop - yeh there was some sh-t but that's always the way.

I'd say being a young adult in the 80s in Ireland could be pretty crap because of the economy, but as a kid it was great.

TheBeardedLady

solomafioso wrote: »

Ah j'member dis thread? Ha? 'member the debayte and deh way we ust' t'talk and be with deh banter n'all. Ah, boards. Back in the day. Ahhhhhhh.

This thread was amazing at 22:12.

Hahaha.


I like to quote people's posts I really DID laugh at and put a "ha ha ha" under it. Now!

TheBeardedLady

I'm not really nostalgic because my memory is diabolical. I seem to have about 10 memories from the 80s that have been on repeat in my brain ever since and it's driving me spare.

Karl Stein

Shakespeare's Sister wrote: »

Are you saying that's a good or a bad song? Because I think that song is fecking ace! :pac:

I think it's a great tune.

sarkozy

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote:

It was a "thing" in Germany about 15 years ago amongst a certain subsection of self-loathing middle-class graduates who pined for an era that they barely remembered. It culminated in a movie called Good Bye Lenin, and a couple of bars with cheap Soviet tat on the walls - all now long closed (rather like the ideals that they sought to romanticise).

Yeah, like Wohnzimmer in Prenzlauer Berg is gone a few years now. I go to Berlin often enough and I noticed an even weirder thing about the Ostalgie residue: Germans may be sick of it, but American/transnational elite trustafarian start-uppers/dot-commers are expecting to see this kind of stuff. So you have a weird situation where the make-do ethic is slowly giving way to something newer, more original and creative as seen by newer generations of Berliners, other places are cashing in on these foreigners' expectations of a rapidly fading Berlin that stopped really existing around 2004. These places are still furnished in increasingly rare flea market vintage furniture, dot-commers are furnishing their lofty apartments with this stuff. It's got expensive. And a lot of it gets shipped off to other countries and other markets. So you have this weird situation where more and more of certain parts of Berlin are beginning to resemble a Berliner version of Temple Bar with all the plastic paddy pubs. I mean, only 8 years ago, I'd visit and go to gigs in well-known squats, and now most of those are gone. Famous clubs like Berghain are just mainstream. So I think that era of nostalgia seems to have passed quite a lot for Germans, but not for foreigners who never experienced it directly, but want to experience the idea of an ostalgic city that no longer exists. Get me?

BUT, I'll also defend nostalgia. I think there are at least two kinds. One is head-in-the-sand, escapist nostalgia. This is dangerous. It's the impulse to invent a purer time in the past (that never existed) to make people feel better about their experience of the present. Essentially, it's a feeling that leads to a rejection of the present. It's selfish and narcissistic. There's another kind of nostalgia which is positive. It starts from the same place, but it's much more about a generation re-evaluating aspects of the past in order to recover something lost, to learn something in order to inform and improve the present. For example, as a graphic designer, I've noticed a trend in recovering modern typographic styles of the early 20th century that got sidelined. But now designers are seeking inspiration from those and bringing design to new places. In the late 20th century, graphic design was all about rejecting the past and only looking to the future. Eventually, I'm sure people will come to be nostalgic for that design period.

Nostalgia is a funny one. It's a warm fuzzy feeling. But it's also annoying.

L'Enfer du Nord

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

I don't take them seriously. Rather like posts 3-6 in the majority of AH threads, they tend to be shallow and quick written pieces designed to either get a few thanks or a few clicks.

My question is more about why people in their 30's are becoming so nostalgic? Did previous generations get this way, or has the Internet inspired a generation of people in their 30's to start posting silly videos and tired posts about a decade that really wasn't the May West?

There's nothing new under the sun/change is constant...

Anyway the only difference with the current generation is that technology has made it easier for them to dig up the past and 'share' it.

Teddy Boys who were prevalent in the 1950s and revived a bit in the late seventies had there origins amongst public school boys in the 1940s who liked to wear Edwardian clothes. Hence the name Teddy boy.

It may not exactly be nostalgia, but harking back/revivalism has always been a feature of society. It's most evident in architecture: Neo Classical, Neo Gothic, Mock Tudor. It's also evident in literature, Romantic literature harking back to the pre-Industrial Age about 50 years into the industrial revolution.

Nostalgia is probably heightened at times of innovation. Although it is also considered important to be fashionable/ youthful at times of change/innovation. On the other hand at times of relative stasis or instability young adults are more inclined to adapt the dress and manners of their elders.

L'Enfer du Nord

sarkozy wrote: »

Yeah, like Wohnzimmer in Prenzlauer Berg is gone a few years now. I go to Berlin often enough and I noticed an even weirder thing about the Ostalgie residue: Germans may be sick of it, but American/transnational elite trustafarian start-uppers/dot-commers are expecting to see this kind of stuff. So you have a weird situation where the make-do ethic is slowly giving way to something newer, more original and creative as seen by newer generations of Berliners, other places are cashing in on these foreigners' expectations of a rapidly fading Berlin that stopped really existing around 2004. These places are still furnished in increasingly rare flea market vintage furniture, dot-commers are furnishing their lofty apartments with this stuff. It's got expensive. And a lot of it gets shipped off to other countries and other markets. So you have this weird situation where more and more of certain parts of Berlin are beginning to resemble a Berliner version of Temple Bar with all the plastic paddy pubs. I mean, only 8 years ago, I'd visit and go to gigs in well-known squats, and now most of those are gone. Famous clubs like Berghain are just mainstream. So I think that era of nostalgia seems to have passed quite a lot for Germans, but not for foreigners who never experienced it directly, but want to experience the idea of an ostalgic city that no longer exists. Get me?

There's actually an establishment (couldn't honestly say if it's a restaurant, pub or cafe) called Berlin in Dublin which is decorated in this DIY recycled style. Telephone cable spools for tables, I remember thinking how hard it must have been to source them to create the impression of making do.

sarkozy

YES: neo-gothic was the WORST period of nostalgia. Basically, it's the artistic bedfellow of the dreadful, dreadful Victorian age of privilege for the few and misery for the rest, imperial domination, massive upheaval and claustrophobic moralism. Dreadful stuff.

But was it really nostalgia? It was the age of the invention of tradition, but not nostalgia, possibly. Neo-classicism was a revival of renaissance classicism, both of which were very modern in their own ways even if taking their leave from Greek and Roman art and architecture. Neoclassical artists definitely made up a lot of what the classical past was about to express their age, that's the ideological and propagandist aspect of it all.

I'm not sure nostalgia is heightened at times of innovation. I think it's heightened at times of crisis when people are desperate for answers. As I said, some want to retreat into a makey-uppy cotton wool past, while others seek new inspiration in the past in order to innovate, but it's a strongly reflective mode. I think at times of great innovation, people are looking forwards. Though, of course, ideas never come out of thin air.

sarkozy

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

There's actually an establishment (couldn't honestly say if it's a restaurant, pub or cafe) called Berlin in Dublin which is decorated in this DIY recycled style. Telephone cable spools for tables, I remember thinking how hard it must have been to source them to create the impression of making do.

Yeah, it's a terrible, terrible name. If you're going to bring a flavour of a contemporary Berlin café as a concept, don't call your café Berlin. It's not a nostalgic café, though. The style is contemporary make-do (like Silo, Bonanza and a load of others in Berlin). That's the trend. For more genuine make-do, The Fumbally is the place because the crowd who set that up also run the Newmarket Square flea market (where there's also a vintage furniture fair once a month!).

4zn76tysfajdxp

To be honest, I always felt that resorting to "Hey lads, remember the 80s" shtick is a cheap way to relate to people. Bit like Father Ted quoting and discussing football. Lowest common denominator stuff.

FloatingVoter

Landry Wonderful Drizzle wrote: »

To be honest, I always felt that resorting to "Hey lads, remember the 80s" shtick is a cheap way to relate to people. Bit like Father Ted quoting and discussing football. Lowest common denominator stuff.

That and its a terrible way of aging you. I went back to college as a mature student. I was out on the tear with a few classmates and for some reason the Berlin Wall coming down came up (?) in conversation. I got misty eyed remembering how pissed I was that night. One or two of them mentioned they hadn't even been born then. 1989. I'm getting weepy now.

Karl Stein

Landry Wonderful Drizzle wrote: »

To be honest, I always felt that resorting to "Hey lads, remember the 80s" shtick is a cheap way to relate to people. Bit like Father Ted quoting and discussing football. Lowest common denominator stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP5t5rdRoN0

L'Enfer du Nord

Landry Wonderful Drizzle wrote: »

To be honest, I always felt that resorting to "Hey lads, remember the 80s" shtick is a cheap way to relate to people. Bit like Father Ted quoting and discussing football. Lowest common denominator stuff.

Yeah, there's a strong element of that. Has 90s nostalgia started yet? If so what will it focus on? I know there's already been some 90s fashion revival.

FloatingVoter

^ Oasis will reform and split up again (not before trousering a few squillion quid). Showgazing will return in limp force. Along with pudding bowl haircuts.

GerB40

I never, ever get nostalgic.
But I used to back in the good old days...

Davarus Walrus

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

Yeah, there's a strong element of that. Has 90s nostalgia started yet? If so what will it focus on? I know there's already been some 90s fashion revival.

Musos will start to reappraise the music of Stone Temple Pilots, Live and Kula Shaker.

L'Enfer du Nord

FloatingVoter wrote: »

^ Oasis will reform and split up again (not before trousering a few squillion quid). Showgazing will return in limp force. Along with pudding bowl haircuts.

Come to think of it the 90s was the golden age of nostalgia TV, so maybe they'll revive that.

boege

In the 80's the fashion was to harp back to the 60's.... genuinly seemed to have been 'de era'.... the classic comment was ....if you remember the 60's you definately weren't there!

I left college in the 80's...degree + boat ticket to UK (along with over half de class)..... I had a good engineering qualification but no work in Ireland then, zero....not a good time.

Good memories of 80's music though and thanks to Karl Stein for the Cars clip...great band....and great music for pulling a bird in a slow set...better sign off showing me age!