90's, Nostalgia, And The Science Of Why We Can't Get Enough Of Either
Nostalgia is a profoundly complicated emotional response.
It can be a motivator — hear the right song from way back when and you'll start tapping your feet, almost involuntarily. It can be melancholic — just the sight of an old favorite book can freeze you in your tracks. It can make you incredibly happy or sad — either way, you might start yearning for the "good old days".
Is there a point to nostalgia? When we look back fondly on the past (i.e. throwing up that #TBT Instagram post) are we just opening ourselves up to manipulation? Can we take nostalgia as a learning opportunity, or will we always be blinded by our rose-tinted memories?
Fasten your light-up velcro shoes and slap on your snap bracelets, 90's kids — it's time to dive deep into what makes nostalgia tick.
The Psychology Of Nostalgia
Of course, for a feeling so complex and seemingly universal, a bevy of studies have tried to determine some kind of psychological impetus for nostalgia. Is there a reason, an advantage granted by fond association with things from our past? Is it an artifact of the way our brains develop?
The two most important names when it comes to nostalgia might be Johannes Hofer and Constantine Sedikides, two doctors who lived nearly two centuries apart. Hofer coined "nostalgia" — which comes from the ancient Greek "nostos" meaning homecoming, and "algos" meaning pain. Clearly, Hofer was not being subtle. He defined nostalgia as a sort of wistfulness befalling soldiers at war, an affliction impacting their mood and focus. To this day, nostalgia is thought by many to be closely linked to depression — but Constantine Sedikides, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Southampton, thinks almost the complete opposite.
Sedikides started to research nostalgia because he experienced it himself, and because addressing it like depression didn't match up. He wasn't so much homesick as he was happy to indulge in the memories for a while. That epiphany was in 1999 (yeah, that recently), and since then Sedikides and colleagues have been running lab experiments that speak to how commonplace nostalgia really is. Most people experience nostalgia three or four times a week. In the course of research they verified that yes, music is an especially potent and reliable trigger. You can even go download their nostalgia scale yourself and start to gauge how rosy your lenses are.
Sedikides' findings build to one key takeaway — nostalgia is not a sign that something's wrong with you. Multiple experiments showed that nostalgia could be induced as a way to deal with negative moods. Instead of longing for days gone by, nostalgia can positively help answer "what has my life meant?" Work between Sedikides and Dr. Tim Wildschut has them cautiously optimistic that inducing nostalgia could even help patients with clinical depression or Alzheimer's.
The 90's Nostalgia Wave
It's fitting that nostalgia, as we know it today, was "discovered" in the 90's, because nostalgia for the 90's is booming.
Take "The Splat". It's a daily block of programming on TeenNick that only airs classic Nickelodeon shows like "The Rugrats" and "Hey Arnold!" during its 8-hour, late-night run. Most of these shows are from the 90's (there's some earlier and later Nickelodeon sprinkled in the mix) and are surrounded by classic ad-break bumps from the era. It's actually an extension of what used to be a 2-hour long block of programming. Much like the expansion of Cartoon Network's [adult swim], "The Splat" has grown into a behemoth block of TV — only instead of imported anime and raunchy originals, it's serving up Nick programming from the archives.
90's nostalgia shows no sign of slowing, really. The "X-Files" and its precursor "Twin Peaks" have gotten revivals, defining acts across the musical spectrum like Sleater-Kinney and Wu-Tang Clan have launched full-on reunions, and the classic MTV programming block "The 10 Spot" has been turned into the hit musical "Hamilton". (That's what it's about, right? Haven't been able to score tickets.)
Video game nostalgia's been creeping towards the '90s in the broader culture, too. Many, if not most gamers today are too young to remember the boom era of arcades. Instead, they started with home consoles like the original Nintendo Entertainment System (or NES). Nintendo's leveraged their stellar library of 8-bit games in the past on handhelds and digital download services, but now they're going full nostalgia overload with the NES Classic. For $60 dollars — the price of a single new, on-disc Xbox or Playstation game — you can buy an adorably miniaturized version of the NES preloaded with 30 games. There's not a single Christmas disappointment game on that list either — all-time triumphs like Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and all three original Super Mario Brothers games make the line-up.
Of course, nostalgia can also be the icing on top of something brand new. From "The Shining" to "The Green Mile", Stephen King was dominant throughout the 80's and 90's. Now Netflix's "Stranger Things" has plugged King's sense for the terrifying and strange into the equally nostalgia-inducing adventure formula of Amblin films like "The Goonies" and "Jurassic Park". Netflix seems happy with this approach: this year they also plugged Baz Luhrmann (with 90's hits to his name like "Romeo + Juliet" and, you might not know, that earworm "Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen") into the 70's Bronx musical revolution. Creators and aesthetics with heavy roots in the 90's are being thrust into the spotlight in projects new and old everywhere you look.
Internet Archival And Acceleration
Way back when, one of the earliest impulses of the internet was to catalog and preserve the past for nostalgia's sake. Remember clicking through Web Rings? Remember how many of them were anorak heavens, little communities dedicated to already long-canceled TV shows? By its nature, the internet has great potential for lasting archival and celebration of culture, even as the internet shows its impermanence. But culture, as propagated and soaked up by the internet, moves fast. We've fallen into a chicken-or-egg type scenario — if the impulse to instantly preserve things online wasn't there, would we even get nostalgic for certain cultural artifacts?
Internet media giants have grown out nostalgic content hubs. Facebook churns old photos and statuses into your feed, and Spotify uses your age to serve up songs from when you were young (wink). The hope is that you'll like these little extrusions from the past — that, like Sedikides' research suggests — nostalgia will make you feel good.
But, as the research showed, normal adults experience nostalgia three or four times a week. If every service you use starts racing to show you the best stuff from days gone by, chances are you won't get that nice little mood boost for long. Maybe it's time to keep all your fond memories confined to #ThrowbackThursday.
Manufactured Culture
Nostalgia is a very powerful, very human emotion. So, of course, brands want a piece of that Easy-Bake pie.
Nostalgia can be manufactured and commodified. Ask any self-identified '90s kid — they can probably rattle off a list of things they're nostalgic for as easily as they can recall the advertisements for those things. Those warm fuzzy feelings about a time, a place, a thing? They can be yours, for a price — or repurposed as an advertisement.
It takes a careful touch, but a good dose of nostalgia can help center an ad. Take the example of #InThe90sIThought — a hashtag that brands saw an opportunity with. These tweets are pretty low-key and cute; and really, are you going to scoff at the official Power Rangers account tweeting about… the Power Rangers?
The nostalgia industry isn't just confined to blockbuster movies and web ephemera. At the time of writing, there are over 130,000 results on eBay for "1990s." Remember "Normcore," the hard-to-nail-down fashion movement that was the sartorial talk of 2014? Its 90's roots probably sent millions of baggy jean fashionistas to Goodwill and Salvation Army stores across the US. Jordan Page, a collector of more perennially hip 90's streetwear, recently got featured in FADER with just a sliver of his 350+ piece collection. In the interview, Page notes he got into vintage clothing back in 2010 when he fell on rough financial times. It's important to remember — as a single person or a company, it can be to your advantage (and cheap) to get in on the next rush of nostalgia before it picks up steam.
Making Your Nostalgia Last
The studies have shown that a healthy amount of nostalgia's a good thing, and we're immersed in a culture that's got oodles of 90's stuff wound up like gum in a roll of Bubble Tape. It's possible, no doubt, that by waxing nostalgic on the regular, you could be setting yourself up for an overload of epic All Syrup Super Squishee proportions.
If you find yourself growing a little weary of nostalgia and want that old spark back, you can certainly take some steps to extend the life of your old favorites. Take a break from livin' la vida loca: cross a recent movie off your "to watch" list, read a new book, read a book from before you were born, try out a timeless art or craft (and don't make a Ninja Turtle)…
And, how about this — try to remember an old favorite song, a 90's jam that you know gives you nostalgia. Got it?
Now, listen to it. Enjoy it.
Then don't listen to it again for a while. Like, you know, a long, long while. You're welcome.
Looking for more sentimental feels? We partnered with Shutterstock to create a hub of all things 90's nostalgia. Plus, using their arsenal of stock footage, Shutterstock imagined what commercials for modern brands (like dating apps and crowd-sourced rentals) would look like in the 90's. Check out the hub and commercials here, and explore Shutterstock's whole library of stock images and video here.