What’s it called when you’re nostalgic for a time you didn’t live through, like teenagers feeling nostalgic and “looking back” on i.e. the 80s or 90s?
I was born in the 2000s, but somehow I feel a sort of longing to live during the 80s. I have watched a bunch of movies produced during that time, and I realise they may not be a totally realistic depiction of the time period, but for some reason I “miss” the 80s. I don’t mean the struggles of marginalised groups or the politics, but rather the feeling of “old school” and people socialising, the shows playing on TV during that time, the diners, the discotheques, the clubs, the music and fashion and hairstyles… there’s just something cozy about the 80s, how technology wasn’t super developed, how people were still discovering things. Don’t misunderstand me though, I’m glad about the technological advancements we have achieved today, and I realise my image of the 80s may be skewed since I literally didn’t exist during that time, lol.
What’s this feeling called? Has anybody else felt the same way about a time period that isn’t the 2020s?
“I’m listening to music in my walkman. It’s been two hours!! Oh, the batteries died. Hang on, let me get my replacements… damn I left them at home. What should I do now? I guess nothing… alone with my thoughts. I’ll just fix my hair with this ozone-layer-destroying spray can. Cough, cough!!! The smog is harsh today! Not as harsh as last month, though.”
I have a weird underlying anxiety that I’ll be incinerated in a nuclear fireball.
I’m glad I’m not gay, since people would treat me terribly, but I do keep noticing one of my classmates
My third grade teacher (in 1983) showed my class a TV movie called The Day After. It was about a small town doing normal stuff and then a nuclear war hit. It was EXTREMELY graphic for an early-80’s TV movie. For weeks afterwards, I thought any plane flying overhead was really a nuclear missile coming to kill everyone. And I lived relatively close to an airport so there were a LOT of airplanes/potential nukes.
I found a copy of When the Wind Blows when I was young (six or seven?).
Fucking traumatizing.
That’s why I hate the “climate change is unstoppable, let’s just ignore it bullshit”. Humanity managed to get this far without dying in a nuclear winter. We can learn to take the goddamn bus.