Thinking About Nostalgia

Yeah I’m nostalgic for the 90s mostly. That’s when I was an older kid and became a teenager. I’m not really nostalgic for the 2000s but seeing the trends come back makes me laugh.

Sometimes the feeling of nostalgia is so vivid for me, I feel the actual emotion/physical feeling. It’s fleeting. but I feel it

Here are a few random things from my nostalgia list:

Disney up to early 1970's Wonderful World of Disney Disneyland

Mid-century interior design Ranch houses - brick, concrete floors Bewitched house Panel doors with slits Floral drapery (green) Carpet (green) Big stone fireplaces Tiki - bamboo and grass woven wall-coverings Quonsets 50's frontier style (to some extent) Googie coffee shops Sambo's Khatachurian's Sabre Dance Colored beveled (?) glass, especially with lights behind it Plant boxes on entryways and inside Restaurants with dark wood paneling, crossed swords and shield (Olde English feel?), like the Liar's Club (?)

English brick gardens - sundial, glass globe

Pirates era (memories of some film or Disney show) Ghosts, spooky mansions, southern plantations

Boats, sailor stuff, oceans Probably related to Gilligan's Island Jacques Cousteau Hayley Mills

Toyota Rangers - 60's style (goes with safari style)

TV Bewitched - home style Gomer Pyle - military style I Dream of Jeannie - military style and home style Set in frontier times Exotic themes Africa/safari (like Daktari, Tarzan with Ron Eli, Maya) Ghost and Mrs. Miller - captain, sea Flying Nun - tropical setting Family Affair - diplomat and especially the apartment, fact that it was in a high-rise Patty Duke Show - international cousin Courtship of Eddie's Father Wild Kingdom Outer Limits - particularly credits, theme music, narration. Davey and Goliath Brady Bunch Petticoat Junction My Favorite Martian That Girl Nanny and the Professor National Geographic Specials I Love Lucy Adam 12 and Emergency Jonny Quest - particularly international aspect and Haji Get Smart - a little bit, particular international espionage aspect Night Gallery

Daktari Daniel Boone Gidget

Fantastic Voyage Exotica (to some extent)

Time/Life World Library National Geographic Highlights Magazine

National parks Stone walls Gray, concrete visitor's centers and their damp smell Museums Old metal square electric drinking fountains Metal furniture with green cushions

Outdoors areas like in Lassie, Flipper

Palm trees Jungle Bamboo Some Oriental touches

School 16mm educational films

Any of you that were kids in the 70s remember any of these things nostalgically?

I'm nostalgic both about times I never lived in and times I did which include the 90s. Even a slight nostalgia for the 2000s even if consider them a shitty decade overall (it is where I was an adult...90's were my pre teen/teen years and 80s my childhood).

I can't for the life of me imagine anyone being nostalgic for 2010-forward though, so I get what you're saying.

This was what Midnight In Paris was about.

Early 80s for me. I loved my childhood. I hope as my brain dies on my deathbed (and hopefully it's a death bed and not a truckbed after I'm shot out thro my windshield) that I'm magically transported back there as I die. At least in my mind

Who was the American author who specialized in stories of newspaper boys becoming business tycoons? I suppose someone who had a terrible childhood wouldn't have any nostalgia and "wouldn't have time for it". I often wonder if a bad childhood actually leads to greater success in later life. I suppose not if it makes you struggle mentally.

The Wikipedia entry notes the opposite of nostalgia - wanderlust "longing to be far away". I wonder if this would be prevalent in people who weren't nostalgic about their young lives.

I thought it was great to be a kid in the 2000s, believe it or not. The internet was a thing but it didn’t run our lives, we still played with the other kids in the neighborhood all day until the first streetlight came on at night. It was also the golden age of children’s programming imo, with shows like “Lizzie McGuire,” “That’s So Raven,” and “Drake and Josh.” Adults at that time probably just remember it as post-9/11 ennui but to me everything had a really cozy and comforting vibe.

Nostalgia is mostly a corruption of history. People like to remember that "things were different" but it was mostly the ignorance of childhood. I grew-up in the 60s and 70s and people act like things such as child abuse didn't exist or at least weren't known---yet there were people whose houses we couldn't visit to play with them because everyone knew that their parents were child abusers. We also had a "peeper" in the neighborhood who beat his kids (they were adopted and vanished as soon as they were old enough). The peeper, of course was a cop. In some ways, I feel lucky that the music of the 70s was so awful---death throws of am plus repetitive tiresome disco. It got me interested in jazz and the music that was popular before the drek that was popular at the time.

I'm 44 and am nostalgic for 1989-1993. I was a young kid/teen at that time, and it was such a massive era for music! Tons of classic albums, songs, music videos, and in SO MANY GENRES! I ate it all up. Metal, grunge, "new" R&B sound, like New Jack Swing & soul. En Vogue "Born to Sing", Boyz II Men "Cooleyhighharmony", Bel Biv DeVoe, Jodeci, Mary J Blige, all came out during this time. A huge amount of grunge/alternative bands during this time, it was the birth period of new music styles and subgenres. During this period I was friends with a group of kids who were always talking about music, listening to it, sharing & trading tapes, giving me mixtapes.

They played this at my first cotillion!

Remember when is the lowest form of conversation.

I miss being nostalgic.

Sorry, R11 but I was a kid when "Don't You Want Me" and "I Ran" and "Stepping Out" and "Kiss On My List"and "Jessie's Girl" and "Whip It" and "Sailing" and "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" and "Eye Of The Tiger" and "Billie Jean" and "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Only The Lonely" and "Ashes To Ashes" and "Let's Get Crazy" and a million other 80s hits came around. The early to mid 80s was THE most exciting time for music, end of.

Hell, I remember being nostalgic for the 50’s back in the 70’s!

R3

Are you me?

I was born in 1980, and am a little nostalgic about the 80s, and 90s, but I'm more nostalgic regarding the 60s/70s. The fashion, the freedom, the music, the shifts during those decades seem so much more meaningful.

Once the Hollywood clips change to footage of the BOYS fighting and dying, the song and video really hit me hard and I wasn't even close to being around. Although I've always felt out of sync with my generation.

OP I was born in 1966 too and the 70’s fascinate me

I guess I get the 80s nostalgia. As a kid, everything is a simple time.

I remember riding my bike around the neighborhood with friends and coming home for dinner with my family.

I can close my eyes and think of everyone at the table.

No harsh words, no big egos, no bombs dropping. Just us.

R9 ugh I miss my Msn messenger and just having random 3 hour long chats with friends online..I was in my 20s , not a child or teen but it's what we would use. In most cases if we were chatting for more than 2 we would just decide to get together.

Im the same exact as you, even born the same year and have the same weird love for the 70's...maybe it's because we obsess over the world we were born to? Or because alot of the media we consumed, other than the then contemporary stuff, alot of it was 70's? Musically and filmically I still consider it the best decade but there's something else I can't really name....alot of Gen X-ers were into that decade though, just like millenials were into the 80's....I wonder why that is.

R22 was meant for R18.

He brought me the air of Paris in a bottle

The record caught the air of London, nineteen sixty-five

The places I go are never there

The places I go are never there

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be

I can only picture the disappearing world

When you touch me, when you touch me

I get nostalgic for the late 70s/early 80s. My childhood. The golden yellow fridge and stove in my grandma’s house, and her matching yellow floral wallpaper. The smell of hot coffee brewing and her radio playing on the countertop.

harvest gold * ^^

OP I am exactly your age and share the nostalgia that you do. I feel a deep nostalgia for a period of time when I was quite young, I had siblings older than me by 7-9 years. So you can imagine the range of music/TV/Pop culture I was exposed to. Greatest thing ever. My appreciation and exposure to rock music was greatly enhanced by older siblings. Grateful for that.

R3 Yes, yes and yes.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

R17 - if we share the same nostalgia, maybe we should get married!

I have a lot of late 70s/early 80s nostalgia. I like how bright and vibrant the designs and fashions were. Lots of ugly stuff too, but people took chances and it was interesting. Then the boring mid 80s happened and then Memphis Milano 🤮

Young men in mid-sized dead-end cities in the 80s who still had hope for their town, whether it as Akron or Des Moines or Youngstown or Springfield, Mass. They had an positive outlook that I couldn't quite fathom, and very much admired their: hustle and drive, their confidence and non-judgmental indiscriminate sex....

A lot of 70s and 80s newscasts and commercials pop up in my YouTube feed and I can’t help but waste time watching some of them. It’s like a Time Machine seeing stories and products I had forgotten about.

I guess it’s true that every generation gets nostalgic for the world of their youth. In the 70s there were a lot of movies and TV set in the 1930s in particular in the 70s (Paper Moon, The Sting, The Waltons, and a whole lot of outlaws on a crime spree films like Big Bad Momma and Bonnie and Clyde which was made in the late 60s but influential in the next decade). These were about set about 40 years prior, equivalent to the 80s for use old folks now.

I think if you're that nostalgic over so many, such a wide variety of things, that says something about your life, right now. You feel your current life is missing something - so you're trying to relive the past.

I also think people whitewash the past and wish for something that probably never was.

I was born in 1961. In 2021 I moved into a place that had been built in 1965. Prior to that, I lived for 30 years in a 1920s era building in SF that had a lot of very nice historical flourishes. I did not consider myself a fan of mid-mod until I bought the place I live now, and I fucking love it. Today a Noguchi lamp arrived. I am contemplating buying some Danish modern chairs that are identical to the ones we had in the dining room when I was growing up.

So my nostalgia is from when I was very young, and it's for a clean, modern aesthetic. I went though a maximalist phase in my 30s, but I am definitely nostalgic for the clean, modern design of my extreme youth. I find it comforting and serene.

It's the worst form of depression. There's nothing you can do to fix it.

R29, Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be.

[quote]I can’t imagine being nostalgic for the ‘90s or ‘00s.

Okay, OP!

Typical Boomer, thinks he invented nostalgia. Everyone is nostalgic for their childhood. It's true of every generation, both before and after Boomers. I'm sure this is shocking if you were born between 1946 and 1964, but I assure you people of other ages have similar experiences without believing the universe centers around their demographic cohort.

I have nostalgia for every decade that I lived through (except the 2010s…too recent, and they sucked, both personally and in terms of the culture in general). In the 00s I was living in Berlin, so all of the club music and Euro radio hits from that era bring me back. Nostalgia doesn’t mean forgetting all the bad things that happened…my life has always been kind of a disaster, which is why I try to at least remember the fleeting moments of happiness and things that brought me joy.

I almost never feel nostalgia, probably because my childhood was wretched and my adulthood had been a long struggle to fix myself after, well, see above. So while I'm aware that some things were indeed better when I was young, like the cost of fucking housing, I don't look back with rose-colored glasses. When I look back at the 1980s, I remember the AIDS deaths and Reagan's willing to let them happen, as well as the affordable housing and wild Punk fashion.

I don't know if this is a good thing or not. On the one hand, my lack of nostalgia saves me from a lot of muddy thinking. On the other hand, I'm missing out on something that a lot of people find enjoyable.

R5 - making a mental note to watch that film

September/Fall is when I feel most nostalgic

I have intense nostalgia for the late 80s/early 90s, even though my childhood wasn't particularly happy. But it just makes me remember when everything seemed possible. Maybe if I can access that feeling enough, I can apply it to my current life?

Someone had a great post on Tumblr about what he called "mid-century medieval" restaurants and hotels that I was referring to as "Olde English Feel" in R3. Shields with crossed swords (as I mentioned), lamps all modeled after candles, dark wood, coats of arms, probably an actual knight in armor in the entryway. One of the places had deep red shag carpet, which I loved. I think the restaurant that everyone always went to in "Bewitched" was in this mold.

Another show I have a lot of nostalgia for is "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom", which always came on Sunday nights before "Wonderful World of Disney". I love watching the opening credits from "Wild Kingdom" on Youtube, brings back such memories.

My mother is 86 and absolutely loathes nostalgia. I visited her in early June and saw all the Mother’s Day cards she’d recently received in the paper recycling bin.

I've been nostalgic lately, as well. My son and me are going back to Chicago for a week, next month. We want to go home for a while and see my brothers. Growing up in Chicago, was so much fun. The music in the 70's was great, and I can still remember Brandy your a fine Girl, and the band Chicago when we'd go to Oak Street Beach. There were block parties, too. I remember watching The Banana Splits, and the Rankin and Bass Christmas shows, and Charlie Brown's Christmas. I really miss that time.

It doesn't help that the world is a pile of shit today.

"wild Kingdom" always had those ridiculous segues to the ads for Mutual of Omaha.

I was born I ‘93 and occasionally feel nostalgic for the late 90s/early 2000s. I know that period of time wasn’t perfect, and there’s a lot I don’t miss.

I agree with a previous poster who mentioned that was such a fun time to be a kid. The internet and technology existed but it didn’t rule our lives. We still played outside and used our imaginations.

The main thing I miss from that time (mainly 2006-2009) is MySpace. It was such a fun and creative form of social media before Facebook and Instagram turned everything into a constant popularity contest and causing everyone to feel bad for living a normal, quiet life.

I don’t think about the 2010s much but I do occasionally miss what things were like pre-Trump and pre-COVID.