A side effect of modern isolation and virtualization I suspect - when all of your best emotional experiences are in your past, it's no surprise people get stuck on looking back. The question is why aren't you having equally meaningful experiences *now*.
@@HatterTobias Make a purpose for yourself (give yourself a skill to excel in, for example), and set up medium and long-term goals that you're passionate about.
@hattertobias I'm 34, and I've noticed that every few years something new and exciting comes along that catches my interest. If you had asked me at 17 if I'd be into Star Wars tabletop or Warhammer lore, I likely would have said no. But ten years later I was crafting Star Wars stories for my friends, and 17 years later building armies to face off against others. There's also the knowledge that you will soon be in control of your life. You will get to choose where you go, what jobs you apply to, set your own routine, determine where you want to live, and who you spend your time with. These were the last words my Granddad told me, and they are perhaps some of _the_ most important words spoken: Make your breaks. If you want something in life, you have to make it happen. You want a job somewhere? Learn about it, ask for advice on getting it, apply for it. You want that cool trinket or go to an event? Plan how to best save up for it. The important thing is to take initiative, and don't be afraid to ask for help or advice. If you face a hiccup, take a step back, learn from it, and find another way forward. You got this, kid!
The problem with that for me is that my youth was full of depression and anxiety, also my memory is generally too accurate. I actually remember that things weren't that much different in the old days.
@@Michael-Archonaeus Depends on what "the old days" means for you. Because nevermind technology, attitudes and general social interaction has changed a lot.
@@CapibaraWinter It hasn't changed in any substantial way. Humans have never changed, ever since we were created/fully evolved as homo sapiens, nothing about us has changed, instead of evolving ourselves, we have manipulated the world to evolve around us. Technology is just evolution externalized. Animals don't use technology because they are still going through internalized evolution. At a superficial level it could seem like attitudes have changed, but they really haven't. Judeo/Christian culture has changed, but that's all external. Internally nothing has changed, and even while our external culture was changing, other cultures running parallel to ours were at different stages, so by the early 20th century, some cultures were still openly practicing infanticide and cannibalism. Some people say, well, what about Feminism and birth control? None of that is new, the power struggle between men and women has been going on ever since the inception of agriculture, it moves like a pendulum back and forth between patriarchy and matriarchy, though it tends mostly towards patriarchy for obvious biological reasons. Use of oral anti-fertility drugs for birth control was recorded as early as 3,000 years ago and those records survive in the tradition of Enoch. We know that ancient people held regular parties and raves with loud dance music, where they would have orgies and perform ritual abortions and sacrifice their newborn to the gods, while the music would drown out the agonized screams of the dying children. In a similar vein, today we hold big raves and parties where people have orgies and silent abortions by the use of regular anti-fertility pills and the day after pill, or even later abortions. All we need to return to the Canaanite culture of 3,000 years ago is late term to postnatal abortion, then our cultural regression will finally be complete.
I am all these things: trapped in the past, glorifying a time I didn't even live in, etc. This is very insightful, however, and I love all the discussions this has sparked. Subscribed!
i always assumed that nostalgia traps might be because our childhoods were too sheltered from real world concerns. that if we grew up directly challenging and knowing the obstacles of the world, our youthful minds would be able to capture its essence in feelings, and embrace the world despite all its flaws. i find it strange we raise children in a sheltered fantasy, and then drop them like a bag of rocks. are we doing it to protect their happiness, or to protect ours?
Back then it was the other way around. If you read all those charles dickens novels you would see a vastly inverted view of the world. Childhood was not potrayed with nostalgia but with terror, seen as something a man would be desperate to leave behind rather than something to remember with nostalgia.
@Shaicedelic but conversely, adulthood is seen with far more optimism. Again, look at some charles dickens novels, the trajectory tends to be that a boy who comes from horrible beginnings is eventually able to leave that life and find a better world as he gets older. So is the situation with a lot of people outside the western world really.
@Shaicedelic i mean in a country like mine poverty is even worse, and there are alot of places here where people barely make ends meet. I know many who live in conditions that are absolutely appaling. Furthermore, the budget my country would consider middle class wouldn’t be considered adequate in either the US, the UK or Spain. That but atleast we tend to work real jobs that people actually understand the basics of (not the steryotypical “bullshit office job” thing that most people here deal with) furthermore, things here are cheaper, so even if we are poor we can still afford some basic stuff. Atleast in my country regular 2 floor houses aren’t a million dollars on average.
@Shaicedelic Not really trying to say that we have it worse than you or anything. Sorry for being judgmental, its just that I feel like putting in my own two cents since I am not a westerner.
It’s bizarre and creepy how lots of different forms of media around us can make you feel so nostalgic for something you have never experienced. City pop genre of music for example. Or ps1 style horror games. Thanks again Alex. Amazing production as always.
90s baby, things haven't gone how I tried to plan things out but seems like I'm one of the very few that prefers being an adult than wanting to go back to my childhood which wasn't bad either.
I always look down on man-children who love buying toys and talking about superheros, but I realize im like them. I gravitate towards media of my past and believe almost all the ideas of the past were right. This video has helped me take off my rose colored goggles.
I guess this is the same reason why I'm pro Russia. 🤣 Nostalgia for the Soviet Union isn't limited to Russian nationalists. Though what we're seeing now more closely resembles nostalgia for the Russian Empire. Which is strange because no one alive today was around when the Empire existed. In my personal life, I own a couple of cars from the 80s due to ease of work and not being overcomputerized.
@@PrimericanIdol i despise most newer cars because of all the sensors and computer stuff. The newest car I own is 2005. I own a few classic cars from the 50s and they are so much easier to work on.
I was born in 2000s and I prefer older movies, music and video games. Modern movie industry has artistically devolved, artistically devolved and became more focused on entertainment aspect instead of art. There are many entertainment type movies I like but most of them are from the 80s since 80s entertainment type movies had the most testosterone and therefore they feel not as filtered and corporate. When it comes to music, I almost exclusively listen to metal and the metal scene was at its peak in 70s - 90s. Newer subgenres just suck since theyre not the metal sound I like (its has too much of that mass appeal sound and therefore it comes out as feeling fake). Since whenever a new subgenre has been made means lot of new bands, this means that there aren't as much quality new bands as they are quality old bands in the subgenres of metal I like since the growth isn't as high as it once was. Modern video games are at its worst state, they either have predatory behaviour or aren't even finished. For every 1 good finished game there are 20 unfinished mess being released.
Apart from catering to nostalgia there is a massive industry with thousands of experts that do nothing, but figure out how to capture our attention and entice us with shallow products and spiritual junk anyway 24/7. It must be a rare individual who can muster the discipline to withstand. I suspect political leaders rather like a numb society full of people far to distracted, uninformed, and unintersted to see through any dubious political agenda that just might not be in our best interest. Your channel is a real contribution to throw some light on the mess we have collectively created.
Do it the way I do it: I still play my NES, N64, PS 1&2 to this day. I tried Xbox 360, didn't like it and just went back. I haven't bought any of these re-releases, the same games since that era. I don't think I'm stuck in the past, I just enjoy that era of games more. I still have my career, family, hobbies. Despite how grim the future appears, I am actually quite optimistic for the long term future. Not the short term future necessarily. I think you can have your cake and eat it too as long as you are continuing to make equally as impactful memories today, right now, as you did back then. There's a balance to be found in all of this.
I am sure you meant US SNES? The great purple grey toaster? 360 allows you to play modern, try Forza Motorsport 3. Its Aesthetic. These were good. Right at the beginning the 7th gen was ruined by online. In 93, the cpu life of Leisure Larry and Quest for Glory was ended by chatrooms. Email Then CDs sounded sharp and bad vs tapes, then streaming. Always catch the bass!!!!
I had a really bad run of nostalgia trappings in late high school, so I'm glad I got that out of my system well over a decade ago. I have more aspirations for my future now than ever before, and whenever I feel I may dwell too much on trappings of the past, I at least take solace in not being on the level of a colleague who outright said he doesn't care when he dies as long as he gets to see the end of One Piece.
I’ve had that problem as well,it’s something we need to work on,we need to be great full for what we have and work to improve on things that should be better,like others.
There’s always this one song called Sweden by C418 that provides me so much nostalgia, that it makes me really sad for all the memories I wished to relive. Unfortunately, although it’s a really good song, I can’t dwell on it too long because it just makes me compare how I feel now to how I felt then, and how much my life may or may not have worsened.
I think it comes down to how you perceive nostalgia to begin with. Even when I look back at the past. I can’t deny the future can be just as good. I always had the view, that nostalgia only makes us remember the good things. But it really ignores a lot of the bad. Honestly, I do wish there was less attempts of not appealing to nostalgia. It’s great but it leaves less room for more original experiences which I think a lot of people ideally want. We want evolution not stagnation.
I love your videos, man. But I have one gripe with them, they all seem very simplistic at times. You make the bar seem so low. I ain't fat, I am not addicted to nostalgia, whilst I am atheist I barely engage with atheist discussions, more often than not I talk about religion itself infact and never demonize religious people. I could go on, but I strongly feel the bar for a good life is not that low. I finished a bachelor in theoretical physics cuz I love it, but I noticed how ABSUUUURDLY difficult modern theoretical physics is and how I have to sacrifice the things that make me happy like my friends and family in my own country and my curiosity and joy of studying to get to the level where I can make a stable career out of it that doesn't suck out my joy simply because of how utterly advanced it is. Most people genuinely do not understand the level humanity is at in understanding how the Universe works. So I decided to go into medical physics, since it has more stable career options that still involve my passion and I will be helping people with some of the worst diseases at that. But it still feels really hard and like I need to dedicate my whole life to it. That is the true difficulty of life in my eyes. I gained more happiness from getting a very good understanding of trigonometry in school than I did of getting a good understanding of the principles and core ideas and motivations of Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics because I realised just how much steeper the requirements to get paid for knowing those stuff is and made me abit less hopeful in the uselfulness of education. We teach children math the majority of which objectively will never EVER use for anything useful, much less getting paid for it. Yeah, it trains their brain, but with an economy where most people can't afford treatment if they get a random cancer or a natural disaster ruins their home or anything of that level it genuinely feels that making money and trying to do so with your passion is 90% of what life entails. If I felt financially safe that I can buy a home, have 2 children if I ever feel like it, be able to support a family member if a tragedy happens and afford all the ordinary necessities most people have without selling my soul to a job that will make me despise the thing that was my passion in the past then I could feel like the abstract and absurdly developed mathematics is worth studying. I'd love for you to make a video on higher education and it's connection to careers and finances one day! This feels like the hardest hurdle in life to me. Some people say education should not be to make you money, but if the bar is that astronomically high then at the very least I should feel that the fruits of all that labor has helped make the world better instead of reading about how even with general relativity and quantum field theory being so advanced the whole of humanity can't deal with lowering CO2 emissions cuz "Muh economy" yet an extreme amount of people can't afford to buy a home or to have money on the side for a medical emergency even if they never go on vacations and spend little even with the efforts to constantly and never-endingly increase economic prosperity at the cost of our environment simply because the VAST majority of wealth goes to people who got it passively by owning shit like multibillionaires do instead of doing a million times more work than everyone else. Sorry for the rant, it just feels like the hardships of life and the cause for depression are much deeper and significantly harder to overcome than the things you sometimes talk about. On topic of the video, nostalgia mainly comes from remembering when our underdeveloped brains could get so much happiness from the simplest things and life required much less effort to feel you are succeeding at it. Now everything is hard. I know life was never easy and they had a heck of a lot of problems in the past that we have fixed now, but we fixed them only for new problems that the past people didn't have to pop up. So are we really fixing anything, or just trading problems until we get to a set of problems we feel we can accept instead of solve?
Yep, guilty. I'm definitely in a nostalgia trap. I feel mentally stuck in the early '00s and i didnt even realise it till recently that almost everything I do, watch, play or listen to is in some way influenced by nostalgia. And this vid evem made me realise that I do ask "do you remember...?" all the time. One time recently I actually thought Brooklyn Beckham was still a kid 😂
Becks is hitting LA soon as a player. Girls are wearing lipstick and we are watching MTV No Ibra just got to LA No ALL MLS IS LOCKED IN A STREAM, VAR IS SELF EVIDENTLY CONTROVERSIAL all these battles are between robbers and apologians.
honestly i find myself somewhere in the middle. i will admit im a very nostalgic person and i often go on nostalgia trips or even fall into temporsry nostalgia traps, however at the same time ive accepted the fact that the past is the past and im actively thinking about and planning my future. i think its a good balance. having too much nostalgia to the point of it being all thats on your mind will destroy your future but havingno nostalgia and no way to think on your happy youth at all is just sad. a specific example of this is Epcot, a place i went to often as a child. recently it underwent extreme overhauls and as a result has become significantly worse and barely recognizable. i will forever be bitter and upset about the end of IllumiNations, and i find myself often listeninf to it and Epcot's music, but iy doesnt interfere with my life in a way that dooms my future, and while icam hope all i want, i know its dead and never coming back which is sad but the truth, and i hope that someday new great things will come
I wish I could be nostalgic. My memory is so bad that I had completely forgotten that I had gone to the louvre before until my mother reminded me earlier today. I have no memory to be nostalgic of. Anything I experience gets deleted in my brain as if anything that isn’t a fact that will be useful to me is immediately discarded.
It must have been said before, but I love how well-polished and poignant Alex’s intros always turn out to be lol Straight to the point, faithfully reconstructed with any contextual trappings from that subject matter, and crammed with enough memelord humor to make any crusty Redditor wannabe jealous
I’m in the process of digitizing the family archives which are on many different audio/video formats. It’s harder not to get into a nostalgia trap because there’s nothing but good memories on there from my childhood and prior.
I actually needed this video, thank you. I’m 34 and just crawling out of my nostalgia trap, ironically I feel more like a teenager now than when I was an actual teenager lol. It’s wild knowing how my whole life is still ahead of me~
One part of nostalgia that ruined me. When i was offered a room change, i rejected it due to the room i grew up with and it was a graven mistake 😭😭😭😭😭and when i was telling my mum all about it, she was trying to defend my poor choice which is disgusting.
I respect some things about media in the past were good, and hold up well today. I regularly go on walks in the countryside and it reminds me how the present isn't so bad. There will always be obstacles ahead, but they can be overcome.
We can literally watch a movie, play a game the second it comes out.....and we have been able to do that for years. We have been able to get music in the millions for decades. I was downloading songs in the thousands back in 1999-2000. I was a dj and would make stacks of doubled up cd's of songs for a mix. Movie samples as well.
Kinda reminds me of a product in the game Cyberpunk 2077. It’s a special braindance (ultra immersive VR) package for old people that essentially boxes up their greatest memories and plays them on loop until they inevitably pass away. I used to be like that but I was only 20, still enough of a kid to change in time for adulthood. Now I have a girlfriend and my plans for the future greatly outshine the memories of my past, despite the agonizing work to get there. I want to become L. I. T. But I’m struggling with the “I” part because of living with my roommate. I do want to start streaming and making simple videos though since while I do love playing video games, I want to produce something of value instead of just consuming. My roommate though is the definition of “nostalgia trapped” constantly desiring the days of no responsibility, work, or deadlines. He has managed to mostly achieve that too, having no job, playing video games all day, and having his parents foot the bill to his financial needs.
VAR sucks. Survivers bias. Systems need purging, not purging us Mahomes rocks, but it is not an organic phenomenon. NFL big push. Of course, mastered in the dirty aughts. Observation cannot be nostalgic. Artists build the future, of course in rage
I feel optimistic about my future, but not the future of the world. I feel like the world I was born into more closely matched my values and doesn't anymore.
I just recently discovered your channel and I have to say I really think you're providing some amazing and much needed comment. Your videos are very thoughtful, very well made and you raise a lot of good points. I also love how positive you are. I got tired of creators like The Distributist, who is very deep and intelligent, but I stopped watching him because he ultimately became grating and whiny in my opinion. When it comes to your take on nostalgia, though, I do think you've presented it a bit too black and white. The sort of nostalgia trap that paralyzes and infantilizes a person certainly does exist and is common especially amongst young men, yes, but I do believe that nostalgia in itself can be good. Not just harmless, but good and healthy, if approached in a healthy way. There can be no doubt that someone like Tolkien was a deeply nostalgic person, yearning for a romanticized medieval past, but he acted on that trait of his in a very positive way by writing about Middle-earth. I ultimately believe that the yearning we feel for beautiful things in the past, especially if it's a past we ourselves have never known, comes from a deep inner longing for beauty itself, goodness itself, and today, a lot more of that can be found in the past than in the present. Modernity rejects beauty and even goodness, so naturally people will look for it in the past. The best thing we can do, however, is not just wallow in that past, but reach in, take the goodness and beauty and start creating again in that mould. That's what I'm trying to do with my own channel, and I feel very fulfilled about it. I'm also not a pessimist. I believe things can and will get better, but yes, right now, I completely understand why young men prefer to play old games and watch old movies. And I think there is merit in that. The ancients didn't believe in constantly coming up with entirely new concepts, that's a very modern and warped take on creativity. The Romans exalted 'imitatio et aemulatio', taking the well-known myths and poems of their forebears and keep improving on them ever so slightly, slowly perfecting the craft over many generations. I think they had a good point. You know, I tend to laugh at all those Spiderman remakes because the reasons for their existence are mere crass commercialism, but come to think of it, there is something to be said for revisiting and slightly altering the same concept time and again. I think the relentless pursuit of the new is exhausting and unnecessary. Anyway, great video and I love how you captured the feel of nineties television in the beginning. I'm a child of the 80s as well and it was just spot-on.
I mean I used to buy the argument against nostalgia, but after seeing neoliberal corporate shovelware slop released time after time, I can say that it's more than nostalgia that makes a lot people like the older stuff more than the newer stuff.
There the truth is, getting its boots on. This guy is a useful apologian, missing the forest definitely. For example, teens wearing Lou Reed shirts has not stopped since my teens
I have nostalgia trips time to time but i am not in a nostalgia trap. this people who are in a nostalgia trap are a manchild that is lives in the best. Great video alex 🔥
im 34 and in the nostalgia trap bad. i wasnt as aware until this video. for a few years i didnt even discover any new music (even if old but new to me)
I rarely feel nostalgic for my childhood, but often feel nostalgic for 80s, even though I born in late 90s. There is shoegaze bands (my favorite is MBV, Slowdive, Lush) that make me feel that, and even more than that. Sometimes I have to force myself not to listen some of these, cause despite it's my favorite music, it can ruin my whole day
Years from now, when folks are huddled around the fire in the drafty hut , cooking the thing they caught that day, they'll look back to today as the Good Old Days.
its not even ignorance, the vast majority of us are worse than our parents were at our age. The 90s held optimism and potential whether for us as kids or as adults - the internet brought about whole new industries and changes, movies were a wider range of appeal and made with both great writing and great sfx. Politics were civil even if both sides passionately disagreed. Now...good luck the US seems in heated political standstill, one assassination's away from civil war. The cost of living has outgrown any inflationary models the FED has tried to hide behind, the economy has consistently tank since 9/11 with only some short stints of success. People and adults are more paranoid now than they were in the 80s and 90s. We had more freedoms in the 90s here in the US that since 9/11 have been steadily eroded in the false name of security. We are back to having a Cold War with Russia. Most of us adults cannot afford to buy houses and corporations are actively trying to buy up large amounts of homes to rent further making it harder for people in their 20-30s to buy a home. We are at each other's throats or choose to live in an echo chamber anytime politics or religion is brought up. Mental illnesses are regarded as normal and your a bigot if you say otherwise when even the LGBT are fighting amongst themselves. Sport gambling has made many question the legitimacy of professional sports. Televised professional wrestling and most tv/movies suck nowadays and no longer provide much of an escape. The dating war between men and women which has only gotten worse due to social media giving false hope to many women and in the same manner screwing over most guys. The rise in costs to have kids compared to pets or even getting married, discouraging many from the concept. Men being told that we have to be rich in order to attract and woman and many women expecting that in kind and or traditional treatment without effort on their part. So many double standards that weren't around in the 90s. Public education being used to brainwash youth and adults to make choices based on suggestive emotions rather than logic and reason. Today is an absolute cluster of a society with far less objective morality, logic, and sense than back then, not just optimism.
nostalgia is something that we can always look back, being good or bad, but never get stuck or let us get stuck in our life, so it is better to move on no matter the circumstances, and as always amazing production Alex
You forgot that Avatar: The Way of Water is a sequel from a movie from 2009, which to Zoomers, now qualifies as nostalgic. I wouldn't count John Wick as an old IP, however. And yeah, I agree nostalgia looks pretty damn good when you're living in a dystopia of social media and people not knowing how to define what a woman is. But I don't fall into the nostalgia trap because my childhood sucked. Another reason nostalgia is so prevalent nowadays is, as someone on another YT channel said, culturally, we've stagnated as a society sometime around 2009. 2009 is when smartphones, social media like Twitter was a thing, and when people cared more about their reputation than being honest and truthful. The only thing that makes today worse is the rise of woke culture (which began in 2011 after Occupy Wall Street got sabotaged by the people who were being protested against; leading to the first modern usage of the term Social Justice Warrior.) Identity politics aside, nothing here in 2023 looks any different than it did in the late 2000s; fashion, cars, most technology, pop culture, etc. It's said the internet killed societal progress, which explains the rise of nostalgia. Maybe you can also do a video some day on how we've stagnated as a culture since the late 2000s, as well.
I think the new culture elite will have dumbphones. Self selected artists. Comment channels like this are endless distraction, (great stuff) and cannot make the future. It needs the void of silence like the ranting trumpet guy said in NY. I am looking at Punkt , Lightphone, Nokia Reading and creating or something
Political stance or not, lockdowns messed with people’s heads and forced them to regress further. I used to watch video game collectors, who amassed thousands of games. But, for what? Can you really play 4000 games? Hundreds of consoles, handhelds, etc?
I would say that I am kinda LIT tbh. I think the future will get worse at first as the current world order is breaking appart. It might sound bad, but these events usually are big opportunities. I hope that I will be able to make the world a better place again then. I am actually kinda excited for the future tbh.
There are so many things to deconstruct with this one... 1. The bar isn't low, the bar is infinitely high. It is no longer sufficient to be great, one must be the greatest that ever was. Look to the likes of Jakob Ingebrigsten or Max Verstappen or Vingegaard / Pogacar, or Knuth, Iverson, Dijkstra. For men who's motivation would have been accomplishing something great, greatness is not available because the mathematical, statistical greatest already exists, so one must not only be great to be great, but the greatest there ever was. Not only do you have to be the greatest that ever was, but you must also defeat the mediocre average, the mass of braindead NPCs in every industry pulling the median towards some relatable midline so as to be "inclusive" rather than optimizing for what is actually best, leaving us with subpar, disposable, flimsy products, promoting an entire global culture of disposability over quality. I can't be the greatest that ever was, I can't change the entire world on my own... So what's the point? 2. It isn't for nostalgia that I yearn for music and art of the past, but the fact that modernity is such uncreative, corporate, banal, deliberately narcissistic tripe that there is no enrichment to be found in art and music of the modern era. I spent my entire life until this year in the pursuit of honing my own crafts, only to realize that in the modern age, nobody gives a fuck about the quality. Trying hard is cringe, being good is elitist, striving for self improvement is narcissism, but the real narcissists sit back and ridicule anyone for trying to improve themselves... I yearn for real beauty, and yet there is none to be found because everything is actually literal shit. 3. Things now are actually literal shit and getting worse faster than we can process how bad it already is. All forms of art, be it movies, games, traditional art, music, is vacuous, and accelerating into unfathomable depths of degeneracy and hedonism. Art can't be art, it has to be laced with sex and debauchery. Movies can't just tell a good story, they have to demoralize the soul. And the curators and creators of such smut and filth have themselves achieved levels of degeneracy heretofore unthinkable, unimaginable... and yet are lauded, worshiped by all of society. As you say, the individuals trapped in compulsory consumption based in a nostalgic world view that makes them incapable of critically observing the behaviors, methods, and messaging of their favorite "creators", leaves them susceptible to the messaging, and guzzle the degeneracy like a glass milk bottle of cum in a smut film. 4. The Future is in our hands? There are whole art forms, musical forms and genres, themes and motifs in literature and fiction, each with infinite spaces to explore that are dead. Dead like the candy store you mentioned. Nobody knows the name of what you're referring to, like if you were to give directions based on the location of a store that no longer exists "turn left where Grandma's Candy Store used to be" makes no sense when the person you're speaking to was born long after the location was demolished. Whole musical genres and sonic soundscapes that only existed from a single band, or on a single album, left unexplored, and dead because people don't even know that it existed. It isn't only true for media, one need only look to UCI or automobile industry to realize that there are whole universes of design spaces, and also engineering concepts that have been left to rot in the annals of history, which are all almost certainly more pleasing, more interesting, more efficient, easier to build, lest costly to produce, an yet... we're left with the modern bubble, midsized, bloated, wobbly, slow, banal cars that all look the same. I'm not in a nostalgia trap for classic Porsche. Thy were engineering marvels, the peak in driving tactility. They are, by every standard just better, looks better, drives better, more mechanical, tactile, feels good to drive, isn't fully electronic, right down to the steering. History is filled with tactility, from Architecture, to fountain pens, watches, cufflinks, quality textiles, quality shoes that would last a lifetime if resoled, even old paper feels better to write on. How the fuck is history in our hands if the only thing that's left to us is Bic, disposable products, progressively lower quality everything, progressively homogenous everything, no interesting look, feel, nothing satisfying... just corporate mush, from music, to industry, to art. The future isn't in our hands. The future accelerating towards mathematically average and generic. So no... I don't think that people who are pessimistic about the future, yearning for a simpler more innocent time, are stuck in a trap. There were simpler times. There were more innocent times, irrespective of childhood perspective. There was a time in my lifetime when we needn't lock the doors, when neighbors were trustworthy, when you would speak with each other in public, when the arts and music were uplifting to the soul (or at the very least not seeking the destruction of the soul), when human interactions weren't burdensome, fraught with resentment and distrust. There was a time when greatness could yet be achieved, when there were still impossible things being done and yet to be done. Yet here we are, at the boundaries of what is physically possible, reaching mathematical limits in human physiology, speed, material science, aerodynamics, technical proficiency, the sciences in general.... And what else is there? There was a time when everything could be known. Di Vinci learned and understood the extent of human knowledge in every field of human study for his day. That feat can never be achieved ever again, as simply understanding one field to merely a to a minimum proficiency to speak on the subject publicly often takes a lifetime of dedicated study and research. There was a simpler time, when what was understood, how to live a good life, was just simple. You didn't need to know everything about everything, while being charismatic, likeable, influential enough to warrant people seeking your attention/favor/opinions, while also being a world class athlete from 40 years ago in your free time, just to have any significance. Yes, of course, everyone going out about their business, achieving their own health and sustenance is its own tragedy with its own climaxes, worth the experience I'm sure... But if you go out and run a 4 minute mile right now, a superhuman feat... No one will care. No one will know your name. You accomplished something that was thought to be impossible until recently. And yet...You will matter to no one. I yearn for a simplicity and innocence. Is that Nostalgia?
@@RyIev That's a funny joke, but valid critiques do be valid. I don't watch television or movies, nor do I play video games (any more), successfully broke the cycle of consumption years ago. I have done what he suggests in mastering a craft or skill and moving on to make something of my life. I'm completely detached from the processes of consumerism and nostalgia that he's talking about. But how is it nostalgia to have an utter resentment for the complete lack of quality of everything that exists? How is the future in our hands when we have seen repeatedly positive design, engineering, artistic trends completely die and fall by the wayside? Had the future been in our hands would we not have continued on when quality and merit was already the norm? The future isn't in our hands. The future is awash in the mudslide of mediocrity and disposable shit.
ruclips.net/video/AFR2yNhCJ-Y/видео.html Just look to how many people are subjecting themselves to these sorts of record attempts. 10 years ago, just completing an Iron Man was a phenomenal achievement.... Now its "just a marathon?" or "just a century?" or "just one iron man? filthy casual."
I’ve been watching your videos for the best part of one week and a half, and I must say, I haven’t been impressed this much by a RUclipsr in a long time. Your productions are very thoughtful and for the most part oriented towards a better future. I, unfortunately, am very nostalgia stricken. I was born in the early nineties, and even though I surely have rose tainted glasses, I can say for sure that the 2000’s and early 2010’s were better days. Those were the days. No political divide, no mandated progressive/leftist propaganda, no terrorism, no mass migration, less gratuitous violence. More meaningful friendships, simpler activities and more kindness between people in general. Everything has gone to sh*t nowadays (mostly). The music is trash, the movies are trash, the videos games are steaming hot garbage. Relationships have become stale or fake. People have very low trust now, when I remember, you could expect any help from complete strangers back then. The only reason I’m not a total wreck and still optimistic for the future is because I’m a very grounded Christian. And as such, I must be a light for the world as the Lord Jesus Christ said. So, I am holding strong. But I still get sucked by nostalgia from time to time.
It's not just games, but also people/youtubers with retro computer obsession. I like to call them "retroomers", because there is something perverted in the way they lather on about their favourite computer hardware and games. LGR is perhaps the worst offender of them all.
I got into retro tech from flea markets/dumpster diving. Some of it is nostalgia, some of it is educational and fun and sometimes a bit tweekerish 😂 My fav was finding someones old emails from the 90s. Someones uncle bougjy them a book with all the internets webpages listed 😅 Followed up by shit you not saying they dont see this email thing taking off. and another about their father working late cause its black singles night at the hotel and theu had to close the pool😂. Found a file once on a floppy titled "firstkill.jpg" i was scared shitless but turned out to be a grainy photo of a blown up truxk from a distance in desert storm.
i have nostalgia trip once in a while, i enjoy myself i know live is bitter but i try to make the best of it😊, this man children cant go out them nostalgia trap, its just pathetic.
im watching the Reliving the War series and backtrackijg and putting together dates in my head. It felt like a lifetime back then but i only watched from Jan 98 to about Jan 2000
Late, post-modern philosopher Mark Fisher (suicide), called this phenomenon "Hauntology". By the end of the 20th century, stuck in a world where the future doesn't exist (Neoliberal, Late stage Capitalism), people are haunted by ghosts of their past. The 60s had the Beatles. 70s were defined by Led Zeppelin, 80s, Hair Bands with the last vestiges of originality expressed by people like Kurt Cobain. The Reagan/ Thatcher years marked the end of funding for the arts, innovation in fashion....the future seemed promising. Its easier to imagine the end of the world, than to imagine a world without Capitalism. The endless pursuit of profit, hence the "commodification" of everything.
I'm not going to defend nostalgia specifically and I don't think that I am "DIM" as you put it. But I WILL defend stuff from my childhood like Star Wars or Lego. I will defend the old media because the new media seeks to replace it with something that is destructive to current young people. I will defend Star Wars not because "canon" or the universe, or the franchise, but because the old stories that are currently despised used to give warnings about the forms of Evil, and give inspiration to be Good. People growing up and watching the "new" crap are actively being de-moralized (their morals being removed) and turned into nihilists. And as for Lego, I defend the practical engineering that it provides, the problem solving and spatial thinking that it encourages. I still use it as a tool to get my ideas out because I know every piece and how it can be used. I know this whole comment was cringe, but I think that certain things WERE better "back in the day" and that nostalgia is seeing "back in the day" with rose tinted glasses, whereas what I'm doing (or at least what I think I'm doing) is analysing in order to get the good out of the past.
A 2013 Benz at the top end had a 4.7 Liter or 5.5 liter murderstick, with turboes sat nav and great economy. It is gaming the system merely . No one should gloat or shut themselves away. But who can reccomend a show from the streams, (less culture gossip due to atomization) and I am convinced rent stream is a bad consumer principle, and deal.
I think the Problem with Nostalgie is taht it is a comforting space for people weher ther not licking to be chalnge i think tahts why somen get so over protective about certain prands from ther youth so protected in the Garden from the snakes it's a comforting Feeling wher everything was easier
Seinfeld HITs. Could not pick up a season collection on DVD fpr 3 bucks back innthe when I think artists do this "trap". Not a George office scene. I look at the Stream bar, s cool. Gotta catch up on Suits tho. Want the box keed
Those 3000 dollar Sony Crts and 200 buck VHSs and 60 dollar quid Ps2 games are all straight up affordable or free now Please e erbody keep streaming on a 19 inch. Im good
A side effect of modern isolation and virtualization I suspect - when all of your best emotional experiences are in your past, it's no surprise people get stuck on looking back. The question is why aren't you having equally meaningful experiences *now*.
Even at 38, I'm still under the belief that my best years are ahead.
Honestly, ... I'm 37 and feel kinda feel like that.
Meanwhile I'm only 17 and I feel the opposite
What's your secret?
@@HatterTobias Make a purpose for yourself (give yourself a skill to excel in, for example), and set up medium and long-term goals that you're passionate about.
@hattertobias
I'm 34, and I've noticed that every few years something new and exciting comes along that catches my interest. If you had asked me at 17 if I'd be into Star Wars tabletop or Warhammer lore, I likely would have said no. But ten years later I was crafting Star Wars stories for my friends, and 17 years later building armies to face off against others.
There's also the knowledge that you will soon be in control of your life. You will get to choose where you go, what jobs you apply to, set your own routine, determine where you want to live, and who you spend your time with. These were the last words my Granddad told me, and they are perhaps some of _the_ most important words spoken:
Make your breaks.
If you want something in life, you have to make it happen. You want a job somewhere? Learn about it, ask for advice on getting it, apply for it. You want that cool trinket or go to an event? Plan how to best save up for it. The important thing is to take initiative, and don't be afraid to ask for help or advice. If you face a hiccup, take a step back, learn from it, and find another way forward.
You got this, kid!
yeah I miss the ignorance of youth. not knowing depression, hardship, mental sickness. yeah I really do miss it.
The problem with that for me is that my youth was full of depression and anxiety, also my memory is generally too accurate.
I actually remember that things weren't that much different in the old days.
:-(
@@Michael-Archonaeus Depends on what "the old days" means for you. Because nevermind technology, attitudes and general social interaction has changed a lot.
@@CapibaraWinter It hasn't changed in any substantial way.
Humans have never changed, ever since we were created/fully evolved as homo sapiens, nothing about us has changed, instead of evolving ourselves, we have manipulated the world to evolve around us.
Technology is just evolution externalized.
Animals don't use technology because they are still going through internalized evolution.
At a superficial level it could seem like attitudes have changed, but they really haven't.
Judeo/Christian culture has changed, but that's all external.
Internally nothing has changed, and even while our external culture was changing, other cultures running parallel to ours were at different stages, so by the early 20th century, some cultures were still openly practicing infanticide and cannibalism.
Some people say, well, what about Feminism and birth control?
None of that is new, the power struggle between men and women has been going on ever since the inception of agriculture, it moves like a pendulum back and forth between patriarchy and matriarchy, though it tends mostly towards patriarchy for obvious biological reasons.
Use of oral anti-fertility drugs for birth control was recorded as early as 3,000 years ago and those records survive in the tradition of Enoch.
We know that ancient people held regular parties and raves with loud dance music, where they would have orgies and perform ritual abortions and sacrifice their newborn to the gods, while the music would drown out the agonized screams of the dying children.
In a similar vein, today we hold big raves and parties where people have orgies and silent abortions by the use of regular anti-fertility pills and the day after pill, or even later abortions.
All we need to return to the Canaanite culture of 3,000 years ago is late term to postnatal abortion, then our cultural regression will finally be complete.
rena
I am all these things: trapped in the past, glorifying a time I didn't even live in, etc. This is very insightful, however, and I love all the discussions this has sparked. Subscribed!
Our priest gave a sermon about the evils of nostalgia several months ago.
i always assumed that nostalgia traps might be because our childhoods were too sheltered from real world concerns. that if we grew up directly challenging and knowing the obstacles of the world, our youthful minds would be able to capture its essence in feelings, and embrace the world despite all its flaws. i find it strange we raise children in a sheltered fantasy, and then drop them like a bag of rocks. are we doing it to protect their happiness, or to protect ours?
Back then it was the other way around. If you read all those charles dickens novels you would see a vastly inverted view of the world. Childhood was not potrayed with nostalgia but with terror, seen as something a man would be desperate to leave behind rather than something to remember with nostalgia.
@Shaicedelic but conversely, adulthood is seen with far more optimism. Again, look at some charles dickens novels, the trajectory tends to be that a boy who comes from horrible beginnings is eventually able to leave that life and find a better world as he gets older. So is the situation with a lot of people outside the western world really.
@Shaicedelic i mean in a country like mine poverty is even worse, and there are alot of places here where people barely make ends meet. I know many who live in conditions that are absolutely appaling. Furthermore, the budget my country would consider middle class wouldn’t be considered adequate in either the US, the UK or Spain. That but atleast we tend to work real jobs that people actually understand the basics of (not the steryotypical “bullshit office job” thing that most people here deal with) furthermore, things here are cheaper, so even if we are poor we can still afford some basic stuff. Atleast in my country regular 2 floor houses aren’t a million dollars on average.
@Shaicedelic Not really trying to say that we have it worse than you or anything. Sorry for being judgmental, its just that I feel like putting in my own two cents since I am not a westerner.
@Shaicedelic Though I will thank you for giving me a sense of perspective. Grass isn’t that green over on the other side.
Dunno about you but it's nice playing a older game that is actually optimised and doesn't force microtransactions down my throat when i want to relax
Yeah I would rather fight EA and Konami AI than online teabaggers
It’s bizarre and creepy how lots of different forms of media around us can make you feel so nostalgic for something you have never experienced.
City pop genre of music for example. Or ps1 style horror games.
Thanks again Alex. Amazing production as always.
Pseudonostalgia is a thing
90s baby, things haven't gone how I tried to plan things out but seems like I'm one of the very few that prefers being an adult than wanting to go back to my childhood which wasn't bad either.
3:02 I think the real question is, if had the ability to turn back time, would you do? Given all the positives/negatives of time travel.
I always look down on man-children who love buying toys and talking about superheros, but I realize im like them. I gravitate towards media of my past and believe almost all the ideas of the past were right. This video has helped me take off my rose colored goggles.
That is why I only play modern retro inspired games, because they are actually good.
I guess this is the same reason why I'm pro Russia. 🤣
Nostalgia for the Soviet Union isn't limited to Russian nationalists. Though what we're seeing now more closely resembles nostalgia for the Russian Empire. Which is strange because no one alive today was around when the Empire existed.
In my personal life, I own a couple of cars from the 80s due to ease of work and not being overcomputerized.
@@PrimericanIdol Russia is the only country that fights against the pedo-satanists.
@@PrimericanIdol i despise most newer cars because of all the sensors and computer stuff. The newest car I own is 2005. I own a few classic cars from the 50s and they are so much easier to work on.
I was born in 2000s and I prefer older movies, music and video games. Modern movie industry has artistically devolved, artistically devolved and became more focused on entertainment aspect instead of art. There are many entertainment type movies I like but most of them are from the 80s since 80s entertainment type movies had the most testosterone and therefore they feel not as filtered and corporate. When it comes to music, I almost exclusively listen to metal and the metal scene was at its peak in 70s - 90s. Newer subgenres just suck since theyre not the metal sound I like (its has too much of that mass appeal sound and therefore it comes out as feeling fake). Since whenever a new subgenre has been made means lot of new bands, this means that there aren't as much quality new bands as they are quality old bands in the subgenres of metal I like since the growth isn't as high as it once was. Modern video games are at its worst state, they either have predatory behaviour or aren't even finished. For every 1 good finished game there are 20 unfinished mess being released.
Never have I ever klicked so fast on a new Video Superb Quality Alex as always
Apart from catering to nostalgia there is a massive industry with thousands of experts that do nothing, but figure out how to capture our attention and entice us with shallow products and spiritual junk anyway 24/7. It must be a rare individual who can muster the discipline to withstand. I suspect political leaders rather like a numb society full of people far to distracted, uninformed, and unintersted to see through any dubious political agenda that just might not be in our best interest. Your channel is a real contribution to throw some light on the mess we have collectively created.
why watch modern anime when I can watch an anime VHS from the 80s or 90s.
For real though 80’s-90’s anime was BRUTAL, it was pretty awesome.
Do it the way I do it: I still play my NES, N64, PS 1&2 to this day. I tried Xbox 360, didn't like it and just went back. I haven't bought any of these re-releases, the same games since that era. I don't think I'm stuck in the past, I just enjoy that era of games more. I still have my career, family, hobbies. Despite how grim the future appears, I am actually quite optimistic for the long term future. Not the short term future necessarily. I think you can have your cake and eat it too as long as you are continuing to make equally as impactful memories today, right now, as you did back then. There's a balance to be found in all of this.
I am sure you meant US SNES? The great purple grey toaster?
360 allows you to play modern, try Forza Motorsport 3. Its Aesthetic. These were good.
Right at the beginning the 7th gen was ruined by online.
In 93, the cpu life of Leisure Larry and Quest for Glory was ended by chatrooms.
Email
Then CDs sounded sharp and bad vs tapes, then streaming.
Always catch the bass!!!!
Ps1 and ps2 are my main saves, I am a bit of a memory card collector.
It puts crack to shame. But that's what happens when you live a wholly unfulfilling life
Like the Postal dude ones saide it can't be good for me But i feel great
It gets weird when you find out that all the changes in society were planned before you were born
I have PTSD from childhood trauma, so lingering on the past is generally emotionally painful to me.
I had a really bad run of nostalgia trappings in late high school, so I'm glad I got that out of my system well over a decade ago.
I have more aspirations for my future now than ever before, and whenever I feel I may dwell too much on trappings of the past, I at least take solace in not being on the level of a colleague who outright said he doesn't care when he dies as long as he gets to see the end of One Piece.
I’ve had that problem as well,it’s something we need to work on,we need to be great full for what we have and work to improve on things that should be better,like others.
Alex has classic wow nostalgia.
There’s always this one song called Sweden by C418 that provides me so much nostalgia, that it makes me really sad for all the memories I wished to relive. Unfortunately, although it’s a really good song, I can’t dwell on it too long because it just makes me compare how I feel now to how I felt then, and how much my life may or may not have worsened.
That outro with the rose tinted glasses in hand was perfect.
I think it comes down to how you perceive nostalgia to begin with. Even when I look back at the past. I can’t deny the future can be just as good. I always had the view, that nostalgia only makes us remember the good things. But it really ignores a lot of the bad.
Honestly, I do wish there was less attempts of not appealing to nostalgia. It’s great but it leaves less room for more original experiences which I think a lot of people ideally want. We want evolution not stagnation.
Can’t believe I missed big booty yoga, was looking forward to this week’s episode! All jokes aside, good video.
13:23 OMMGG MIDTOWN MADNESS 2!!! MY WHOLE CHILDHOOD! 😱😱😱
Thankfully I’m not nostalgia trapped but Mario 64 brings me dangerously close to it.
As soon as I read this comment, I went and listened to the Dire Dire Docks theme from this game. Damn, I find game music does this to me.
I love your videos, man. But I have one gripe with them, they all seem very simplistic at times. You make the bar seem so low. I ain't fat, I am not addicted to nostalgia, whilst I am atheist I barely engage with atheist discussions, more often than not I talk about religion itself infact and never demonize religious people. I could go on, but I strongly feel the bar for a good life is not that low. I finished a bachelor in theoretical physics cuz I love it, but I noticed how ABSUUUURDLY difficult modern theoretical physics is and how I have to sacrifice the things that make me happy like my friends and family in my own country and my curiosity and joy of studying to get to the level where I can make a stable career out of it that doesn't suck out my joy simply because of how utterly advanced it is. Most people genuinely do not understand the level humanity is at in understanding how the Universe works. So I decided to go into medical physics, since it has more stable career options that still involve my passion and I will be helping people with some of the worst diseases at that. But it still feels really hard and like I need to dedicate my whole life to it. That is the true difficulty of life in my eyes. I gained more happiness from getting a very good understanding of trigonometry in school than I did of getting a good understanding of the principles and core ideas and motivations of Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics because I realised just how much steeper the requirements to get paid for knowing those stuff is and made me abit less hopeful in the uselfulness of education.
We teach children math the majority of which objectively will never EVER use for anything useful, much less getting paid for it. Yeah, it trains their brain, but with an economy where most people can't afford treatment if they get a random cancer or a natural disaster ruins their home or anything of that level it genuinely feels that making money and trying to do so with your passion is 90% of what life entails. If I felt financially safe that I can buy a home, have 2 children if I ever feel like it, be able to support a family member if a tragedy happens and afford all the ordinary necessities most people have without selling my soul to a job that will make me despise the thing that was my passion in the past then I could feel like the abstract and absurdly developed mathematics is worth studying. I'd love for you to make a video on higher education and it's connection to careers and finances one day! This feels like the hardest hurdle in life to me.
Some people say education should not be to make you money, but if the bar is that astronomically high then at the very least I should feel that the fruits of all that labor has helped make the world better instead of reading about how even with general relativity and quantum field theory being so advanced the whole of humanity can't deal with lowering CO2 emissions cuz "Muh economy" yet an extreme amount of people can't afford to buy a home or to have money on the side for a medical emergency even if they never go on vacations and spend little even with the efforts to constantly and never-endingly increase economic prosperity at the cost of our environment simply because the VAST majority of wealth goes to people who got it passively by owning shit like multibillionaires do instead of doing a million times more work than everyone else.
Sorry for the rant, it just feels like the hardships of life and the cause for depression are much deeper and significantly harder to overcome than the things you sometimes talk about.
On topic of the video, nostalgia mainly comes from remembering when our underdeveloped brains could get so much happiness from the simplest things and life required much less effort to feel you are succeeding at it. Now everything is hard. I know life was never easy and they had a heck of a lot of problems in the past that we have fixed now, but we fixed them only for new problems that the past people didn't have to pop up. So are we really fixing anything, or just trading problems until we get to a set of problems we feel we can accept instead of solve?
I recognize that sims music....i used to play the sims on my ps2 very often....good times....darn you!
Such a wonderful production. You have pointed out what I was thinking.
I was just thinking about what it means to feel nostalgic and lo and behold I see this video pop up.
Man 2006-2011 was such a good time I wish I could go back there. I think the future is nothing but darkness
🤦
@@Niko26-t1y Whoosh
Yep, guilty. I'm definitely in a nostalgia trap. I feel mentally stuck in the early '00s and i didnt even realise it till recently that almost everything I do, watch, play or listen to is in some way influenced by nostalgia. And this vid evem made me realise that I do ask "do you remember...?" all the time. One time recently I actually thought Brooklyn Beckham was still a kid 😂
Becks is hitting LA soon as a player.
Girls are wearing lipstick and we are watching MTV
No Ibra just got to LA
No ALL MLS IS LOCKED IN A STREAM, VAR IS SELF EVIDENTLY CONTROVERSIAL
all these battles are between robbers and apologians.
I hated my childhood so I don't ever really have the feeling of missing the ignorance of youth.
I mean i guess adulthood is easier when you never had that “childhood innocence” to begin with.
honestly i find myself somewhere in the middle. i will admit im a very nostalgic person and i often go on nostalgia trips or even fall into temporsry nostalgia traps, however at the same time ive accepted the fact that the past is the past and im
actively thinking about and planning my future. i think its a good balance. having too much nostalgia to the point of it being all thats on your mind will destroy your future but havingno nostalgia and no way to think on your happy youth at all is just sad. a specific example of this is Epcot, a place i went to often as a child. recently it underwent extreme overhauls and as a result has become significantly worse and barely recognizable. i will forever be bitter and upset about the end of IllumiNations, and i find myself often listeninf to it and Epcot's music, but iy doesnt interfere with my life in a way that dooms my future, and while icam hope all i want, i know its dead and never coming back which is sad but the truth, and i hope that someday new great things will come
I wish I could be nostalgic. My memory is so bad that I had completely forgotten that I had gone to the louvre before until my mother reminded me earlier today. I have no memory to be nostalgic of. Anything I experience gets deleted in my brain as if anything that isn’t a fact that will be useful to me is immediately discarded.
It must have been said before, but I love how well-polished and poignant Alex’s intros always turn out to be lol
Straight to the point, faithfully reconstructed with any contextual trappings from that subject matter, and crammed with enough memelord humor to make any crusty Redditor wannabe jealous
Depends... I enjoy older media more in general, but that includes media I have not seen before and am therefore not Nostalgic towards.
I’m in the process of digitizing the family archives which are on many different audio/video formats. It’s harder not to get into a nostalgia trap because there’s nothing but good memories on there from my childhood and prior.
I actually needed this video, thank you. I’m 34 and just crawling out of my nostalgia trap, ironically I feel more like a teenager now than when I was an actual teenager lol. It’s wild knowing how my whole life is still ahead of me~
This video was what I needed to watch today. It was like a jolt of lightning. Thanks Alex.
One part of nostalgia that ruined me. When i was offered a room change, i rejected it due to the room i grew up with and it was a graven mistake 😭😭😭😭😭and when i was telling my mum all about it, she was trying to defend my poor choice which is disgusting.
I never should have moved back but my Dad needs help and cannot afford a better school distrct for the kid
you've done it again, absolutely fantastic production
Stunning man. I needed to hear this. I shall heed your advice.
When the present time is much worse than it was in the past, nostalgia kicks in.
I respect some things about media in the past were good, and hold up well today. I regularly go on walks in the countryside and it reminds me how the present isn't so bad. There will always be obstacles ahead, but they can be overcome.
"You're reaching."
-Triggered millennials everywhere
We can literally watch a movie, play a game the second it comes out.....and we have been able to do that for years. We have been able to get music in the millions for decades. I was downloading songs in the thousands back in 1999-2000. I was a dj and would make stacks of doubled up cd's of songs for a mix. Movie samples as well.
Kinda reminds me of a product in the game Cyberpunk 2077.
It’s a special braindance (ultra immersive VR) package for old people that essentially boxes up their greatest memories and plays them on loop until they inevitably pass away.
I used to be like that but I was only 20, still enough of a kid to change in time for adulthood. Now I have a girlfriend and my plans for the future greatly outshine the memories of my past, despite the agonizing work to get there.
I want to become L. I. T. But I’m struggling with the “I” part because of living with my roommate. I do want to start streaming and making simple videos though since while I do love playing video games, I want to produce something of value instead of just consuming.
My roommate though is the definition of “nostalgia trapped” constantly desiring the days of no responsibility, work, or deadlines. He has managed to mostly achieve that too, having no job, playing video games all day, and having his parents foot the bill to his financial needs.
VAR sucks.
Survivers bias. Systems need purging, not purging us
Mahomes rocks, but it is not an organic phenomenon. NFL big push. Of course, mastered in the dirty aughts.
Observation cannot be nostalgic.
Artists build the future, of course in rage
I feel optimistic about my future, but not the future of the world. I feel like the world I was born into more closely matched my values and doesn't anymore.
I just recently discovered your channel and I have to say I really think you're providing some amazing and much needed comment. Your videos are very thoughtful, very well made and you raise a lot of good points. I also love how positive you are. I got tired of creators like The Distributist, who is very deep and intelligent, but I stopped watching him because he ultimately became grating and whiny in my opinion. When it comes to your take on nostalgia, though, I do think you've presented it a bit too black and white. The sort of nostalgia trap that paralyzes and infantilizes a person certainly does exist and is common especially amongst young men, yes, but I do believe that nostalgia in itself can be good. Not just harmless, but good and healthy, if approached in a healthy way.
There can be no doubt that someone like Tolkien was a deeply nostalgic person, yearning for a romanticized medieval past, but he acted on that trait of his in a very positive way by writing about Middle-earth. I ultimately believe that the yearning we feel for beautiful things in the past, especially if it's a past we ourselves have never known, comes from a deep inner longing for beauty itself, goodness itself, and today, a lot more of that can be found in the past than in the present. Modernity rejects beauty and even goodness, so naturally people will look for it in the past. The best thing we can do, however, is not just wallow in that past, but reach in, take the goodness and beauty and start creating again in that mould. That's what I'm trying to do with my own channel, and I feel very fulfilled about it.
I'm also not a pessimist. I believe things can and will get better, but yes, right now, I completely understand why young men prefer to play old games and watch old movies. And I think there is merit in that. The ancients didn't believe in constantly coming up with entirely new concepts, that's a very modern and warped take on creativity. The Romans exalted 'imitatio et aemulatio', taking the well-known myths and poems of their forebears and keep improving on them ever so slightly, slowly perfecting the craft over many generations. I think they had a good point.
You know, I tend to laugh at all those Spiderman remakes because the reasons for their existence are mere crass commercialism, but come to think of it, there is something to be said for revisiting and slightly altering the same concept time and again. I think the relentless pursuit of the new is exhausting and unnecessary.
Anyway, great video and I love how you captured the feel of nineties television in the beginning. I'm a child of the 80s as well and it was just spot-on.
I mean I used to buy the argument against nostalgia, but after seeing neoliberal corporate shovelware slop released time after time, I can say that it's more than nostalgia that makes a lot people like the older stuff more than the newer stuff.
There the truth is, getting its boots on.
This guy is a useful apologian, missing the forest definitely.
For example, teens wearing Lou Reed shirts has not stopped since my teens
I have nostalgia trips time to time but i am not in a nostalgia trap. this people who are in a nostalgia trap are a manchild that is lives in the best. Great video alex 🔥
19:08 1200 BC, nice, I see what ya did there.
Goin with a year/era that had a lot of people probably falling into the same traps
im 34 and in the nostalgia trap bad. i wasnt as aware until this video. for a few years i didnt even discover any new music (even if old but new to me)
Thank you verry much for this production Alex Hexagon.
Alex’s production quality is so high, his creativity is so impressive
I rarely feel nostalgic for my childhood, but often feel nostalgic for 80s, even though I born in late 90s. There is shoegaze bands (my favorite is MBV, Slowdive, Lush) that make me feel that, and even more than that. Sometimes I have to force myself not to listen some of these, cause despite it's my favorite music, it can ruin my whole day
Years from now, when folks are huddled around the fire in the drafty hut , cooking the thing they caught that day, they'll look back to today as the Good Old Days.
This machine enables pure entropy
its not even ignorance, the vast majority of us are worse than our parents were at our age. The 90s held optimism and potential whether for us as kids or as adults - the internet brought about whole new industries and changes, movies were a wider range of appeal and made with both great writing and great sfx. Politics were civil even if both sides passionately disagreed. Now...good luck the US seems in heated political standstill, one assassination's away from civil war. The cost of living has outgrown any inflationary models the FED has tried to hide behind, the economy has consistently tank since 9/11 with only some short stints of success. People and adults are more paranoid now than they were in the 80s and 90s. We had more freedoms in the 90s here in the US that since 9/11 have been steadily eroded in the false name of security. We are back to having a Cold War with Russia. Most of us adults cannot afford to buy houses and corporations are actively trying to buy up large amounts of homes to rent further making it harder for people in their 20-30s to buy a home. We are at each other's throats or choose to live in an echo chamber anytime politics or religion is brought up. Mental illnesses are regarded as normal and your a bigot if you say otherwise when even the LGBT are fighting amongst themselves. Sport gambling has made many question the legitimacy of professional sports. Televised professional wrestling and most tv/movies suck nowadays and no longer provide much of an escape. The dating war between men and women which has only gotten worse due to social media giving false hope to many women and in the same manner screwing over most guys. The rise in costs to have kids compared to pets or even getting married, discouraging many from the concept. Men being told that we have to be rich in order to attract and woman and many women expecting that in kind and or traditional treatment without effort on their part. So many double standards that weren't around in the 90s. Public education being used to brainwash youth and adults to make choices based on suggestive emotions rather than logic and reason. Today is an absolute cluster of a society with far less objective morality, logic, and sense than back then, not just optimism.
nostalgia is something that we can always look back, being good or bad, but never get stuck or let us get stuck in our life, so it is better to move on no matter the circumstances, and as always amazing production Alex
The Nostalgia Trap is another form of Escapism. However, instead of choosing a fictional universe consciously, you unconsciously choose the past.
This was immensely helpful
You forgot that Avatar: The Way of Water is a sequel from a movie from 2009, which to Zoomers, now qualifies as nostalgic. I wouldn't count John Wick as an old IP, however. And yeah, I agree nostalgia looks pretty damn good when you're living in a dystopia of social media and people not knowing how to define what a woman is. But I don't fall into the nostalgia trap because my childhood sucked.
Another reason nostalgia is so prevalent nowadays is, as someone on another YT channel said, culturally, we've stagnated as a society sometime around 2009. 2009 is when smartphones, social media like Twitter was a thing, and when people cared more about their reputation than being honest and truthful. The only thing that makes today worse is the rise of woke culture (which began in 2011 after Occupy Wall Street got sabotaged by the people who were being protested against; leading to the first modern usage of the term Social Justice Warrior.) Identity politics aside, nothing here in 2023 looks any different than it did in the late 2000s; fashion, cars, most technology, pop culture, etc. It's said the internet killed societal progress, which explains the rise of nostalgia. Maybe you can also do a video some day on how we've stagnated as a culture since the late 2000s, as well.
I think the new culture elite will have dumbphones.
Self selected artists.
Comment channels like this are endless distraction, (great stuff) and cannot make the future. It needs the void of silence like the ranting trumpet guy said in NY.
I am looking at Punkt , Lightphone, Nokia
Reading and creating or something
Political stance or not, lockdowns messed with people’s heads and forced them to regress further. I used to watch video game collectors, who amassed thousands of games. But, for what? Can you really play 4000 games? Hundreds of consoles, handhelds, etc?
Collecting isn’t about using the collectibles. It’s more about archiving and preserving. Some collectors get a little obsessive though.
16:55 DIM explanation
17:45 LIT Explanation
16:50 Really using that old league music to induce my nostalgia. Good stuff though.
one should not over indulge in nostalgia, but i will always forever be in love with diana rigg and raquel welch...
...and the rolling stones!
this video was a message for me. i have the nostalgia trap disease
I will get the best of the past That is easy, too easy
The best of now?
So many comments on RUclips come from people in a nostalgia trap. I have to stop reading them because they’re so sad.
I find old video game music does this to me. Morrowinds soundtrack is worst for it. I get a flood of old memories.
I would say that I am kinda LIT tbh. I think the future will get worse at first as the current world order is breaking appart. It might sound bad, but these events usually are big opportunities. I hope that I will be able to make the world a better place again then. I am actually kinda excited for the future tbh.
Good for you man! All the best
There are so many things to deconstruct with this one...
1. The bar isn't low, the bar is infinitely high. It is no longer sufficient to be great, one must be the greatest that ever was. Look to the likes of Jakob Ingebrigsten or Max Verstappen or Vingegaard / Pogacar, or Knuth, Iverson, Dijkstra. For men who's motivation would have been accomplishing something great, greatness is not available because the mathematical, statistical greatest already exists, so one must not only be great to be great, but the greatest there ever was. Not only do you have to be the greatest that ever was, but you must also defeat the mediocre average, the mass of braindead NPCs in every industry pulling the median towards some relatable midline so as to be "inclusive" rather than optimizing for what is actually best, leaving us with subpar, disposable, flimsy products, promoting an entire global culture of disposability over quality. I can't be the greatest that ever was, I can't change the entire world on my own... So what's the point?
2. It isn't for nostalgia that I yearn for music and art of the past, but the fact that modernity is such uncreative, corporate, banal, deliberately narcissistic tripe that there is no enrichment to be found in art and music of the modern era. I spent my entire life until this year in the pursuit of honing my own crafts, only to realize that in the modern age, nobody gives a fuck about the quality. Trying hard is cringe, being good is elitist, striving for self improvement is narcissism, but the real narcissists sit back and ridicule anyone for trying to improve themselves... I yearn for real beauty, and yet there is none to be found because everything is actually literal shit.
3. Things now are actually literal shit and getting worse faster than we can process how bad it already is. All forms of art, be it movies, games, traditional art, music, is vacuous, and accelerating into unfathomable depths of degeneracy and hedonism. Art can't be art, it has to be laced with sex and debauchery. Movies can't just tell a good story, they have to demoralize the soul. And the curators and creators of such smut and filth have themselves achieved levels of degeneracy heretofore unthinkable, unimaginable... and yet are lauded, worshiped by all of society. As you say, the individuals trapped in compulsory consumption based in a nostalgic world view that makes them incapable of critically observing the behaviors, methods, and messaging of their favorite "creators", leaves them susceptible to the messaging, and guzzle the degeneracy like a glass milk bottle of cum in a smut film.
4. The Future is in our hands? There are whole art forms, musical forms and genres, themes and motifs in literature and fiction, each with infinite spaces to explore that are dead. Dead like the candy store you mentioned. Nobody knows the name of what you're referring to, like if you were to give directions based on the location of a store that no longer exists "turn left where Grandma's Candy Store used to be" makes no sense when the person you're speaking to was born long after the location was demolished. Whole musical genres and sonic soundscapes that only existed from a single band, or on a single album, left unexplored, and dead because people don't even know that it existed. It isn't only true for media, one need only look to UCI or automobile industry to realize that there are whole universes of design spaces, and also engineering concepts that have been left to rot in the annals of history, which are all almost certainly more pleasing, more interesting, more efficient, easier to build, lest costly to produce, an yet... we're left with the modern bubble, midsized, bloated, wobbly, slow, banal cars that all look the same. I'm not in a nostalgia trap for classic Porsche. Thy were engineering marvels, the peak in driving tactility. They are, by every standard just better, looks better, drives better, more mechanical, tactile, feels good to drive, isn't fully electronic, right down to the steering. History is filled with tactility, from Architecture, to fountain pens, watches, cufflinks, quality textiles, quality shoes that would last a lifetime if resoled, even old paper feels better to write on. How the fuck is history in our hands if the only thing that's left to us is Bic, disposable products, progressively lower quality everything, progressively homogenous everything, no interesting look, feel, nothing satisfying... just corporate mush, from music, to industry, to art. The future isn't in our hands. The future accelerating towards mathematically average and generic.
So no... I don't think that people who are pessimistic about the future, yearning for a simpler more innocent time, are stuck in a trap. There were simpler times. There were more innocent times, irrespective of childhood perspective. There was a time in my lifetime when we needn't lock the doors, when neighbors were trustworthy, when you would speak with each other in public, when the arts and music were uplifting to the soul (or at the very least not seeking the destruction of the soul), when human interactions weren't burdensome, fraught with resentment and distrust. There was a time when greatness could yet be achieved, when there were still impossible things being done and yet to be done. Yet here we are, at the boundaries of what is physically possible, reaching mathematical limits in human physiology, speed, material science, aerodynamics, technical proficiency, the sciences in general.... And what else is there?
There was a time when everything could be known. Di Vinci learned and understood the extent of human knowledge in every field of human study for his day. That feat can never be achieved ever again, as simply understanding one field to merely a to a minimum proficiency to speak on the subject publicly often takes a lifetime of dedicated study and research. There was a simpler time, when what was understood, how to live a good life, was just simple. You didn't need to know everything about everything, while being charismatic, likeable, influential enough to warrant people seeking your attention/favor/opinions, while also being a world class athlete from 40 years ago in your free time, just to have any significance.
Yes, of course, everyone going out about their business, achieving their own health and sustenance is its own tragedy with its own climaxes, worth the experience I'm sure... But if you go out and run a 4 minute mile right now, a superhuman feat... No one will care. No one will know your name. You accomplished something that was thought to be impossible until recently. And yet...You will matter to no one.
I yearn for a simplicity and innocence.
Is that Nostalgia?
Pfp checks out
@@RyIev 🤣
@@RyIev That's a funny joke, but valid critiques do be valid. I don't watch television or movies, nor do I play video games (any more), successfully broke the cycle of consumption years ago. I have done what he suggests in mastering a craft or skill and moving on to make something of my life. I'm completely detached from the processes of consumerism and nostalgia that he's talking about.
But how is it nostalgia to have an utter resentment for the complete lack of quality of everything that exists? How is the future in our hands when we have seen repeatedly positive design, engineering, artistic trends completely die and fall by the wayside? Had the future been in our hands would we not have continued on when quality and merit was already the norm?
The future isn't in our hands. The future is awash in the mudslide of mediocrity and disposable shit.
@@nanthilrodriguez Good on you then
ruclips.net/video/AFR2yNhCJ-Y/видео.html
Just look to how many people are subjecting themselves to these sorts of record attempts. 10 years ago, just completing an Iron Man was a phenomenal achievement.... Now its "just a marathon?" or "just a century?" or "just one iron man? filthy casual."
That's a bit of an exaggeration it doesn't ruin lives but it can become very stupid and delusional if you take it too far.
The top dawgs at studios are nostalgic for Hitz
i miss pokemon sun and moon... that's my nostalgia.... but it gotta keep pushing forward!!!
I’ve been watching your videos for the best part of one week and a half, and I must say, I haven’t been impressed this much by a RUclipsr in a long time. Your productions are very thoughtful and for the most part oriented towards a better future.
I, unfortunately, am very nostalgia stricken. I was born in the early nineties, and even though I surely have rose tainted glasses, I can say for sure that the 2000’s and early 2010’s were better days. Those were the days. No political divide, no mandated progressive/leftist propaganda, no terrorism, no mass migration, less gratuitous violence. More meaningful friendships, simpler activities and more kindness between people in general.
Everything has gone to sh*t nowadays (mostly). The music is trash, the movies are trash, the videos games are steaming hot garbage. Relationships have become stale or fake. People have very low trust now, when I remember, you could expect any help from complete strangers back then.
The only reason I’m not a total wreck and still optimistic for the future is because I’m a very grounded Christian. And as such, I must be a light for the world as the Lord Jesus Christ said. So, I am holding strong. But I still get sucked by nostalgia from time to time.
Very good analysts. I didn't see this myself.
It's not just games, but also people/youtubers with retro computer obsession. I like to call them "retroomers", because there is something perverted in the way they lather on about their favourite computer hardware and games.
LGR is perhaps the worst offender of them all.
I got into retro tech from flea markets/dumpster diving. Some of it is nostalgia, some of it is educational and fun and sometimes a bit tweekerish 😂
My fav was finding someones old emails from the 90s. Someones uncle bougjy them a book with all the internets webpages listed 😅 Followed up by shit you not saying they dont see this email thing taking off. and another about their father working late cause its black singles night at the hotel and theu had to close the pool😂.
Found a file once on a floppy titled "firstkill.jpg" i was scared shitless but turned out to be a grainy photo of a blown up truxk from a distance in desert storm.
i have nostalgia trip once in a while, i enjoy myself i know live is bitter but i try to make the best of it😊, this man children cant go out them nostalgia trap, its just pathetic.
I really like your videos Alex. Keep up the good work. Let me know if u have paetron or smth ya
Been here since Asmongolds review of WOW nonsense. Stayed for the dude
8:28 is literally the surface world from texhnolyze
It doesn’t help that all the news is negative
Holy crap the top 10 movies are absolutely crazy
for me its the wrestling business man... thats the one that traps me. its just not as good as it used to be. great video
im watching the Reliving the War series and backtrackijg and putting together dates in my head. It felt like a lifetime back then but i only watched from Jan 98 to about Jan 2000
can't wait for WoW classic plus
I wouldn't call it nostalgia. It's our reality which I would consider madness in 1987.
Late, post-modern
philosopher Mark Fisher (suicide), called this phenomenon "Hauntology".
By the end of the 20th century, stuck in a world where the future doesn't exist (Neoliberal, Late stage Capitalism), people are haunted by ghosts of their past.
The 60s had the Beatles. 70s were defined by Led Zeppelin, 80s, Hair Bands with the last vestiges of originality expressed by people like Kurt Cobain.
The Reagan/ Thatcher years marked the end of funding for the arts, innovation in fashion....the future seemed promising.
Its easier to imagine the end of the world, than to imagine a world without Capitalism. The endless pursuit of profit, hence the "commodification" of everything.
I'm not going to defend nostalgia specifically and I don't think that I am "DIM" as you put it.
But I WILL defend stuff from my childhood like Star Wars or Lego.
I will defend the old media because the new media seeks to replace it with something that is destructive to current young people. I will defend Star Wars not because "canon" or the universe, or the franchise, but because the old stories that are currently despised used to give warnings about the forms of Evil, and give inspiration to be Good.
People growing up and watching the "new" crap are actively being de-moralized (their morals being removed) and turned into nihilists.
And as for Lego, I defend the practical engineering that it provides, the problem solving and spatial thinking that it encourages. I still use it as a tool to get my ideas out because I know every piece and how it can be used.
I know this whole comment was cringe, but I think that certain things WERE better "back in the day" and that nostalgia is seeing "back in the day" with rose tinted glasses, whereas what I'm doing (or at least what I think I'm doing) is analysing in order to get the good out of the past.
Nostalgia isn't what it used to be...
Nostalgia is only a problem if you don't have a future
Remember back in the 90s where the 70s were cool and we made fun of the 80s because they thought the 50s were cool?
A 2013 Benz at the top end had a 4.7 Liter or 5.5 liter murderstick, with turboes sat nav and great economy.
It is gaming the system merely .
No one should gloat or shut themselves away. But who can reccomend a show from the streams, (less culture gossip due to atomization) and I am convinced rent stream is a bad consumer principle, and deal.
People are nostalgia for Afford
Nice video !
League of legends old twisted treeline music?
I think the Problem with Nostalgie is taht it is a comforting space for people weher ther not licking to be chalnge i think tahts why somen get so over protective about certain prands from ther youth so protected in the Garden from the snakes it's a comforting Feeling wher everything was easier
Seinfeld HITs. Could not pick up a season collection on DVD fpr 3 bucks back innthe when
I think artists do this "trap".
Not a George office scene. I look at the Stream bar, s cool.
Gotta catch up on Suits tho. Want the box keed
Those 3000 dollar Sony Crts and 200 buck VHSs and 60 dollar quid Ps2 games are all straight up affordable or free now
Please e erbody keep streaming on a 19 inch.
Im good