Chris and Nostalgia -

[Fuzzy Wuzzy]

Can we say that Chris was a nostalgic person or is he something else? I could say he's nostalgic because he loves his Legos which reminds him of his childhood. Sonic can also be his nostalgia as well since obviously, he's obsessed with that along with Pokemon hence Sonichu. Can we say that he is obsessively nostalgic or is he an insult to the definition of nostalgia? Does he have a dark obsession on his past that may not be considered nostalgia? Discuss.

 

[HU 096]

I think he's very nostalgic. Very much so that he's stuck in a permanent preteen state from his high school days... the whole reason he wants Legos is to rebuild his past, I suppose, at least that's how I see it. His home, school, etc.

And it's his way of trying to cope with his depression and loneliness. Sadly.

 

[DrChristianTroy]

Absolutely. To an unhealthy degree. *resists urge to make other lolcow joke*

 

[MysticMisty]

I think this is beyond nostalgic. He doesn't just reminisce of the good ol' days. He's actively doing his best to relive them (and succeeding for the most part seeing as how he doesn't have much in the line of responsibilities).

 

[_blank_]

I suppose you can say Chris IS nostalgic, but the extent of his nostalgia can't possibly be healthy. His is less about "remembering the past" and more "forgetting the present." Instead of his nostalgia coming in bursts, he seems to need it all the time.

This isn't something new either so I can't just say he is regressing. When Chris first became "internet famous" he was already carrying around Transformers and My Little Ponies in his pockets. Even the clothing he wore was akin to the same style he wore when he was in grade school. And honestly, considering the hoard he lived in, I'm not surprised he kind of made his own little sanctum within his room.

He's gotten out of wearing clothes meant for baby clowns, and most of his toys have been burnt or melted in the fire, but he's determined to rebuild it (no pun intended), irregardless of how much of an asshole he has to be to everyone and everything to get it.

 

[libertyoftheaether]

He's absolutely an obsessively nostalgic person. He loved being a child. He loved having Borb buy him toys and everyone pampering him due to being a special needs child. He pines for the past, where the twolls weren't an issue, no one cared if he played video games all day and he could live his pitiful existence without anyone challenging his oddball ideas. Hell, the greatest villain in his comic is a metaphor for growing up. He never wanted to let go of being a child, even if it meant forsaking his future.

Unfortunately for Chris, his childhood is gone. He tries to retreat into the past because the future holds nothing for him to look forward to.

 

[maninthepicklesuit]

I wonder if 50-year old Christian will look back and feel more nostalgic about his 10-year old self playing Lego, his 30-year old self playing Lego, or the time he played Lego that morning in the year 2032.

 

[Quote Me Now]

I don't think he's nostalgic. It's more like he's trapped. Nostalgia sort of suggests that you've moved on from the object of your nostalgia for a while, and it reminds you of a good time in your life. Chris has never been able to move on. His childhood may technically have been over a long time ago, but Chris is still living it. If he weren't, the acquisition of Lego would not currently be his main motivation in life.

 

[DrChristianTroy]

I don't think he's nostalgic. It's more like he's trapped. Nostalgia sort of suggests that you've moved on from the object of your nostalgia for a while, and it reminds you of a good time in your life. Chris has never been able to move on. His childhood may technically have been over a long time ago, but Chris is still living it. If he weren't, the acquisition of Lego would not currently be his main motivation in life.

The thing is he does seem to realize his current life is shit. He wallows in his past to hopefully recreate what we can. You do make an excellent point though.

 

[MrTroll]

It's not nostalgia, he's still a kid. You don't relive something that's still happening. In this case, his childhood, which never ended and never will end.

 

[Wakaranai]

Sure. Hasn't he deliberately demonstrated as such before, like when he reminisced about that birthday party?

I don't think that it describes his life behavior like some people do, though.

Rather, it's just that he escapes to things that he finds fun whenever the dreaded Stress starts approaching. Which is legos, videogames, shopping, and lazy drawings. These may not be the hobbies of choice for your average 32 year old, who is either extroverted and likes more socially-oriented activities or has added one or two more complex introverted hobbies to his arsenal by this point (i.e. programming, working out, skilled drawings, actual crafts, etc.), but I think that they're better explained by laziness (except shopping, which is probably the only time where he gets to feel like an adult) than nostalgia.

And in regards to things that he views as struggle-worthy (like his love quest, or trying to make money grabs during a lego emergency), he's too stubborn, lazy, and addicted to comfort to adapt his tactics.

 

[MY 405]

Actually, I think he's very aware that his current life is shit. He is so severely depressed it is screamingly obvious. He is grasping at the last vestige of happiness and creativity left to him. Trolls happily shit all over his comics, so he stopped drawing; I get it, something similar happened to me. He is desperate to rebuild as it were. He needs this fantasy outlet to get him through his impossibly shitty life, I get that too. It goes beyond nostalgia, like Quote Me Now said, nostalgia for most people, means to pleasantly recall a time passed when you were happy and you long for that time to return, but at same time you realize it won't and you sometimes find or collect a memento of that time. (It's the way I feel about the late 60s and 70s -- because when you're a kid you're not really following the 1968 Democratic National Convention Riot, or RFK or King's assissination or Watergate, although we did follow the '73 Paris Peace Accord in school for some reason, but I digress...) I think Chris is turning up the heat on Lego begging because he so very very badly wants to have a tangible version of his wish fulfillment. He is his own Mary Sue and this Lego is the only fanfic outlet he has left. Just my two red cents...

 

[Pinhead]

It's a fair assessment. He's very aware his life is shit, and he has been for quite some time. He used to look for magical fixes such as "ED being taken down" or "Getting a sweetheart", but I think he's at that point where he realises that none of that will actually magically fix his life. He's bitter over having believed he could attain a magical fix for so many years, he's bitter over the trolls, and he's bitter over his mother's control over him.

The only thing he really has anymore is Sonichu, and since it's the only thing he has left, it explains why he's like "Fuck the trolls' input on Cwcville. Fuck it all. Fuck potential legal consequences. I'm reviving Simonla AND Sandy. Fuck you all."

He just doesn't care anymore. He probably feels he has so many adversaries that a legal battle over a character doesn't even matter at this point. He knows he's not gonna go to court over reviving them, all he's gonna do is piss off the vast mindless collective piranha pit that is Trolldom.

I think he's very aware of his own mortality, and his mother's mortality, having realised that the Grim Reaper doesn't keep his promises. And as such, he's just doing whatever the fuck he likes.

The only person in his way is Barb, and that's because A) despite her control, he does still love her. She's mawmmy. And B) he has to live with her, so it's probably best not to poke the hornet's nest.

 

[Le Bateleur]

On the one hand, I can see the evidence for "it's not nostalgia, he doesn't know he's supposed to have grown up".

On the other hand, there's the pining for things lost or that could have been - the Greene County Conspiracy, not having picked a heartsweet from among his high school gal-pals.

I guess that since Chris tends to blame trolls and jerks for negative change, and otherwise seems oblivious to the effects of passing time, I'm going with "not nostalgic".

 

[Broder Daniel]

No, this is not nostalgia. He never left his childhood, so he can't be nostalgic of these things, since they have been an active part of his life all the time. It's like saying you're nostalgic towards breathing

 

[Tragi-Chan]

I think it's more escapism than nostalgia. Playing with toys doesn't have negative consequences (other than making you look like a weirdo, but in Chris' case, that tugboat has sailed). Toys won't troll you or criticise you or make you do things you don't want to do, so Chris resorts to them.

Although now I'm thinking a fun thing to create would be a talking Optimus Prime figure that says things like, "SHOULDN'T YOU HAVE A JOB BY NOW?" and "IT'S TIME FOR A SHOWER!" and "WHEN THE GIRL SAYS NO, SHE MEANS IT!"

 

[Kosher Dill]

He doesn't have nostalgia, just POTTER RAGE toward anything that tries to displace his childhood interests. If Sonic and Lego was good enough in 1992, it's good enough now.

 

[milkshark]

nos·tal·gia
näˈstaljə,nə-/
noun - a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

Chris is EXTREMELY nostalgic based on this definition of the word. High School is the greatest example of how Chris longs for the days of his past well after he forgets how uneventful they were. Teenage Chris didn't appreciate High School, it was something he was forced to do in between Pokemon cards and vidya. He read children's fiction instead of socializing or learning, or played Gameboy while his Principal appointed friends engaged in girl talk. Years after the fact, he's obsessed with the idea of High School being this pinnacle experience in his life, and he spends most of his time creating a Lego high school fantasy scenario where he's a popular, attractive, straight, Tomgirl male who has a gaggle of sexy female friends.

Nostalgia is often coupled with idealization. It's easier to say that the past was better when you choose to forget all the bad stuff. It's like how Rockabilly scenesters will tell you that the conformity and traditional values of 1950's culture are superior to our current Liberal world. They're leaving out the racism, homophobia, violent bullying and misogyny that were realities of that era. In Chris' fantasy high school, he depicted a "nerd" who wasn't him getting a swirly in the boy's bathroom. Chris is idealizing that he wasn't a social misfit because someone else was filling that role, and they must have received the terroristic bullying he's familiar with from children's entertainment. The truth is that Chris got picked on specifically, and often, to the point that school officials and other students got involved. Perhaps that's what Chris is so nostalgic for: people rushing to his aid and paying intensely close attention to his feelings.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

It's correct to say that he never left childhood, but he is nostalgic for the gal-pals and sense of purpose that high school gave him.

 

[NavierStoked]

Chris is EXTREMELY nostalgic based on this definition of the word. High School is the greatest example of how Chris longs for the days of his past well after he forgets how uneventful they were. Teenage Chris didn't appreciate High School, it was something he was forced to do in between Pokemon cards and vidya. He read children's fiction instead of socializing or learning, or played Gameboy while his Principal appointed friends engaged in girl talk. Years after the fact, he's obsessed with the idea of High School being this pinnacle experience in his life, and he spends most of his time creating a Lego high school fantasy scenario where he's a popular, attractive, straight, Tomgirl male who has a gaggle of sexy female friends.

Nostalgia is often coupled with idealization. It's easier to say that the past was better when you choose to forget all the bad stuff. It's like how Rockabilly scenesters will tell you that the conformity and traditional values of 1950's culture are superior to our current Liberal world. They're leaving out the racism, homophobia, violent bullying and misogyny that were realities of that era. In Chris' fantasy high school, he depicted a "nerd" who wasn't him getting a swirly in the boy's bathroom. Chris is idealizing that he wasn't a social misfit because someone else was filling that role, and they must have received the terroristic bullying he's familiar with from children's entertainment. The truth is that Chris got picked on specifically, and often, to the point that school officials and other students got involved. Perhaps that's what Chris is so nostalgic for: people rushing to his aid and paying intensely close attention to his feelings.

Chris has always been bad at reading people and understanding situations which seems to be common for people with autism and Asperger's. He mistook the pity and protection he received from his gal pals for genuine friendship. He found that out relatively recently and was shocked. But honestly, what did he have in common with those girls? Aside from talking about classes and teachers, there seemed to be nothing there. They probably didn't share his passion for Sonic, Pokemon, and Legos.

Chris has a selective memory but then again we all do.