The Past is the New Present..

..especially in the pop culture world and it might continue being the future.. Well, that’s what would happen after almost 2 years of the unprecedented, I might be speaking for many when I say I’m craving for some “precedent”, some control in an uncontrollable world, right? Enter: the rise of nostalgia.

Isn’t Nostalgia just reliving memories?

The word nostalgia was coined over 300 years ago and it meant “homesickness” at the time. As per most of the research including many done by Dr. Krystine Batcho, a professor of psychology and an expert on nostalgia, nostalgia has various functions. During an interview with the American Psychological Association, she dives into it can be historical or personal, romanticised or full of hatred. What’s beautiful about nostalgia is how it can differ from person to person and can serve different purposes.

Nostalgia acts as a comforting hug

And in the time of Corona..what else could you probably crave?

Times are stressful, scary, worrying and most of all, lonely. It’s already known that re-watching your older favourite shows brings you comfort — it’s the same with nostalgia. When big events happen such as moving cities, a new phase of life or well I don’t know, A GLOBAL PANDEMIC..human beings crave something familiar, something known in the unknown you know? Research also proves nostalgia operates as a coping mechanism. A six-week nostalgia intervention was shown to improve well-being in a sample of college students

As Dr. Batcho puts it — it’s comforting to have a nostalgic feeling for the past that reminds us that although we don’t know what the future is going to bring, what we do know is that we know who we have been and who we really are.

There’s a reason why The Office was the most-watched show (other than the brilliant comedic timing of every mockumentary-esque look) — it’s home for many Millennials who want to relive times that were simpler. (I mean what do you expect since 90% of their Netflix produced movies SUCK)

Nostalgia might even be used as a measurement tool

Think of the last time you heard THAT song. I know you have one. The one that invokes all those memories of that one person or that one moment. It sort of automatically transports you back to the person you used to be and you notice how much you’ve changed. You compare and measure your growth. It could be ideologically, socially, with relationships or with just yourself.

I remember when the “Red” re-recordings and “Fearless” re-recordings by Taylor Swift were released, women who are now probably happily married or in long-term relationships get transported with nostalgia through her songs and they reflect on how they were dealing with their breakups at that time or their relationships at that time and now actually see growth.

It can also be slightly negative towards your old favourite tv shows though. When a lot of my generation watches the original Gossip Girl in their early 20s now and they think of how they idealised the relationship of Blair and Chuck. But now they realise WOW that was toxic I can’t believe my 16 year old self wanted THAT.

Nostalgia could also be how you connect

Whether it’s with old or new friend circles or even your families, nostalgia manages to hold great power to connect you with different scenarios. With your older friends, you probably reminisce those old days when you all went to watch that one movie franchise together always. While new friends are “new”, you might already have shared experience with your favourite film or a concert you experienced or that one fandom you both have been a part of since you were 5.

With the rise of the streaming platforms with a depository of old 90s shows like Full House, Boy Meets World, Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire not only do many Millennial parents get to find comfort in them, but they might also get their kids to watch such shows that then allow them to bond on the same level.

It’s a social connectedness phenomenon and nostalgia is in that sense a very healthy pro-social emotion.

Is Nostalgia the new moneymaker in the pop culture world?

At the time of May 2021, there were 28 reboots, remakes and spinoffs in the TV Network world. These are UNRELEASED at that time. There have been at least 30 re “somethings” in TV alone since 2018 — and this is not counting any of the movies. Why? Because nostalgia apparently brings in the numbers.

“Risk aversion has really paid off, and studios and production companies have noticed this,” said Walt Hickey, a pop culture expert at FiveThirtyEight as per an article on ABC News“Recently the industry has seen a solid string of success born out of rebooting or upgrading content from the past. This is a risk-averse strategy. You bank on content where people already have a sense of the characters, they have a sense of what the plot is, what the story is.”

Quick cheat sheet — A remake is an older storyline with fresher faces, a reboot can have familiar characters but a new storyline and a revival is mainly for TV and brings back the main cast of a show for a new run years after its original run.

Based on this, it’s obvious that remakes are not something that has only just started popping up. Look at Batman, James Bond, Spidermen — these remakes have had similar stories just with different actors.

The end of the Peak Television

A term coined by FX Networks CEO John Landgraf in 2015, Peak TV was to be a year when the number of original scripted TV Shows would hit its peak and then start to decline. Now that the streaming services have been so prominent all over the world, especially with franchisees and other IPs entering the arena on these platforms, it looks like we might hit it soon.

This is why the networks do not want to take many risks. You see, each popular content ends up becoming a brand of its own. Just like a normal brand, you already have a loyal audience who would probably tune in to watch these reboots, remakes and revivals, making marketing easy. Now that the entertainment has become cluttered, these re’s is what many networks in Hollywood are resorting towards, which is why now we might have entered..

The phase of Peak Reboots, Revivals and Remakes

No, this doesn’t mean that we aren’t going to see original content, looking at the success of Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, Succession — it doesn’t seem like we are facing the issue of “creative bankruptcy” and nor does it seem like networks are not investing in original ideas, it just means they see that this has been working for them. And like I said, we are now definitely living in this world where everything seems out of place, so having your favourite tv shows back but set in this day and age? It might just make you feel more “zen”. It’s all about feeling connected with your favourite characters, isn’t it?

However, very few reboots or revivals actually end up doing well and everyone makes sure these opinions are aired online. Each and every single cult favourite seems to have screwed it up and it’s for various reasons.

The Gilmore Girls Revival was terrible simply because those characters were charming in the early 2000s day and age, but now having them rant about Ubers and the Kardashians, just seems…off. I haven’t watched the Sex and The City revival, but I heard it’s so awful because it tries so hard to fit in this day and age.

That’s the thing, these favourites did well because their original stories were set in the 2000s — they were probably never meant for the 2020-esque era, so suddenly having them jump into this world, with the cultural and societal cues just not matching makes them almost intolerable to sit through, like Fuller House (OH GOD AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL)

But I think the worst thing, they could do is give hope that it might actually be good, like the new Star Wars trilogy. I remember Star Wars: Force Awakens was good and then it just went downhill from there. It tried to continuously deliver some fan service, and it made it so awful! That’s the thing, nostalgia is such a double edged sword — you want to make sure that if you are reviving a storyline and its characters, you want to make sure that the audience feels a sense of connection which can always lead to downfalls.

This is why I feel the Friends Reunion and the Harry Potter Reunion was the best decision the creators could take. It’s also why The Office has not been rebooted — DON’T FIX SOMETHING THAT’S BROKEN. They all got perfect endings, please just make money off of their re-runs and not their revivals.

I’ll also declare that there are good successful reboots/revivals like Twin Peaks: The Return (which apparently is as iconic as the original series and operates as an 18-hour movie? WHAT), Saved By The Bell, Veronica Mars, Cobra Kai, One Day At A Time — all of these have been great because they have embrace world they had made and managed to actually merge it well with our current world.

However there is a drawback with nostalgia Dr Batcho says — “There is a saturation point. Once you satiate your need for nostalgia, it loses its value. Like a fine wine, it’s best enjoyed in appropriate amounts. It’s supposed to be a visit.” and I definitely agree that it can have marginal utility. Taking the case of Will & Grace — a revival that was considered successful as the first episode of the same got 15 million views, however by the time it was the season finale, viewership had fallen by 60%.

Basically, an attempt at nostalgia can be a hit or a miss. Speaking of that, I do have an observational case study for a BIG nostalgia hit and I am sure some of you already know what I am talking about.

How Spiderman: No Way Home actually lived up to Nostalgic Hype. SPOILERS!

We all knew there was going to be a lot of nostalgia that would be present in this movie but seeing the track record of how the pop culture world has terribly used nostalgia, everyone expected it to be so chaotic, especially after Star Wars (Yes, I just can’t get over it). But to say they knocked it out of the park with the way they made the fandom feel is an understatement.

Let’s go back to the 3 main purposes for nostalgia I mentioned to really go into how this movie worked well.

The movie was the best familiar hug from everyone’s favourite childhood superhero — every single version of it. Whether you loved the 2000s version, the 2010s version or the 2020s version, whether it was the actor who played it, the storyline, the villains, the suits or the intricate details — everything came together to give you that feeling of comfort during the 3rd wave of the pandemic. Sitting in those movie theatre seats, whether you were 40, 30, 20 — you found yourself becoming a little child again crying & SCREAMING your hearts out.

And as you saw yourself being transported to your childhood, you understood everything a bit better. Suddenly, you realised, oh wait, Andrew Garfield is not a bad Spiderman — oh wait the MCU is actually doing justice to the Spiderman character. You could now see the growth you have made as a person through your own opinions that have now maybe transformed for the better.

I can’t emphasize enough how this movie brought everyone together in social connectedness. From people absolutely going berzerk in the movie halls, to communities coming together to campaign for Andrew Garfield to finally get his 3rd Spiderman instalment. The young MCU fans were suddenly celebrating with old Sony Spiderman fans. It was the pop culture community at its absolute best.

But all this, topped off with actual storylines for each beloved character, those fan-serviced famous lines and redeeming the characters that were done wrong, is when nostalgia can truly work. Hey, I mean if you get it right you can earn almost $1.6 Billion, become one of the top-grossing movies in the box office — ALL DURING A WORLDWIDE PANDEMIC.

The world is looking for comfort and we see everyone embracing the world of memories, old feelings and familiarity. The fashion industry is bringing back Y2K trends, TikTok is making old songs top charts again and brands are now changing logos to a more retro version, like Burger King or remaking older advertisements to keep in line with the change in social culture, like Dairy Milk. And looking at the way people are reacting to it, it looks like it’s working.

You see old TV shows and movies filled with nostalgia almost end up acting like your own diary full of memories that you can look back on. I think that’s beautiful when something can hold so much power and make you feel things at such a deep level.

While we might not be able to control what’s happening in the world, maybe we can control and go back to the good ol’ days for those 120 minutes when our screens are on, and I guess that’s the most we can do for now.