Had a few thoughts to share on nostalgia I was thinking about.
When we talk about nostalgia we talk about two things I think, nostalgia for society as a whole and pop culture, but there's also personal nostalgia, where your life was at, the funny thing is sometimes these things can be contradictory, you may be nostalgic for the pop culture for the era when your personal life may not have been so good or you may be nostalgic for an era where the pop culture wasn't good or where society had some real problems but your personal life was in a good place.
There's another layer when it comes to pop culture where there's nostalgia for an era you personally lived through and can remember or an era from before you were born or your memory.
So for some examples from my life, pop culture wise, for an era I lived through and can remember, just about peak nostalgia for me is late fall 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Part of that was just my age I think, I was 12/13 for most of that time and the pop culture when your that age is special to you, namely what really got me hyped was the video games and anime of that era, fall of 2001 is when Adult Swim launched and the first time I saw Cowboy Bebop, one of my all time fav animes, fall of 2001 is also when the original Xbox, the GameCube and a slew of classic PS2 titles released like Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3.
Moving on into 2002 and 2003 my growing interesting in games and anime continued and it was all so fresh and exciting to me, I think that is also why that era is special to me.
The irony though is that I went through some rough personal issues at that time and of course this was also the post 9/11 era and the start of the Iraq war, so it both wasn't a great time for my personal life or for society as a whole, but still, there are a lot of happy memories which I'm thankful for.
It makes me wish I had a time machine and could some how "fix" that era to make it something more worthy of nostalgia without any bitter irony.
I think my point is the old standby of always looking on the bright side, sometimes things can just be a matter of perspective and things aren't as bad as you think they are or there's some silver lining you're missing.
But this is why I standby 2005-2007 being my favorite years because that was when I found both the pop culture interesting and my personal life was in a good place.
For some examples of some other things I'm talking about, there's the years 2009-2010, I thought pop culture at the time was mostly lame, but I was in a good place in my life back then, I look back on those years with increasing fondness now.
And finally for nostalgia for an era I didn't live to see personally, I've always been a huge, huge fan of 1980s culture, even though I was born right at the tail end of the decade, so it's not an era I can personally remember.
I also had a hard time adjusting to school, not gonna lie.
And finally there's also just the simple fact that the end of the 90s was now well over 20 years ago, that's a long time and I'd be lying if I said my memories weren't starting to get a bit fuzzy, which is a real bummer, my memories of my teen years are simply much more vivid.
Still, I have no shortage of cherished memories I'll never forget and I'm very thankful for that.
When we talk about nostalgia we talk about two things I think, nostalgia for society as a whole and pop culture, but there's also personal nostalgia, where your life was at, the funny thing is sometimes these things can be contradictory, you may be nostalgic for the pop culture for the era when your personal life may not have been so good or you may be nostalgic for an era where the pop culture wasn't good or where society had some real problems but your personal life was in a good place.
There's another layer when it comes to pop culture where there's nostalgia for an era you personally lived through and can remember or an era from before you were born or your memory.
So for some examples from my life, pop culture wise, for an era I lived through and can remember, just about peak nostalgia for me is late fall 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Part of that was just my age I think, I was 12/13 for most of that time and the pop culture when your that age is special to you, namely what really got me hyped was the video games and anime of that era, fall of 2001 is when Adult Swim launched and the first time I saw Cowboy Bebop, one of my all time fav animes, fall of 2001 is also when the original Xbox, the GameCube and a slew of classic PS2 titles released like Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Grand Theft Auto 3.
Moving on into 2002 and 2003 my growing interesting in games and anime continued and it was all so fresh and exciting to me, I think that is also why that era is special to me.
The irony though is that I went through some rough personal issues at that time and of course this was also the post 9/11 era and the start of the Iraq war, so it both wasn't a great time for my personal life or for society as a whole, but still, there are a lot of happy memories which I'm thankful for.
It makes me wish I had a time machine and could some how "fix" that era to make it something more worthy of nostalgia without any bitter irony.
I think my point is the old standby of always looking on the bright side, sometimes things can just be a matter of perspective and things aren't as bad as you think they are or there's some silver lining you're missing.
But this is why I standby 2005-2007 being my favorite years because that was when I found both the pop culture interesting and my personal life was in a good place.
For some examples of some other things I'm talking about, there's the years 2009-2010, I thought pop culture at the time was mostly lame, but I was in a good place in my life back then, I look back on those years with increasing fondness now.
And finally for nostalgia for an era I didn't live to see personally, I've always been a huge, huge fan of 1980s culture, even though I was born right at the tail end of the decade, so it's not an era I can personally remember.
It is easy and while I certainly have plenty of happy memories from my childhood and I'm of course very thankful for that, what brings things down a bit is I lost both my maternal grandparents at a pretty young age, my grandfather when I had just turned 8 and my grandmother when I was 10, I always wish I could have spent more time with them.
I also had a hard time adjusting to school, not gonna lie.
And finally there's also just the simple fact that the end of the 90s was now well over 20 years ago, that's a long time and I'd be lying if I said my memories weren't starting to get a bit fuzzy, which is a real bummer, my memories of my teen years are simply much more vivid.
Still, I have no shortage of cherished memories I'll never forget and I'm very thankful for that.
The 90s really was an incredibly remarkable time, for a large percentage of the world (not everywhere of course) I would say it was literally among the peaks throughout all of human history, we just really were set to achieve something great in the 21st century, then it all came tumbling down, at least for now.
