Tanya | Week 6 | America and its Nostalgia
One of my all-time favorite shows is releasing its culminating season in exactly three weeks. Since it is genuinely taking everything in me to contain my excitement for these very long three weeks, I thought I would get through it by giving the show some much-deserved love in this blog.
Stranger Things is beloved by many in America (and beyond), and for good reason, as it is the perfect blend of action, supernatural occurrences, friendship, romance, etc. But beyond that, the show effectively captures the charming, vibrant feel of the 1980s, as that is the decade in which it is set. Viewers are drawn to the feel of a time period that existed an entire 45 years ago, to the point where even people who haven’t lived through that decade are still able to feel a sense of nostalgia for it.
Television shows like Stranger Things are not the only example of this nostalgia, either. The fashion trends of the 90s have made a significant comeback in recent years, with clothes like crop tops and baggy jeans dominating the current wardrobes of many people today.
Similarly, the Y2K fashion style has been increasingly resurfacing. People now embrace low-rise jeans as a better substitute for high rise jeans, which, ironically, were also a revival from past fashion trends. The whole “vintage” style is very prevalent today as well, as many young people (including myself) find pleasure in visiting thrift shops because of the allure of “retro” and “vintage” clothing and accessories.
All of these examples of revivals from previous decades are to say that I think it is beautiful that America is able to transform what might have been abandoned as “outdated” or simply dismissed as things of the past into something that is currently relevant. Instead of neglecting the past, America embraces it as part of its modern reality, and in doing so, it has a charming way of making the past feel alive again.
Hi Tanya! Stranger Things has been so popular these past few years, especially around 2021 when Wednesday also started showing up on the charts. To be honest, I haven’t gotten myself to get into the show yet because I haven’t found a great factor which makes me convinced to watch it at this moment. Who knows, maybe season 3 will be the final factor and I’ll bring myself to watch it.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree! I love the way society renews certain fashion trends or makeup styles because they allow us to connect with those people living in that era and make others feel young again. I also really like that you mentioned Y2K, because the style reminds me so much of these specific photos of my aunt when she was a teen, and as guessed, she had those iconic low rise jeans. This reminds me of a trend that came up on TikTok a couple months ago, where people wore makeup in the style of the year they were born, and needless to say, they looked amazing.
I think part of the reason why we appreciate and sometimes even adopt these old fashion trends is because our society today leans towards a simpler style, for example the “performative” wear that has become the trend. In this way, this trend and the influence of social media teaches us that the only way to look fashionable is by sticking to the “performative” style, but of course, that is not remotely true. Nowadays, it’s becoming less common for others to express their own unique styles of clothing, but I hope that the performative style flies by soon and promotes other styles (my personal favorites being Y2K, 2000s hip hop, or jean jackets).
Hi Tanya! I really like the way you discussed the idea of nostalgia; I too think it’s incredibly entertaining to see in media. Specifically, I love the environments portrayed in the movie Small Things Like These and in Jojo Rabbit. The look of the movies (despite the latter being a comedy) is greatly enhanced by the detailed depictions of a past time period, and it adds greatly to the immersion.
ReplyDeleteI think the nostalgia that many people have for past American decades—some even for years that they didn’t live through—ultimately comes from an American trend of glorifying history. Many fondly reflect on past historical accomplishments at the cost of overlooking the flaws of the time period, such as ignoring racial issues when praising the founding fathers. On the other hand, today, information is everywhere, and it is impossible to ignore the issues of today’s society; the present is possibly the least romanticized time period in all of history, but maybe one day we’ll watch a movie about the 2020s with our own rose-tinted lenses and reminisce about all the fun we had.
Hey Tanya! I haven’t actually watched Stranger Things yet (cue tomatoes being thrown at me), but that may change after reading your blog, because I am a sucker for nostalgia. Even if it’s, like you mentioned, from a time period that existed decades before I was able to form coherent thoughts. I often think of trends as fads—culture that exists for a couple months then slowly fades away—possibly due to the current state of Internet culture, where memes and news and slang get constantly swept away by a riptide of new trends and new fads, which in turn get replaced by more new trends. But some trends, especially broader and more widespread cultural trends such as fashion, get cycled and recycled back into public perception through the natural flow of culture fueled by nostalgia for the past.
ReplyDeleteMaybe people 60 or 70 years from now will copy our athleisure or our hoodies and sweatpants, saying how they reminisce about the “good ol’ days,” even though we might not think we have it good now. And I’ll be eagerly waiting for that future.
I’ve lost count of how many accounts I’ve seen online that use “nostalgia bait” to gain likes and follows; they often bank on the viewer having sentimental values rather than actually saying something of value. Such posts would have wording like “Who remembers x?” or “Like if you remember y.” And even as an old young person (two years away from adulthood!), I find that I’m not immune to sentimentality either. I sometimes stumble upon old trinkets when cleaning my room and reminisce about simpler days (where I had less awareness in general of how the world worked). What I find to be beautiful is not that we all collectively yearn for earlier times, but that each time an old trend returns, we put a new spin on it. Yes!, I think, this is what progress is about!!
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