Last week, I attended a screening of two short films by queer Algonquin College film school graduates. One of the movies was set in the nineties, a time before this director was born.
When she was asked about the choice of period, she mentioned how she liked the tactility of that pre-smartphone era. On another occasion, a gen alpha family member expressed a desire to own a boombox. It’s a thing for that generation to place a bit of an aura on the nineties.
It’s the first time in my life I’ve gotten to witness a younger generation covet a period I lived through. It’s a trip, but one that’s relatable: I as a millennial was fascinated with the eighties – from its movies to its fashion to the portable electronics of the time to the Soviet Union.
Each generation seems to gawk at the decade surrounding the time of their birth and childhood. For boomers, they’re a little obsessed with the second world war and/or the fifties.
I believe there’s some value in nostalgia; it can point to the things we’re dissatisfied with in today’s world. It’s also understandable that we can pine for what was once familiar given a lifetime of transformation around us.
I bemoan the loss of people for customer service and affordable housing. I miss consuming home media without a subscription. I don’t like that vacuums to ovens to televisions depend on soon-to-be-defunct servers. Intercity travel options are fewer. Notifications and apps designed around capturing attention are the bane of my existence.
At the same time, a lot of things weren’t great twenty and thirty years ago: the -phobias and the -isms, the lack of video tutorials, navigating to unfamiliar destinations, discovering new music, everyday banking, the high cost of entry for music and film production, etc.
Nostalgia isn’t a bad word. It’s just one that requires a few asterisks.
For myself, to the extent that is available to me, I’ve integrated this nostalgia into my home life to get the best of all worlds. I use Etsy and Marketplace to find sixty-year old typewriters that end up getting semi-regular use. I have an SNES and the latest XBox. I have an AM/FM radio and Spotify. I no longer have CDs or DVDs, though I have expanded my book collection. I just picked up a mid-90s reissue of a Casio watch.
If there is a theme around my home life it revolves around creating a cozy space while removing sources of undesired distraction and ditching or limiting unreliable tech. With few exceptions, I don’t want it if it won’t work in 3 years because it requires a Wi-Fi connection to a company’s server or it has an integrated lithium-ion battery.