There is a Good Reason for Millennial Nostalgia
And we should put it to good use in the here and now
Welcome to TaraElla’s Hindsight Perspective, a series where I will examine society’s development trajectory, and important events in that trajectory, during the past few decades of Western history, with the benefit of hindsight perspective. I believe that learning the lessons of recent history might provide us with important insights on how to move forward in these chaotic and confusing times.
In this first installment, I want to talk about the phenomenon of Millennial nostalgia, i.e. the deep nostalgia the Millennial generation (born 1981–1996), my generation, often feels about the recent past, especially the 1990s. Various explanations have been given for this phenomenon: that people simply feel nostalgic for their childhood years when they grow older, that our generation has been uniquely able to retrieve those memories because much of it is well documented online, and that the rapid change from analog to digital life has meant that our childhoods now feel like a long time ago. However, I think there is another more fitting explanation: that the 1990s were simply a great time, and right now is, well, not such a good time.
I think it really can’t be denied that the 1990s were actually a pretty good time. The period between the end of the Cold War and 9/11 was, in many ways, the peak of human civilization. While there were a few conflicts here and there, there were no major geopolitical tensions, unlike the decades that came before or after. There was a general sense of optimism about the future, as seen in many futuristic/Y2K themed TV shows and movies (contrast this with the fact that movies about the future made today are generally dystopic). The tech we had might be old and clunky by today’s standards, but for those of us who were following it closely back then, they seemed to at least hold the promise of an exciting future (again, contrast this with the social media, fake news and AI algorithm-driven dystopia that we actually have to live in nowadays). If you go to YouTube videos of old music videos from the 90s, there’s inevitably going to be comments about how they don’t make music like that anymore (though you might put this down to generational bias, I believe the crisis in the music industry, plus the rise of social media, has made mediocre music more profitable than good music).
The objective truth is, it has generally been all downhill for Western society since the 1990s. Our society has gotten much less hopeful, much more divisive and polarized, and much more pessimistic about our future, compared with the 1990s, and the picture has generally gotten even worse with each passing decade. For example, back when I was in college, with the Iraq War and broader ‘War on Terror’ going on, as well as the rise of the religious right, I thought that nobody would ever be nostalgic about a decade as horrible as the 2000s in the future. How wrong I was: nostalgia for the aughts is everywhere nowadays. It’s all because, compared with today, even the aughts were a much better time. As much as college-me disliked Bush-43, I’d rather have him back than have Trump 2.0 in the White House. And I believe much of my generation would agree with me here.
I think Millennial nostalgia, or 1990s nostalgia in general, is actually a good thing, because it reminds us that society can be better, and that it doesn’t have to be the way it is now. Our task, I believe, is to move beyond simply wallowing in nostalgia, and actually doing something useful about our current situation. What conditions made the 90s great, that we don’t have anymore now? Or conversely, what conditions are making our society horrible right now, that we didn’t have back in the 90s? These questions often inform my own politics, and my views on various social issues.
Originally published at https://taraella3.substack.com.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Progressive Conservative Manifesto, the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series. She is also the author of her autobiography The TaraElla Story.
