From vintage aesthetics to classic sitcom reruns, nostalgia is constantly shaping youth culture. Venelize de Lange from media update considers why so many young people are romanticising a pre-digital life.
As we step into the cold month of June and pull out our jerseys from the back of the closet, let us also pour a cup of tea and turn the discussion to our grandparents' favourite topic of conversation: the problem of the youth today.
No, it's not their laziness and lack of work ethic I would like to discuss, nor is it the death of respect and personal pride in work. What does tickle my fancy is why so many young people are nostalgic for the eras they never experienced themselves.
The world of fashion speaks to it in 90's and early-2000's trend revivals and the resurgence of analog expresses it with increased sales in physical media like disposable film cameras and vinyl records.
Then there's comfort media. Having possibly stimulated and now perpetuating this nostalgia, comfort media has the youth hooked with shows like Friends, Seinfeld and Gilmore Girls. The digitally disconnected spaces in these films are so popularised and longed for that they are recreated in real life, as seen with the proliferation of social clubs idealised for their "in-person" human interactions.
It's a curious contradiction. Previous generations eagerly anticipated the next technological advancement — modernisation was moving forward, it was progress — but the youth today are romanticising the world that existed before smartphones, social media and constant digital connectivity. They are living in an age of constant connectivity and rapid technological advancement but are seeking the digitally disconnected spaces of the past.
Yet, this longing for a bygone era does not symbolise a regressive youth. Their preoccupation with the past is arguably due to the ironic isolation digital connectivity creates. This means many young people are looking for a sense of community and belonging — and they're trying to find it in the places they've seen it illustrated: the past.
Still, we tend to look at the past with rose-coloured glasses. With Youth Day and its deeply painful history in South Africa fast approaching, it's important to ask how we protect those that are our future and how we ensure not just their safety, but their sense of belonging in the world they are inheriting.
Because, isn't it fascinating? A generation with the entirety of human knowledge at its fingertips is not longing for more advancements in technology, but for the sense of connection they imagine existed before. Whether that perception is accurate is another matter entirely — but what it reveals about the human need for belonging is difficult to ignore.
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*Image courtesy of Canva