This is a poll for people over 40.

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

This is a poll for people over 40. At what age did you find nostalgic content most compelling and appealing?

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

OK now a question for everyone.

As you have gotten older have you found that nostalgic content has gotten more appealing? Less appealing?

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

One more for everyone. When did you first experience something as being nostalgic?

[adriano@lile.cl]

@futurebird less. The whole catering to my generation (people born in the eighties or around) got old faster than I did.

[hugoestr@functional.cafe]

@futurebird As a teenager

[hazelnot@sunbeam.city]

@futurebird I'm conflicted because emotionally it tends to work for me when it pushes the right nostalgia buttons but then another part of me is like, "but wait this is just capitalism destroying culture and trying to sell you the last 4-5 decades over and over and over again isn't it"

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

OK last one. I realized that "nostalgia" might not be a pleasant thing for everyone. How have you experienced it?

[tcmuffin@toot.wales]

@futurebird

I'm 70 and I still rail against nostalgia and the supposed "good old days" which never existed

[johnlalford@mstdn.social]

@futurebird
As a late Boomer (before JFK assassination, but not a lot before), I find music from '60s through '80s more appealing, but other media less. Television from that era is hit-or-miss, mostly miss. Movies are tough to take.

[thomasjwebb@mastodon.social]

@futurebird I remember when I first started using the internet a lot, in my late teens, liking some Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past content I found (blogs, winamp skin, downloadable mp2s yes you read that right) because it made my nostalgic for my early teens. I've definitely felt nostalgia before I was 10 when finding toys from when I was younger. I've observed what might nostalgic behavior from my kids from a very early age (making the crib she used to sleep in play its melodies).

[hazelnot@sunbeam.city]

@adriano @futurebird I think that's probably because of GTA Vice City coming out less than 20 years after the year it's set in, kinda singlehandedly kickstarting the 80s nostalgia cycle 10-20 years ahead of schedule

Most "80s" tropes seem to originate or have been popularized by that game, since it itself is a mishmash of whatever was on TV 40 years ago, filtered through the recollection of a bunch of Scottish people writing a satire

[graham_knapp@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird nostalgia definitely ain't what it used to be

[jorgecandeias@mastodon.social]

@futurebird where's "never"?

I mean, I'm 60 now, and I still like what I like. New stuff, old stuff, doesn't really matter, and nostalgia doesn't play a part in it.

[moss@beige.party]

@futurebird I feel like boomers cornered the market on nostalgia, everything in media was already saturated in nostalgia when I was young. Happy Days.

[thomasjwebb@mastodon.social]

@futurebird I think people do misuse/overuse the term "nostalgia" though. Liking something that I liked before isn't necessarily nostalgia. I like when new indie games are like old JRPGs because I like that style. I liked taquitos the first time I had them and I still like them.

To me nostalgia is a bittersweet feeling that's hard to describe. Not something I want to experience on a regular basis. In some ways, keeping parts of the past I liked with me to the future keeps it at bay.

[mattdm@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird

It's complex — the very definition of bittersweet.

Right now, my youngest kid is finishing her first year of college and will be back here soon for what's probably her last few months as, really, part of our household. So, I'm full of these feelings.

What's more, I can see them in her, and that's its own complexity. When's she's come home for breaks and long weekends, I can see she feels a little of the sadness of it. That cliché — _you can't go home again_ — has a lot of truth.

[colorblindcowboy@mastodon.art]

@futurebird I wish there was “all of the above.” I’ve found bostalgia both compelling and repellent at all ages.

[rogerbw@discordian.social]

@futurebird I experience nostalgia primarily as a marketing technique: you remember this thing, we're doing a thing that's a bit like it only much worse, give us money.

[promovicz@chaos.social]

@futurebird All three. I get nostalgic, but I nudge my feelings back to "here and now". Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and people work/cope very differently?

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@Moss

That was so exhausting. And my memories of boomers getting all sappy and obsessed with 50s crap really put me off ever doing anything similar since it always seemed so sad to me.

But IDK if you show me an MTV bumper animation I still might like it.