Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,864
edits
m (Mass update links) |
m (added Category:Nostalgia Tropes using HotCat) |
||
(15 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown) | |||
Line 2:
[[File:NostalgiaGoggles.png|link=Goggles Do Nothing|frame|The nostalgia goggles you get today are crap; they were ''so'' much better back in ''my'' day.]]
{{quote|''"Nostalgia is a seductive liar."''
There is a tendency for adults to see newer material in a medium (be it music, film, animation, or comic books) as inferior to the older 'classics' that they knew in their youth.
There are many causes for this. First, people's tastes are generally based on the art they knew as they grew up, and they continue to inform themselves on this basis. Second, tastes refine as one matures; what may have seemed brilliant to a child or teen would seem crude or laughable to most adults, but the memories of how great something from one's youth seemed linger long afterward, making the familiar examples seem better than more or less equivalent modern ones in comparison. Third, change in most art forms comes in waves, rather than developing continuously, and the transition from one wave to another can be jarring and
However, it is likely that the most important cause of this nostalgia is a consequence of [[Sturgeon's Law]] combined with the passage of time: As new material is released, the vast majority will be of mediocre or worse quality, but over time, a powerful selection pressure causes all but the best material (and in some infamous cases, the [[So Bad It's Good|worst]]) to be rapidly forgotten, leaving an increasingly inaccurate impression of the overall quality of the genre over time. This is known as "the nostalgia filter", and can be easily demonstrated by a careful review of the period works that are ''not'' remembered today.
Line 17:
Of course, this is certainly not to imply that newer is automatically better or that the Nostalgia Filter applies to every single case; just because a person prefers an older work to more modern things doesn't mean they only like it because of nostalgia. Sometimes the older work ''is'' better, or at least has its own appeal that the present things don't -- even beyond "Charm", which is often thrown around to describe stuff mostly to just mean "It's nostalgic".
Sam Viviano, art director of ''[[Mad Magazine]]'', has a saying which defines the
You'll notice that this trope sometimes overlaps with the [[Periphery Hatedom]]. Almost always, when people complain about how new stuff sucks, they bring up examples of things which were marketed towards the youth of their own generation as examples of "good" or even "classic" works in the genre. Never mind that 20 years ago, when it was being marketed towards them, the adults back then were saying the ''exact same thing'' we are today. It's a neverending cycle.
Line 23:
See also [[Nothing but Hits]] and [[Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be]]. Another reason for this trope is that [[True Art Is Ancient]]. Contrast [[Deader Than Disco]].
{{noreallife|we'
{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Invoked in ''[[Code Geass]]'', with a drug called [http://codegeass.wikia.com/wiki/Refrain_%28Drug%29 Refrain], that causes one to experience hallucinogenic flashbacks to past pleasant experiences.
== Comic Books ==
* The ''[[Archie]]'' comic [http://www.misterkitty.org/extras/stupidcovers/stupidcomics210.html "Nostalgia Gets Ya!"] plays this trope obnoxiously straight, talking about how much better life was back in [[The Gay Nineties]] when policemen were always treated with respect, women were put on pedestals, and nobody worried about pollution.
* ''[[Viz]]'' has a running joke about how it "isn't as funny as it used to be".
* The [[Crisis Crossover]] ''[[Infinite Crisis]]'' basically revolves around this trope, which the surviving heroes of ''[[Crisis
{{quote|
* ''[[The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers]]'' had a mid-70s story where Fat Freddy is raving over how great the 1950s were. He fondly recalls a New Years teen party that we see from Phineas's perspective - everyone converges at his parents' house over his objections, people get stupid drunk, he and Franklin get beaten up by hoods who crash the party, and the house and family car end up destroyed just before the parents get home.
* In ''[[Sandman]]'', there's a scene in the 1480s, where the immortal Hob Gadling, now about 130 or so, overhears an old man complaining about these newfangled chimneys, and reminiscing about the days when "we did have a good honest brazier in the house," when nobody suffered from "rheumes and cattarhs" and the smoke was "good medicine for the man and his family." Hob mutters to Dream about how foolish the old man is, and how back then everyone was coughing and wheezing from the smoke, and occasionally you'd find whole families that had asphyxiated in the night.
* ''[[Lady Gaga]] #1'' has a middle aged man moping about how the music in the present is nowhere near as good as the music in his day (i.e. the second half of the 1970s).
== Film ==
* Fifties nostalgia was [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] by the film ''[[Pleasantville]]'', which initially presented its idyllic '50s sitcom world through the nostalgia filter, then slowly stripped it away and highlighted the racism and sexual repression of the era.
* ''[[Stand
** Also, all four boys smoke. At age twelve.
* This is a big part of the plot of Woody Allen's ''[[
== Literature ==
* Famously lampshaded by [[
{{quote|
** Or, as it is quoted in ''The Lawyer's Handbook'', "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the New York Times."
* In the ''Satyricon'', published some time in the 1st century AD (and in the very, very strange Fellini movie), the poet Agamemnon complains about the failing quality of contemporary literature and poetry, compared to the good old days, making this at least [[Older Than Feudalism]].
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[The Phoenix
{{quote|
* [[William Shakespeare]]'s Sonnet 106 complains that the ancients, who did not see this beauty, could have expressed it worthily, but mere current day poets aren't up to it.
** This and the example from the ''Satyricon'' above are examples of this as applied to the field of linguistics. Language was always at its best when your grandparents were speaking it. You can trace a line of bitching critics from decade to decade to the fifteenth century in English alone.
* In ''[[Time and Again]]'', Si Morley does his best to consider the ways in which life in New York in 1882 was inequitable and harsh... but after he goes back to the present (1970), he becomes overwhelmed by a preference for the lifestyle and people of 1882. Even though he's well aware of what working conditions are like for ordinary people, and his reason for returning was to escape from corrupt policemen who have not heard of Miranda rights...
== Live
* This was a story element in one episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', where a toy designer keeps lapsing into daydreams of his idyllic childhood while ignoring his slowly collapsing present. {{spoiler|In the end, it turns out he was repressing the memory of the day the other kids beat him up because they weren't invited to his birthday party, and he's forced to come to grips with the brutal truth that his childhood wasn't nearly the fairyland he wanted to believe it was.}}
* How the Doctor chooses to remember the Time Lords in the new series of ''[[Doctor Who]]''. Of course, viewers of the original series know they weren't sweetness and light, and when they {{spoiler|do turn up for a moment in the new series}}, it's clear the Time War disimproved them. Such that {{spoiler|the Doctor takes up a gun immediately upon realizing their return}}.
Line 64 ⟶ 61:
* The show ''[[Mad Men]]'' does a lot to show how with all the awesome music and fashions of the '60s came [[Values Dissonance|rampant sexism, racism, and homophobia]], and how the values of [[The Fifties|the previous decade]] held over and were difficult to dismantle. Considering how saturated the culture was (and still is) with '60s nostalgia when the show first debuted, it was exactly what the doctor ordered.
** The show [[Lampshade Hanging|invokes nostalgia]] during Don Draper's best pitch ever, rebranding Kodak's slide projector as [http://youtu.be/R2bLNkCqpuY The Carousel.]
* Savagely mocked in [http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-january-5-2010/even-better-than-the-real-thing this] ''[[
* ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'': Dana Carvey's recurring Weekend Update character, the [[Grumpy Old Man]], parodies this by being nostalgic for the ''bad'' things about the past, such as having no water filters, no air conditioning, no improved technology, and even no Christmas Caroling.
* In ''[[
** It was eventually revealed in ''[[
* The opening theme for ''[[All in The Family]]'' has Archie and Edith singing about how ideal their childhood was. Thing is, they boh grew up during the Great Depression.
* The entire premise of ''[[Happy Days]]'' is built on nostalgia for the 50s.
== Meta ==
* Nostalgia for the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome and the idea that the Middle Ages were 1000 years of Dark Ages was one of the things that inspired the Renaissance. Yeah, it's a real-life example, but still technically woven in works considering that it fueled a lot of the artwork at the time.
== Music ==
* The Futureheads song "Christmas Was Better In The 80s".
* [[
** And "Against the Wind" and "Like a Rock" and "Still the Same" and "Main Street." Pretty much every song is about how awesome Seger was when he was younger.
* "Summer of '69" by [[Bryan Adams]] could be considered to use this to [[Deconstruction|deconstruct]] the [[Glory Days]] trope.
Line 85 ⟶ 80:
* [[The Kinks]] would often wax nostalgic for a bygone England that possibly never existed, but could also show some perspective, like "Where Have All The Good Times Gone", heard [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnB3CHwPipU&feature=related here].
* [[Meat Loaf]], kinda. From ''Bat Out Of Hell 3'' is the song ''The Future Just Ain't What It Used To Be''. So, [[Captain Obvious|all about how the future looked brighter when he was younger]].
* "From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser" by [[
== Newspaper Comics ==
Line 93 ⟶ 87:
* Lampshaded in a comic strip of ''[[Zits]]'' where the Duncans take a trip to a cabin where Walt went when he was younger. Jeremy ''hates'' it, but Walt, for some reason, has all these pleasant memories of the place. Yet, Jeremy finds a tree into which Walt had carved, "I hate this %^@&% Dump!!" and Walt mentions, "Wow, time has a way of blurring things, does it?"
** In another strip, Walt gets angry at a song Jeremy is listening to, resulting in this exchange,
{{quote|
'''Jeremy''': Dad, it's just a song lyric.
'''Walt''': Don't give me that! I'm sick of this new music that's [[Moral Guardians|nothing but drugs and sex]]!
'''Jeremy''': You mean like, "[[Bob Dylan|Lay Lady Lay]]", "[[The Beatles|Lucy in the Sky]]", "[[Jimi Hendrix|Purple Haze]]", "[[The Rolling Stones|Brown Sugar]]"?
'''Walt''': Hey, that's different! Those are classics!
'''Connie''': Ouch. One point for the teenager. }}
* Ruben Bolling's comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug advanced a theory that popular culture was at its height when you, the reader, were twelve years old.
== Other ==
* The four audiobook volumes of ''The Alan Cross Guide to Alternative Rock'', based on the author's radio series ''The Ongoing History of New Music'', appear guilty of this: most of the bands are from the 1980s or early 1990s, several are from the 1960s and 1970s, and the ones from the 2000s that are covered are treated briefly. Cross, a history major, averts this by noting it's far easier to objectively measure the cultural impact of older artists, while for most newer artists it's too soon to tell if they'll be influential.
== [[Print Media]] ==
* The ''Rolling Stone'' magazine article: "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time." Written in 2004, it included only 3 songs from the 2000's and a truly ''massive'' number from the 1960's and early '70s, roughly coinciding with the rise of the Magazine itself. Probably 400 or so of those songs (and their artists) were probably [[Popularity Polynomial|regularly]] [[Vindicated
* Similarly, ''TV Guide'' compiled a list of the greatest TV shows in history. It was revealed later that the hardest decision they had was which of two shows should be named Number 1: ''[[I Love Lucy]]'' or ''[[Seinfeld]]''. They decided go with ''Seinfeld,'' and the decision was met with quite a lot of backlash.
* In these two cases, they were probably justified for the reasons given above in the introduction. It's far too early to be able to pick out what the good songs, or good TV shows of today are. The half century old songs and shows that are bad are forgotten so the ones that are remembered are, most certainly, among the best ever.
== Theatre ==
* ''[[Avenue Q]]'': 'I Wish I Could Go Back To College' is this combined with [[Growing Up Sucks]].
== Video Games ==
Line 120 ⟶ 110:
* ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'': Cranky Kong ''is'' this trope. Three-fourths of the time, he's grumping on how better much games were back in [[Donkey Kong|his]] day, and how overrated our current gaming features are.
** Not to say he hasn't good reason to be bitter; he's supposed to be the the original [[Donkey Kong]] from the arcade game.
* ''[[
* Sent up in the paintball domain by ''[[The Whiteboard (Webcomic)|The Whiteboard]]'', starting [http://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1143.html here].▼
* ''[[Not Invented Here (Webcomic)|Not Invented Here]]'': Desmond feels like a kid again when his first computer is mailed to him by his uncle Lou. He snaps out of it when Geordi mentions every remaining computer of that model working together would roughly equal the computing power of one iPhone, but use way more electricity.▼
== Web Comics ==
▲* Sent up in the paintball domain by ''[[
▲* ''[[
== Web Original ==
* In [[
* Mocked in ''[[The Onion]]'', where a cantankerous old man writes the editorial: "[https://web.archive.org/web/20110910001716/http://www.onionsportsnetwork.com/articles/in-my-day-ballplayers-were-for-shit,10792/ In My Day, Ballplayers Were For Shit]"
* [[
** In a video where he watches the first few episodes of the 80's Ninja Turtles cartoon, he's forced to admit that the whole thing is kind of dumb, [[Rule of Fun|but that doesn't make it any less fun]].
** [[
* In the ''Gundamn!'' podcast's segment on ''[[Transformers:
* ''[[Cracked.com]]'' devoted an entire article to this trope: [http://www.cracked.com/article_18983_5-complaints-about-modern-life-that-are-statistically-b.s..html "5 Complaints About Modern Life (That Are Statistically B.S.)."]
* [[Image Boards|"Remember when /b/ was good?"]] [[Memetic Mutation|"/b/ was never good."]]
** For those who don't speak internet; the imageboard /b/, [[Small Name, Big Ego|the source of most memes]], is full of people who have matured to the point were the rather immature, gross-out and horrible humor of /b/ no longer amuses them, and complain about the new users, claiming that they are the "cancer that is killing /b/."
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_APoSfCYwU As SMBC points out,] nostalgia has been a staple of humanity since before it ''was'' humanity:
{{quote|
But sometimes small rock is good rock too
Don't give me that liberal bullcrap. }}
** [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2253#comic And again.]
* Skewered [http://benzaie.com.over-blog.com/article-gaming-in-the-90-s-sucked-70449258.html here] by Benzaie, who alleges that all the problems that gamers complain about today (genre oversaturation, [[Mission Pack Sequel
* This [http://twitter.com/#!/Discographies/status/5687865124069376 tweet] by Discographies on [[Journey (
* [[Candle Cove]] starts out playing this trope straight, but is later [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] as we learn about all the gory details.
* Pitchfork of ''Socks Make People Sexy'' is quite an example of this; responsible for his self started task of doing a Final Fantasy Retrospective, his retrospective eventually devolved into a self deluded and shaky self hating mess that started with his admiration for classics and then to.... Well, let's just say that ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'' didn't help. At all. This is an example of Nostalgia gone messy with an individual who is typing as if he would say what he wrote in such a fashion like a speech. Nonetheless, in fact, you can pretty much say this about
* [[Mr. Brilliant's Reviews|Mr. Brilliant]] is a huge fan of the original [[Dragon Ball]] and harshly criticizes ''Dragon Ball Z'' and ''Dragon Ball Super'' even they've improved ideas from the orginal Dragon Ball.
== Western Animation ==
* People tend to forget that while the animation in the 90's and late 80's were indeed much better than in the 60's and 70's [[Dork Age]], a lot of the painted cels made the shows look VERY unprofessional by today's standards, where you can now use a computer to digitally color in hand-drawn animation.
* This trope is played with in ''[[Recess]]'', when Vince apparently does not notice that his brother (who was revered by Vince's peers around his age) was a stereotypical nerd, remembering instead how "cool" he used to be.
* ''[[The Fairly
** And another episode, in when Timmy and his dad were cleaning their attic, Timmy finds his dad's tiny box of dreams. He picks it up and it breaks. Timmy's dad was OK with it though, because his dreams were crushed many years ago.
{{quote|
'''Mr. Turner''': How old are you? }}
* ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'': Phineas reflects on the little kiddie rides outside of the mall, leading to an exciting scene of young Phineas flying into space and shooting lasers off with Ferb. Cut to him riding it in reality...
{{quote|
* This attitude is called out in one episode of ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'', where Ray is talking about how the fifties were a much simpler time. Egon points out that there's no inherent proof of that, as each decade has its own individual challenges.
* In the [[Be Careful What You Wish For]] episode of ''[[The Grim Adventures of Billy
* Given a quick jab in the ribs from ''[[
{{quote|
'''Pickles:''' Bob, we grew up in the sixties. Drugs were everywhere.
'''Bob:''' ..... No, I think you're wrong. }}
* [[Daria]] once called a guy Jane was dating out on this.
{{quote|
'''Daria:''' Well, yeah. But you also had the timeless style of Cold War conformity and the civilized decorum of segregation. }}
** Another example occurs when Jake finds some old home movies from back when he was a kid and is eager to see them despite Helen's failed attempts at reminding him that his childhood wasn't that great. The truth comes rushing back to him once he watches them however. Helen later lampshaded this tendency in Is It College Yet.
{{quote|
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "You're Getting Old," as soon as Stan turns ten, he ends up hearing and seeing all the "[[Younger and Hipper|new and hip]]" stuff around him to be literally "shitty," ranging from tracks from band called "Tween Wave" featuring nothing but funky beats with fart sounds in the background to seeing turds in movie trailers and in various parts of the town.
** {{spoiler|Also a bit of a [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstruction]] because it completely alienates him from his friends.}}
----
''This page was so much better back in the day. But today...[[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|it just sucks]].''
{{reflist}}
[[Category:
[[Category:Character Reaction Index]]
[[Category:Fora]]
[[Category:Public Medium Ignorance]]
[[Category:Double Standard]]
[[Category:Common Fan Fallacies]]
[[Category:
[[Category:Nostalgia Tropes]]
|