Nostalgia in a New Age
When I was thirteen, I had blue braces and a side part. Messy buns, skinny jeans, and slip-on Vans were staples of my daily repertoire. I was also at least 6 inches shorter than all of my friends. I am delightfully reminded of this painfully awkward time in my adolescence very often. Snapchat flashbacks from as many as 9 years ago, showcasing dog filters and duck lips, serve as an unavoidable reminder of the past on a near-daily basis. It is a strange thing, being able to so easily access your younger self. Having the unique ability to see ourselves at every age since we’ve had our phones gives us the power to watch ourselves age and grow in a very different way than generations before us.
This is illustrated by the way we experience important milestones in our youth. Take homecoming for example. Our parents probably have a few photos of that night – maybe one their parents took, maybe one from a photobooth. On the other hand, I, like many others, have hundreds of photos, from dozens of angles, spanning from the night’s start to finish. We can see into the past nearly as well as we can draw the curtains and glance out the window. Wholesome at best, and triggering or cringe-inducing at worst, how does this easy access influence nostalgia, mental health, and the way we perceive time?
It’s no question that Gen Z-ers are notoriously nostalgic. We make TikTok slideshows filled with early 2000s childhood nostalgia, showcasing old TV shows, toys, and books with some sad ambient song over it. Our nostalgia knows no bounds. These slide shows routinely reminisce over periods even within the past decade, doting over summer 2019 or 2016 and how they were so great, with thousands of commenters enthusiastically agreeing. We are all familiar with the bittersweet sting of nostalgia, especially when it comes to past relationships, old friends, and people or things we’ve lost. As novelist and poet Anne Carson so eloquently put it,
“Perhaps the hardest thing about losing a lover is to watch the year repeat its days. It is as if I could dip my hand down into time and scoop up blue and green lozenges of April heat a year ago in another country. I can feel that day running underneath this one like an old videotape.”
Only now, those memories don’t have to be scooped up. They show up unannounced and uninvited, taking the form of a flashback from Snapchat, Facebook, or the photos app. Pristinely preserved in digital form, those days are just a click away. It surely doesn’t take our phones to remind us of the past, yet they still do. It’s hard to say whether these repetitive flashbacks make us desensitized to nostalgia, or over-nostalgic, but they certainly make us unique.