The Nostalgia Mystery

A shallow dive into why we cherish so many (sometimes terrible) pieces of media.

I liked the graphic I used for my introduction post so I’m using it again. Many of my posts are going to be spur of the moment, off the top of my head pieces of writing, which includes this one.

Why do so many of us dwell on the past? Especially when it comes to TV shows, music, and movies that we consumed when we were younger. The simple answer is the feeling of nostalgia. The definition of nostalgia is “A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.” Nostalgia is something that all of us feel. It is deeply rooted in psychology, and I’m certainly no psychologist, but today I will attempt to explain and rationalize this feeling the best I can.

It seems ridiculous for a 21 year old to provide a detailed description of nostalgia considering most of the things we as young people have feel nostalgic for were made not THAT long ago. People with more life experience have far more to feel nostalgic about. Another hiccup I find with nostalgia is the idea that any piece of media is so easily accessible for our generation. I feel as though nostalgia involves things you may have forgotten about, but when everything is on the internet, how can you forget about anything. To me, it seems millennials are to thank for the growing presence of nostalgia in our culture. The “90’s Kid” era was the perfect vehicle to have a shared sense of community nostalgia. Social media was becoming so popular and it gave many young adults a platform to say “Hey, remember this obscure toy, or snack from our childhood? Only 90’s Kids remember”. They then feel validated by people across the country saying “Oh my god, this takes me back!” I’m sure before social media there was nostalgia, but it was more on a personal level, or within a small group of friends discussing things they remember.

Gen-Z followed suit and fell into the culture of reminiscing things from their childhood. Whether it be cartoons, snacks, movies, or cultures in school. I see a lot of similarities between the culture of nostalgia among millennials and Gen-Z. Many of the things we feel nostalgic about are the same. There are only a few differences. This makes me so confused by the internet beef between millennials and Gen-Z. You look and sound so stupid if you are arguing with a different generation online over who is more cringe, considering the dates that separate generations are arbitrary. That’s neither here nor there. Today, I want to talk about a few things that make me feel nostalgic.

The Backyard Sports video game series is the one thing that fully encapsulates nostalgia for me. The millennials are going to love this addition to piece because the first game in the series was extremely popular among “90’s kids”. The first Backyard Baseball game was released in 1997. It featured a band of wacky, yet diverse (for 1997, shoutout Pablo Sanchez) child athletes that all had individual personalities and strengths.

Original Backyard Baseball Draft Screen

I only played the original game a handful of times when I was VERY young. The Backyard Baseball game I am referring to is Backyard Baseball 2005 for the Playstation 2. My older brother got the game shortly after it was released. I must have been around 4-5. We had a babysitter (our next door neighbor) who came often to watch us. When we weren’t jumping off of stuff or playing football in the house, we were playing Backyard Baseball 2005. We played it just about every day for years. As I got older we stopped playing, but it stayed in my memory as some of the best times I had playing video games with my brother. Some years later we still had a Playstation 2, and bought another copy, as well as the 2007 edition of Backyard Baseball. At that point, I found myself playing the 2007 version more. This is likely because while the game did not have the sentimental value, it was more refined (generous use of the word) than its predecessor. Those years faded, I got rid of my PS2, and moved on. My freshman year of college I was yearning for nostalgia. So I did what any normal person would do. I bought a PS2 on Amazon along with just about every single game I played during my childhood. Namely GTA: Vice City, Smackdown vs. Raw 2006, Backyard Baseball ‘05, and NFL Street 2 . It was a delight when I found out that the majority of the games were dirt cheap.

As I began to play these games again I noticed just how poorly some of these games have aged. To be frank, Backyard Baseball looks like shit.

Picture from the game’s Amazon page

I’m not one to whine about graphics, I don’t really care. To be honest, I care far more about gameplay. The problem with the Backyard Baseball gameplay, is that my nostalgia for the time period acts as a blinder. I still love the wacky characters, especially Mikey Thomas, and his ridiculous theme song. I love Abner Dubbleplay and Sunny Day calling the games. I love the shared appreciation I have along with others for the game. I realized that some of these things we have such strong nostalgia for are not for the piece of media itself, rather than the time period associated with it. This isn’t a groundbreaking revelation. It’s actually the definition of nostalgia. We cling on to these pieces of media because they are associated with a “better time”. I put better time in quotes because it is natural for humans to look at the past through rose tinted glasses. The times we feel nostalgic for were not necessarily better. We just have an instinct to romanticize a time that has come and gone.

I noticed that I also feel nostalgia for things that formed my personality, specifically comedic television and film. The media people consume at a formative age will obviously play a role in what they like as an adult. For example, I loved “The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy”.

This show was chock full of absurdist humor that I think shaped the type of comedy I look for today, especially in animation. My comparison to today would be may love for “Smiling Friends”, the Adult Swim animated show created by Youtube personalities Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack.

Some of the earliest comedy films I saw as a child were Adam Sandler’s “Billy Madison” and “Happy Gilmore”. My brother and I have been deeply impacted by Adam Sandler’s early work, and we still quote them to this day. So today, when I see how bad the Adam Sandler movies are in the eyes of critics, I have to defend him. He makes the movies he wants to make, in the locations he wants, with his friends. He’s clearly doing this for fun, and not trying to be the next Stanley Kubrick. When movies like “Uncut Gems” or “Punch Drunk Love” exist, I have no choice but to rub it in the face of all the Adam Sandler haters. I digress, my love for Adam Sandler is deeply rooted in nostalgia, but it is clearly evident how it plays a role in my current personality.

The bottom line for nostalgia in my opinion are 3 things:

1. Pieces of media may not withstand the test of time, and that’s okay.

2. Nostalgia is deeply rooted in the psychology behind longing for a “better” time in your life.

3. Nostalgia is not just about the past, these pieces of media can often affect your present and future.

There is a lot more to say about nostalgia from people far more qualified than me, but this is just some small points I wanted to bring up in my quest to discover why we feel nostalgia. Rather than researching nostalgia, I just wanted to just write about it until I came to a conclusion. If I made any sense, please let me know. Otherwise, thank you for reading.

Also a HUGE thank you to everyone who subscribed, you made my week.

-CJ