Immutable Image of Nostalgia

I’ve been trying to come up with a term that most think is nostalgia. It’s where someone honestly believes the ideas or statistics from decades ago, and doesn’t realize they changed. It happens a lot, and showed up a ton when I was at the Hugos. Even stranger, it shows up often without a sense of joy at the memory, but more a fear.

Let’s break this apart and see what we can find. First off, we need to understand Nostalgia, and how it works. After that, I will show the differences I have noticed within the groups I have watched. Then, I will ask why it seems so strong in circles I have been with.

Nostalgia is desire or longing for times gone by. We see it when people play videogames from their childhood, or try to relive something they loved at one time. People can go to great lengths to achieve this feeling.

This doesn’t mean the memory is entirely fond, or happy. For example, some people in East Germany try to relive their times under Soviet Control. They will drive cars from that era, and even dress up in the older clothes. The Soviet block had been such a part of life that even today you will find statues to Lenin, Kruschev, and Stalin all around East Germany. Some of the older apartments were built during that era, and you can find many people still living in them. On the other hand, many of the streets, and buildings have been renovated, and things look much nicer than they did in the time of communism.

People with fond memories of it were children, or going through great amazing changes in their own lives. To remember the good times, you need to include the bad parts. There are also people that lived through it for so long, they simply haven’t changed. It’s not nostalgia, just an unwillingness to learn about this new thing.

The difference between the two can be seen in some retro gamers. There are people who collect old games, and systems knowing they bring back a sense of nostalgia to those times. Other’s collect them because they heard the games were fun, and want to try them out. There are more old games than new ones. Then we have people who honestly believe that videogames stopped somehow after a certain time, and never returned.

The PlayStation 2 has been a really hard console for me to find games for. There are plenty to play, but they all have problems that none of the reviewers really notice. I have the console, and a few games for them, and they all have the same problem of loading times. The 10-15 minutes of enjoyment I want don’t happen because the game never starts for me to actually play it. The designers created a system where you needed longer gaming sessions, and I don’t have that time. So Ratchet and Clank seems like a lot of fun, but is just a really fancy hallway runner that I get to play for about 3 minutes after all the different cut scenes and load signs.

A lot of modern games are like this, and I meet tons of people who love this. They talk about the 20 hour session of a single game they played the other day. How they took their children and played without really leaving the screen. When I mention that I am having a hard time with games like this, the response is usually that I need to give the game more time. I talk about some part I am trying to beat, and they seem happy at my mention of it like I am watching one of their favorite movies.

I have fallen for the same mistake a few times as well. A rewatch of The Crow, one of my favorite teenage movies, did not end well. Watching the Ghostbusters without nostalgia glasses made my family realize how many sex jokes there were. These were go to movies I adored.

On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t great movies from the 80’s. It’s inconceivable that an entire generation simply didn’t watch good movies. There are some great gems, and things to enjoy from that time. Likewise, every console has some great games that have aged well, and are still fun even today. Animal Crossing is still fun on the Gamecube, all these years later.

The recognition of history, and how it worked can still invoke nostalgia. Just because you never lived in it, and know it wasn’t like what so many describe, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy parts of it. I love studying World War I, but have no desire to travel in time to see it. Steampunk is filled with ideas of a fantasy land that also sort of looks like the 19th century. There is still nostalgia, but it does not stop knowing what really happened.

Instead of nostalgia, the people I think about seem to be stuck in a sense of immutable reality. They have changed, the world around them has changed, but they refuse to notice it. Like the people who continue to live as if East Germany is still controlled by the Soviets, we have people who don’t notice the change.

One of the shows I work at is a classic arcade convention run by collectors. They have garages full of games they loved from back in the day. The most recent arcade game at the show is from about 2001. The Pinball folks do have more recent games, and we are expecting the new Ghostbusters to show up for people to enjoy. However, the pinball folks do not even notice the arcade games. They are stuck on the idea that the only games to play are pinball.

If you read modern articles by journalists about arcades, they honestly believe that arcades are gone. This is actually false, arcades have changed a bit, but are still going. In fact, the numbers have increased in the last 10 years, not decreased like so many believe. I have been blown away by some of the modern arcades being run today. If you take a tour of Round 1, Dave & Busters, or Gameworks you find some amazing games ready to be played. Arcades have been around for over 100 years, and have been changing with the times as best they can.

This idea that arcades must have disappeared, or ended does have some truth to it. During the market crisis around 2001 and 2003 arcades did drop, and there was a lot of suffering. Family Entertainment Centers have been struggling for a while now, especially ones based on older models. Somehow the modern gamer sees this downturn, and believes that arcades vanished during that time and never returned.

This weird immutable reality is what I am seeing all over. The belief that because something happened at a specific time, everything now works this way is both nostalgia and something else.

At the Hugos I met a lot of people who were sort of stuck in a specific time frame. There were Star Wars toys from the 80’s. I fully admit to flying them around a bit as I helped set up that display. It was great to see those toys, but I wondered why a sci fi show would have toys from 30 years ago? Then I noticed that most of the books went back just as far. Many of the displays had new things, but the use and ideas behind them were from the same period. Most of the people I met were pretty nice, if a little bit guarded. One person gave me some water, and chatted about the work she was doing.

They had given her computers to work with, and she didn’t really know how to use them. They were somewhat older computers that ran Windows XP. She was accustomed to Unix, which was invented in the late 60’s early 70’s. It is a command prompt language, which means there is no User Interface, just lines of code.

She had taken over her position in the 90’s, and had begun going to the convention in the 80’s. In fact, many of the folks who attended had similar stories. They had been with the show for decades. The newer folks had been there around 10 years.

They were for the most part nice, but somewhat stuck in the 80’s.

Nostalgia without the immutability would be like when Derek from Classic Game Room Undertow asked how Nintendo could improve its earnings back in 2015. Many posts were that the company should bring back old games from the Gamecube era. These games did not sell very well, but the players had fond memories of playing them.

Another example of the immutable nostalgia is with various factoids. Look back into your knowledge about any subject, and think about everything you actually know about it. There are likely tons of things you think are certain, but was only true at one time.

An open secret among people who study the Palestinian and Israeli conflict is that a lot of the people involved have stopped hating each other. In fact, most have gotten on with their lives, and even get along with their neighbors. If you are thinking of images of Palestinians standing up and screaming at cameras as tanks roll across their streets, check the date. The conflict itself is not over, but both sides have worked hard to not bother each other as much. There is a giant wall blocking the worst parts, and Israeli forces will actually send an emergency text to anyone in an area if they intend to attack. Likewise, Arabs in Israel will more likely own a shop, and try to make bargains sooner than claim some right to land. The conflict you are imagining is from the 80’s and 90’s.

Like the people who believe that arcades simply disappeared, you believe in a conflict that has changed a great deal, and has a very different look to it. Think about that for a second. A major war does not work the way you imagined, because you are thinking about the wrong era.

When I talk to people about intercultural history, a really common thing is for people to imagine the world as not changing since a specific era. The people have cell phones, and get on the internet all the time, but the image is immutable in the mind. I played online videogames with Navajos over a decade ago. Most people in Hawaii have cell phones, and modern stuff. New York cleaned up Broadway. Seattle still has rain, but also has a ton of colorful things throughout the city that have been added since the Grunge era. Scotland has a middle class.

These immutable images in the mind actually end up causing weird things. If you are a tourist in Hawaii, you expect grass huts, and minimal technology because the image you have is from the early 20th century. Likewise, your image of the Navajo Rez is sort of accurate because people still live in hogans, but they have satellite dishes and internet. Because the image stays, it becomes difficult to work with the reality of today. If someone in Hawaii is working 80 hours a week to pay for rent, food, and other necessities, it can become very aggravating when someone asks that person about how primitive they live. If you are imagining an armed conflict from decades ago, it becomes difficult to discuss the conflict today. It doesn’t matter how many times someone tells you otherwise, the image will remain, and even be taught to others.

This immutable image of nostalgia can help foreignize groups, or make a convention get bogged down. The question is why? There is a possibility of an age singularity at work. Another idea is that the truth would make the older argument disappear, so the new is ignored. The numbers for many things we worry about are dropping, so the possibility that we are still recovering or expecting worse could also be a part as well.

If you look at the majority of people alive today, you would find out that there are two groups. The first is the Baby Boomers from 1946 to 1964, and then the Millennials of the 1980s to early 2000s. These two populations are disparate in their origins, and how they were raised in drastic ways. It would take a really long time to explain how different they are, and yet how similar they are. The basic idea is that since they are the majority, they are the most likely to be sold to. Most popular Christmas music on the radio comes from the time that most Baby Boomers were kids. Most TV Shows, and Movies on right now are being promoted to Millennials. The classics are defined by these two groups, and how things should work.

By coincidence, the 1980’s and early 90’s was a period when both groups were at definite nostalgic moment. Millennials were children being promoted to by TV shows, cereals, and videogames. Baby Boomers were starting into jobs, and not just an ordinary job, but a full on career. This time was such a strong image of how things worked, and what was being talked about that both groups remember it with very strong memories.

Because the moment itself is nostalgic and powerful within the majority, they continue to talk as if it was still there. Baby Boomers still believe White Christmas is a great song, that the Flintsones is fun to watch. Millennials look forward to the next Batman movie, or videogame.

To help with this, both groups are at their height in buying power, so advertisers are aiming directly at them. Which means we enter into a cycle of nostalgia that makes it difficult to point out how much things have changed. We can all acknowledge the internet, smartphones, and the lack of hoverboards as a real thing, but also believe that Back to the Future accurately described 2015.

If there were conflicts, ideas, or fears from that time, those things will continue to be important as if they had never changed. A strange singularity of purpose comes from the two groups to maintain these ideas, while arguing, or dealing with modern things. Since arcades have actually recovered after the singularity of age, most people do not realize that it happened.

Another idea is that the argument over the matters is too intense for the groups to notice the change. The US especially has a strong two party system that continues to hold power by arguing with each other. We have been through wars, disasters, and 9/11 but the arguments themselves have not really changed. In fact, there seemed to be an odd pattern for those events.

At first the two parties act as if they agree, and will work to overcome what has happened. Then they begin to argue on how to properly respond. The majority holder at the time will demand that things continue as they are, and the minority holder will argue that nothing is working and it is time for change. Within a few years, both parties will continue to argue the same things, only referencing the war or disaster as an example.

If you begin to look at older newspapers, you would notice that many of these arguments began several decades ago. The two groups began, but have not really checked for new information. They continue to argue, caught up within the constant back and forth to the point that many things have changed completely. This is being ignored so that the argument can continue.

To give you an idea, in your mind Africa is a war torn land of constant desert. If you asked had checked, you would have found that many of the countries mentioned are recovering and working on things. New problems are now coming forward, and people are working to figure them out. Since the argument is about the original war, or disaster, the promotions will be that none of these new things have happened.

Finally, there is the possibility that we ourselves don’t trust this change. Like someone getting out of a bad part of their life, or unsure about the future we expect everything to fall apart at any minute. During the 70’s and 80’s there was crime, and many economic downturns. Although things got better, that doesn’t mean we recovered mentally.

To give you an idea, crime has been dropping incredibly fast for decades. It is actually doing this at such a pace to make people who study crime disbelieve the numbers. Many theories on how crime was working, and expectations during the 80’s was that it would get much worse. If you hear a number like 1 in 5 people on anything, take it with a grain of salt. The reality is that numbers like that are way to big to actually be true. In fact, most of the time, you can find a paper from the 1980’s saying that in 2015 it will effect this many people, so long as the numbers continue to increase. In fact, they did the opposite, but the fear of it happening continued to be shown as proof of it might being true.

We have in fact suffered a depression, and will likely continue in the downward trend this year. However, we are using ideas and images of what it will be like from the last major downward trend. When we talk about a depression, it scares us, because the only image in our mind is that of the Great Depression and people losing their jobs left and right. It did happen like that in countries like Germany, but the US had a majority that did not. It was scary still, and the newspapers and radios pushed that narrative of fear.

We are recovering from these problems, and unwilling to admit we are still scared. So, we continue to argue as if the guesses and ideas from decades ago are still true today. It is a natural response during a recovery to think a relapse or more problems will happen. The mugger will come back to hurt you more, the terrorist may be at your door, the racism you heard about will suddenly rear its head right in front of you.

In other words, we believe arcades are dead, because they crashed once, and we no longer trust them. The Convention that promoted the Hugos did not change because they thought someone was trying to take their awards away. We believe Israel and Palestine are constantly fighting because a war between them could erupt at any minute with the right pressure.

This immutable image of nostalgia is something very strong among people I have met. Many of them don’t even realize how strong it is. Nostalgia is a fond memory, and an attempt to recreate it, even if it means living like an East German. This is more of a purposeful ignorance of how things have changed, and the belief that an idea from decades ago is still true. There are some ideas on how it works, but I don’t know if any of them are true.

I have noticed it a lot. I don’t think immutable image of nostalgia really describes it, especially since nostalgia describes something you are fond of. People continue to use it as a reason for various things that may not even be true today. It’s really hard to tell someone about a way cool arcade game you played the other day, when they think arcades died in 2005.