Your Nostalgia Is Holding You Back

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m obsessed with the past. I love old movies, old books, and old music. I love physical media, whether it comes in the form of vinyl records or plastic Guitar Hero controllers, both of which can be found in my parents' basement. I love Polaroid cameras, watching the Looney Tunes on Saturday morning, and Disney Channel original movies. I love, love, love listening to those "Best of the 2000s" playlists that have been meticulously crafted by other Spotify users, because nothing will boost your spirit quite like listening to "Party in the USA" for the hundredth time. But for everything that I love about the past, it sometimes feels like an attempt for us to escape the present.

In 2024, Jonathan Haidt released a book titled "The Anxious Generation," which described the relationship between the rise of smartphones with the simultaneous rise of youth mental health problems. Social media has exposed us to a constant news cycle, where concerns about war, inflation, and AI are always present. It makes it difficult to escape the worries of our current world. So as we get older and are forced to face things like problematic housing costs and changing job markets, it's easy to look back on the past with rose-colored glasses. Our childhoods weren't filled with the overwhelming anxieties of the present. Before everyone carried tiny computers in their pockets, we were able to go outside without having to worry about global conflicts or social media feuds.

For everything that I love about the past, it sometimes feels like an attempt for us to escape the present.

The 2000s didn't end all that long ago, and for many adults living during the decade, it was considered chaotic and consumerist. It was an era of crisis, beginning with the September 11th attacks and concluding with the 2008 financial crisis and recession. Yet most young people who were growing up during that era only remember it fondly as a time before technology had totally seeped into our lives. Psychologists call this rosy retrospection: the cognitive bias that makes us recall the past more fondly than we actually experienced it. Our brains have a built-in tendency to forget the negative and neutral details of an experience while keeping the positive ones intact, which leaves us with a polished, filtered version of events that didn't really exist. In short, the 2000s we remember in our heads, the one with the perfect playlists and the carefree summers, is not actually the 2000s that happened.

But there were genuine cultural bright spots too, and those are the parts that have stuck. Your mom still had to print out MapQuest directions to take you to your friend's house for a sleepover, bright and bold Juicy tracksuits were the it-girl uniform, and tabloid culture was volatile but at least it was confined to supermarket checkout lines. We were largely shielded from the difficult parts by the adults in our lives. Unfortunately, as social media has transformed itself into an inescapable cultural juggernaut, we (and even children and teenagers growing up today) are no longer able to hide from the woes of the world. For many of us, it's hard not to want to return to the last decade before Facebook and Instagram took over everyone's lives.

The world of Y2K nostalgia is almost impossible to escape now. Wherever you go, whether online or in person, you're constantly being bombarded by the past. The casual sentimentality of nostalgia has now become aggressive and inescapable.

In the short term, nostalgia feels great. After a long, lousy day, nothing feels quite as good as turning on an old Disney Channel movie. In the long term, though, this becomes avoidance. When nostalgia is overused as a coping mechanism for our concerns about the world today, it detaches us from the present.

And the present is where our actual lives are happening. The job we have, the friendships we're trying to maintain, the relationship we're in or hoping to find, and the body we're living in right now. Every hour spent scrolling old yearbook photos or rewatching Lizzie McGuire for the fortieth time is an hour we're not spending on the things that will shape who we become. Nostalgia in moderation can be fun. But used as a lifestyle, it becomes a kind of arrested development. We stop building forward because backward feels safer.

No amount of Y2K aesthetic merch is going to make our adult lives feel like our childhood ones. Buying the Juicy tracksuit on Ebay today doesn't bring back the version of you who wore it the first time. The dopamine hit you get from holding it lasts about as long as the unboxing, and then you're left with the same anxieties, the same bills, the same inbox, and now a tracksuit. Nostalgia as therapy promises a return that it cannot actually deliver.

Our brains have a built-in tendency to forget the negative and neutral details of an experience while keeping the positive ones intact, which leaves us with a polished, filtered version of events that didn't really exist.

61 percent of Gen Z have received a medical diagnosis for anxiety, and zoomers and millennials are far more likely to report struggling with anxiety and mental health issues than previous generations. The problem is getting worse, with many young adults claiming that their mental health is worse now than it was in 2019. The 2020s have been hard on people who entered adulthood during a tumultuous decade marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, BLM riots, and political violence. It's no surprise that many members of Gen Z have struggled with their mental health. Returning to the comforts of childhood can be temporarily soothing during periods of anxiety. They can be a good way to escape the inevitable pressures of adulthood or toxic social media landscapes. However, it's important to do this in moderation. We can't pretend the present doesn't exist simply because we find joy in the past.

Nostalgia isn't a bad thing, but it becomes a problem when it's more relevant than the current culture. For decades, Pixar movies were huge cultural phenomena. They utilized CGI, which was a new style of animation at the time that required careful artistry. They also told interesting, thought-provoking stories, like those found in WALL-E or Up. Unfortunately, Pixar now creates significantly fewer new movies, opting instead to produce sequels or prequels. Toy Story 5, Incredibles 3, Coco 2, and Monsters, Inc. 3 are all slated to premiere in the coming years, while there is only one original film, Gatto, listed on their production schedule. Pixar has decided to rely on nostalgia instead of creating new, innovative films.

The reason for that is ultimately financial. Studios make sequels because sequels make money. Franchise films pulled in 82.5 percent of Hollywood's worldwide box office revenue in 2019, even though original films made up the majority of releases that year. Sequels also cost significantly less to market because the audience already knows what the product is, and they deliver an average return on investment of 3.1 times their production budget compared to 1.8 times for originals. The math is hard for any studio executive to argue with, even one running a company that built its reputation on telling stories no one had heard before.

Elio, the studio's most recent original release, bombed with a $21 million domestic opening, the worst debut in Pixar's 30-year history. Pixar's chief creative officer Pete Docter has since confirmed that the studio will now release one original film for every sequel, a strategy designed to lower the risk that comes with creating something new. So the cycle reinforces itself. Audiences say they want original stories, but their ticket purchases say they want what's familiar, and studios respond to ticket purchases. The result is a creative landscape where the safest bet is always something we've already seen.

The past is easy to romanticize, but that can limit our ability to be creative. If we become too obsessed with the past, it prevents us from building the future. Artists, musicians, filmmakers, and every other creative should be inspired by the past, not held hostage by it. There's nothing wrong with being sentimental or having an affinity for the past, but we shouldn't allow it to hold us back. Instead of falling for "Nostalgia Bait," be bold enough to seek out what is new, what is bold, and what is exciting.

You were created to be more than just a shell of the past.

The future feels scary, but it doesn't have to be. We can have a positive relationship with both nostalgia and progress. Although many long for their childhoods, when the height of technology was the Wii and Tamagotchis, they also feel optimistic about the future of technology. 80 percent of Gen Z want to work with cutting-edge technology, while a growing share of young people are actively trying to cut back on their social media use. People are both interested in new technology and aware that they have to limit their time absorbed in it. The most recent trend of creating "analog baskets" filled with creative projects people (mostly women) can do with their hands, totally unplugged is encouraging, as is the uptick in women romanticizing "grandma hobbies." This shows that we're increasingly attempting to find the proper balance of how much screen time is good for our mental health.

It's okay to be nostalgic. You shouldn't feel bad for clearing your schedule to go see Devil Wears Prada 2 or buying the Von Dutch hat your mom wouldn't let you wear when you were a kid. Those things are fun and can boost your mood by reminding you of the joys of your childhood. However, your nostalgia doesn't need to consume you. You were created to be more than just a shell of the past. Don't let fear of the future hold you back. Let your love for the past inspire you to live boldly instead. The next chapter of your life probably won't look or feel like your childhood. There will be good days, hard days, and a lot of in-between days. But the struggles you're facing now are the ones shaping you into who you're meant to be. Hold onto your whimsy, but don't be afraid to face the day.