Grande’s Tribute To The Past
“Thank U, Next” Delivers Message With Heavy Dose Of Nostalgia
Nostalgia can cast a powerful spell over our lives, whether it’s making small investments such as watching the The Grinch during the holiday season because we remember how much we loved the dog Max (and, let’s be real, Jim Carrey and the rest of Whoville creeped you out), or involves a bigger investment of time and money such as buying an annual Disney pass because you want to revisit the princesses who helped form your unrealistic childhood ideals.
Currently, numerous recording artists are riding the nostalgia wave, particularly for the ‘90s and 2000s. Millennials identify with this music because it reminds them of what they imagine to be a simpler past. Let’s face it, being in your twenties sucks. You’re broke, knee-deep in college loans and you probably just spent another $5 from your budget on Starbucks coffee because you need caffeine to keep up.
References to the past, even pop-culture’s fantastical ones, provide a sense of security and safety, reminding you of when you gazed up at Reese Witherspoon kicking ass at Harvard Law and thought, “Wow, that’s going to be me someday.”
Let’s face it, being in your twenties sucks.
Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next” is the most recent bit of media and music to cash in on Millennial nostalgia. The song is a shout out to ex boyfriends and a claim of personal growth promoted with a video that references four big rom-coms films from our yesteryears: Mean Girls, Bring It On, 13 Going on 30, and Legally Blonde.
“It’s relatable” says Whittier sophomore Kayla Boyer of Grande’s latest. “I interpret it as past experiences.”
Whittier senior Chikwa Hambayi adds, “I appreciated the artist’s choice of referencing movies from the early 2000s that probably played a really formative role for children and teens growing up in that era. Right now, there is a zeitgeist or wave within society of referencing past things. There’s a real ode to nostalgia, sentiment going on right now. I think people tend to be critical of the time they live in, especially in this age when we have so much information, so the world seems overwhelming. I think the nostalgia going on in pop culture is an attempt to go back to a simpler time. I think Thank u, next is just another example of that.”
I think the nostalgia going on in pop culture is an attempt to go back to a simpler time. I think Thank u, next is just another example of that. — Chikwa Hambayi
Grande’s song uses themes of looking back and moving forward as a starting point. It’s been number one on Billboard for three weeks and Grande is Billboard’s Woman of the Year. The music video has over 130 million views. Part of its success is no doubt because it’s empowering, but also because it pulls from that vein of nostalgia.
Grande isn’t the only famous artist that has been drawing from nostalgia. Bruno Mars released his song “Finesse” in 2016 featuring Cardi B as an ode to the ‘90s. Troye Sivan and Charlie XCX released a song called “1999” that references singers and movies in the 90s that were smashes. Beauty and the Beast was remade as a live action movie in 2017 and Disney is remaking The Lion King and Aladdin within the next year.Senior Athena Zecha commented, “I’ve kind of noticed that within society, trends always come back. Not just in music, fashion, but also lifestyle. It’s like an ode or recognition to the past.”
Now you’re the age of the characters in this field. It’s called upward social comparison. — Dr. Christina Scott
Why is nostalgia so prevalent in pop culture now?
Whittier Professor of Psychology, Dr. Christina Scott, provides some perspective. “It makes you feel a little bit, nostalgic, but now you’re the age of the characters in this field. It’s called upward social comparison. It makes you feel lesser, but it gives you great goals to be like them. Now, when you’re in your 20s, you look down at these movies and it becomes a downward social comparison. That’s the appeal.
“We like looking backwards, sort of making fun of ourselves, it makes us feel more superior now,” says Scott, sitting back in her office clicking through Troye Sivan and Charlie XCX’s “1999” video, which includes images of the movie Titanic and singer Sivan acting as the rapper Eminem. “It’s called co- branding”
Co branding means marketing or releasing a product in conjunctions with another company so that the product bears the imprimatur of both brands. Dr. Scott puts it in simpler terms. “It’s like riding the coattails of something else. You put these two things together, like the old movies and then Ariana Grande, it’s going to become a powerhouse.”
Dr. Scott explains that when it coms to pop culture, familiarity sells. We have a yearning to look back on our childhoods, often and idealized version of them, and the people who market music and film know that. They pull from that feeling of yearning and brand from it. Dr. Scott says, “Wouldn’t you all want to go back in time and have the knowledge you have now? These retroactive things are two-fold, superiority of going back in time and kicking ass. We enjoy familiarity and things we know.”
That idea of having familiarity and yearning makes it easy to relate to the music videos and films being released today that harken back to yesterday. Even if you have never had that idealized version of life that is depcited in movies such as Mean Girls and 13 Going on 30, you still have a sense of security when you watch them.
Grande’s music video “Thank U, Next” was only one out the many forms of media released that tade in nostalgia. For me, seeing the four rom coms referenced in the music video brought back this idea of looking back but moving forward. It’s empowering, not only because of the meaning of the song, but because of the way she uses references to her audience’s formative years to make it feel like we’re all speaking the same pop-culture language. Odes to the past will continue, but we shouldn’t get stuck there. It’s all about how we learn from the past while moving forward.
