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Why Are People Nostalgic for Early-Pandemic Life?
Pandemic fatigue is fueling a bizarre sense of longing
By Morgan Ome and Christian Paz
It’s easy to forget about the toilet-paper shortages, the empty streets, and the disinfected groceries. The first days, weeks even, of the pandemic felt like a twisted novelty. You could try out a TikTok trend: whipping together sugar, instant coffee, and a little bit of warm water, then laying that fluffy meringue over milk — dalgona coffee. In the fridge, your sourdough starter looked mushy and gassy. Later, you’d go for a socially distanced walk, but for now you’d make some progress on that loan you owed Tom Nook in the Animal Crossing universe. You didn’t know what a variant was. You’d never heard of a “Fauci ouchie.” And you thought you would probably return to school or your office in a couple of weeks. This was March 2020.
Deep in the throes of the late-stage pandemic, millions of young people have grown to miss this time early last year. Their longing is captured in TikToks and YouTube videos that romanticize the trends, obsessions, and sounds of 18 months ago. These “early-pandemic aesthetic” creators have built an online community tied together by a yearning for a time when the world seemed united in facing an uncertain future.
