Is nostalgia poisonous?

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Premium nostalgia for me is being 8 years old in the summer of 2002. Endless bike races with my neighbourhood friends, climbing trees, mastering my favourite PlayStation game, enjoying my schoolwork, going to the shops to buy lollies with money I made from selling painted rocks, watching music videos on weekends, taking apart the Windows 95 computer and learning about the parts, holding snail races on cardboard that had lanes drawn on them, playing sports I was good at, starting a bad singing group with my friends, investing time into a spy club I made with secret hideouts and a cipher for documents using the commander keen font.

I think I am nostalgic for that particular time period because it felt like forever for me and I was free. Everything was bright, exciting, and full of wonder. I could do anything. I remember that summer often and it reminds me that my passion for cool things never left, I just got burdened with pain and stress that took the wheel after that. It's a nice location of grounding for me when I feel exhausted. I have a journal from that time which is very precious to me. That summer is still accessible for me to remember who I am, and it inspires me to keep that magical spark alive in me so I don't become mired in "adulthood" that seems to be the antithesis of living fully in the present.
 
NOSTALGIA IS CIA GLOWNIGGER OP TO COVINCE YOU THAT THE EVER DECREASING QUALITY OF LIFE IS NORMAL AND THAT THINGS WEREN'T BETTER BEFORE. THEY WERE BETTER, IT WASN'T JUST BECAUSE YOU WERE A KID, THEY ACTUALLY WERE BETTER. DON'T LET THEM COVINCE YOU YOU'RE CRAZY, NOSTALGIA IS NOT REAL.

STOP DRINKING TAP WATER. I HATE THE ANTICHRIST.
 
Kermit Jizz said:
NOSTALGIA IS CIA GLOWNIGGER OP TO COVINCE YOU THAT THE EVER DECREASING QUALITY OF LIFE IS NORMAL AND THAT THINGS WEREN'T BETTER BEFORE. THEY WERE BETTER, IT WASN'T JUST BECAUSE YOU WERE A KID, THEY ACTUALLY WERE BETTER. DON'T LET THEM COVINCE YOU YOU'RE CRAZY, NOSTALGIA IS NOT REAL.

STOP DRINKING TAP WATER. I HATE THE ANTICHRIST.
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Great, now you gave me Terry nostalgia not too long before the anniversary of his unfortunate passing.

Like other people have said nostalgia can be good or bad depending on what you do with it and its effects. One thing I personally found is if I make changes in my life that correspond to things I am nostalgic for, it has a good and lasting effect on my mood.

For example, I did a lot of online shopping for years because I felt it was such a PITA to go to the store. However, recently I found myself really nostalgic for shopping in stores and the mall for everything like we did when I was growing up in the 90's. So I made it a point to stop shopping online and try to buy everything I can at local stores. There are other numerous benefits to doing so of course.

Turns out I enjoy doing things this way a lot more and it feels like something is aligned the right way again.
 
There is something bittersweet about nostalgia. Reveling in memories of different times - maybe better, maybe not. Maybe with people you no longer have any contacts to, but used to be close to you at some point. Memories of when you were younger, less jaded, but also less experienced, when the world was still mysterious and you were still in the process of discovering yourself.

It's a feeling both beautiful and sad. You know those times won't come back, and you miss them, but you are also aware of how they shaped the current you. They'll always be a part of you, one of the building blocks of your life.
 
Suburban Bastard said:
There's nothing wrong with reminiscing about good memories. Just remember to keep in mind good memories are specific moments and all eras in time had ups and downs. Don't let nostalgia overtake you too much or else you'll wind up like a certain kiwi who idolizes the 2000s as some sort of utopian period where nothing bad ever happened because you could see street fighter skin.
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Anytime from the 1940s to present was the exact opposite of a "utopian period". Why? Niggers. That's why. I would rather be living in the roaring 1920s than the faggot degeneracy drag queen Weimar America shithole time period we're in now (2020s). But then again you can always be that change you want to be and fix the damn timeline (it's not that hard at this rate, really). Just go on FaceBook with an Azov avatar and if anybody calls you a Nazi, just say MUH RUSSIA and everybody will cheer you on.
 
Nostalgia is about finding a healthy balance in remembering the past.
You shouldn't become obsesive with the past to the point of feeling depressed about your present day situation but you shouldn't be anti-nostalgic either.
 
Some stuff I hear confuses me. Like the guy who said he could imagine himself inventing false memories. Actually, I hear a lot that apparently memories are easily manipulated.

Maybe I'm a mutant or something, because I've never had this issue. Like, if you tried to tell me I was ever lost in a mall (this being something I've heard is a common manufactured memory), I would call bullshit. I can remember all sorts of obscure events going back years. I remember the exact path to a Showbiz Pizza (old name for Chuck E. Cheese) that shut down a long time ago. So I would know if I was ever lost in a mall.

I do sometimes get confused about when exactly stuff happened though.

Recent offender in this regard, I was watching the old Goosebumps TV series again and looked at the episodes of Season Two. And its weird, I remember the TV-show original Monster Blood On An Airplane story, but apparently that was the same year they did an adaptation of the Blob That Ate Everyone. Thing is, I remember Blob (the book) coming out when I was "too old" for Goosebumps and had moved on to more adult fare like Sherlock Holmes, while season two of the TV series was when I was still kinda into Goosebumps. So I'm not sure what the hell happened there.

Does this happen to anyone else? Where when you find out the real facts they feel chronologically confusing because they contradict your general impressions of the time?
 
Benefit of nostalgia? Having fond memories of media from times past has made me completely disinterested in modern remakes, sparing me from any negative feelings about “how it isn’t as good as the original”. Why? Because I’m not a kid anymore, for fuck’ sake.

I loved Ninja Turtles in the late 80s early 90s because they coincided with being a child (and nostalgic thoughts about childhood in general). I don’t have those feelings anymore and that’s why I haven’t given 2 shits about any TMNT remakes since.

Spares me lots of angst.
 
It's funny, but sometimes, people can feel nostalgic of certain moments in otherwise objectively terrible times. It can be a good tool to cope with bad times, but never let it jade you from creating new experiences for yourself in the future
 
Nostalgia makes me sad because the best years of our lives are all long behind us. This is what meters my engagement with it.
 
neverendingmidi said:
I still like things that make me feel nostalgic. But it means I go back and watch or read the actual thing that gave me nostalgia in the first place, like my 90's era fantasy books, or the original Ghostbusters or animated Disney flick. "New" stuff that comes out to play on nostalgia turns me off.
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Question:

When you say "the original Ghostbusters" are you talking about the two Columbia-Tristar movies featuring Bill Murray, Ivan Reitman etc... or are you talking about the 1975 TV series "The Ghost Busters" starring two guys and a dude in a gorilla suit? Which later got an animated revival (that was, thankfully, a lot less autistic)?

.................................................................

On that note, I've lately noticed something I see many people get wrong about nostalgia.

It's pretty weird to say though. But to use a personal example.... there's a lot of old cartoons I only discovered because they re-ran on Cartoon Network and Boomerang (before both channels got ruined). I wasn't even alive in the 1970s to catch the first runs of Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Funky Phantom, or Shazzan (which is probably the cartoon that led to the "Sinbad played a genie" Mandela Effect).... now, when I first watched them, there was a certain appeal, but I'm not sure if that was anything that could really be called "nostalgia" or just a kitsch factor of "finally, something that's not modern crap or a badly-dubbed anime." But nowadays, they definitely take me back.... to the days when Cartoon Network didn't suck balls.
 
Nostalgia really encompasses a lot of different things. Some nostalgia is very personal; things only you can understand. Others are commodified by very large corporate interests. Occasionally I'll go to YouTube and look up early 90s Nickelodeon TV bumpers they played between commercials. Very weird personal nostalgia. That's very different than like, a new braindead Star Wars TV show. One has a modern commercial aspect to it, the other exists frozen in time. Creating new media based on old media isn't a modern idea, it's been done as long as entertainment has existed. But we do seem to be in an era of repetition where the nostalgia is based on things that were already nostalgic to begin with. Stranger Things is nostalgic for an 80s culture that was nostalgic for a 50s culture. It's all refried JPG shit.
 
Nigger Respecter said:
Nostalgia really encompasses a lot of different things. Some nostalgia is very personal; things only you can understand. Others are commodified by very large corporate interests. Occasionally I'll go to YouTube and look up early 90s Nickelodeon TV bumpers they played between commercials. Very weird personal nostalgia. That's very different than like, a new braindead Star Wars TV show. One has a modern commercial aspect to it, the other exists frozen in time. Creating new media based on old media isn't a modern idea, it's been done as long as entertainment has existed. But we do seem to be in an era of repetition where the nostalgia is based on things that were already nostalgic to begin with. Stranger Things is nostalgic for an 80s culture that was nostalgic for a 50s culture. It's all refried JPG shit.
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Excuse my not knowing anything but what is "JPG?"
 
Sicklick said:
Anytime from the 1940s to present was the exact opposite of a "utopian period". Why? Niggers. That's why. I would rather be living in the roaring 1920s than the faggot degeneracy drag queen Weimar America shithole time period we're in now (2020s). But then again you can always be that change you want to be and fix the damn timeline (it's not that hard at this rate, really). Just go on FaceBook with an Azov avatar and if anybody calls you a Nazi, just say MUH RUSSIA and everybody will cheer you on.
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What no pussy does to a motherfucker
 
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