Why Are We So Obsessed with Nostalgia in Fashion, Music, and Movies?

The other day, while I was scrolling on TikTokI found a video of someone replacing their current iPhone with a flip phone, stating that they missed when phones carried the necessity of only just being phones. For some, a flip phone is immediately like stepping into a time capsule to a time of simpler days. It made me realise that the more that our technology is moving forward, the more that our generation wants to relive the old technology, say, for example, the use of types of vinyl and the stigma surrounding the vintage aesthetic.

As someone who has a huge love for old Hollywood movies, it makes sense as to why our generation loves nostalgia. But why, in a society racing toward the future, are we so captivated by the past?

So, What is Nostalgia?

It’s a universal longing for the past that connects us. You see nostalgia happen in all industries, from upcoming movie sequels like The Devil Wears Prada 2 after almost 20 years to the fashion industry where Victoria’s Secret Angels are back in action after 6 years. However, it seems that so many movies nowadays seem to be remakes, such as remakes of Disney princess movies into live-action movies like The Little Mermaid.

Is there a problem of no inspiration in the movie industry, and are we experiencing a creative drought, or is our generation simply obsessed with reliving the past? It seems that most movies are remakes or renditions of current movies only because they do well at the box office, or is it? Maybe our generation is obsessed with the feeling of nostalgia.

Digging Into Why the Movie Industry Loves Remakes

As observed by the types of movies that are at the highest gross level, you can see that nowadays, they tend to be reboots, remakes, sequels, spin-offs, and prequels, which truly underlies our longing for nostalgia. Perhaps we have a longing for so much nostalgia to block out the real-life world problems that are currently happening. From climate change to war, it’s like our society is attempting to bring back the nostalgic childhood that most people endured from the 1960s to the early 2000s.

Examples of movie/show remakes/sequels include:

• It (2017) – a remake of the 1990 horror film from Stephen King’s novel
• Dune (2021) – a remake of the 1984 film
• Jumanji (2017 & 2019) – a remake of the 1995 movie starring Robin Williams
• One Day (2023) – a remake into a series of the 2011 movie starring Anne Hathaway
• MCU movies – some argue that it should have stopped after Avengers: Endgame (2019) and that they should be focusing on quality rather than quantity. What do you think?

Live-action remakes:

• The Jungle Book (2016) – a remake of Disney’s beloved 1967 animated classic
• Aladdin (2019) – another remake of Disney’s 1992 animated classic

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

The Vintage Aesthetic: Its Comeback

Fashion trends have always had a recovery, with vintage clothing currently coming back into style. There has been an immense interest in older clothing recently, as the utilization of previous trends can be traced back to cultural, social, and economic explanations.

An example of nostalgia found in fashion was during the presidency of Donald Trump when designers during the New York Fashion Week purposely had their designs made in a particular way to relay their “nostalgia for a time when freedom of expression was at its height” (Madsen). So, in some ways, nostalgia has been used as a way of expressing social and political messages as well as expressing hatred towards the negative events currently happening around the world.

But why are we even obsessed with fashion from the 90s and the early 2000s, particularly today? Our new technological advances have allowed sites like Vinted and Depop to remerge older and nostalgic pieces in eras that our generation may have hoped to have lived in. Fashion comebacks that we have seen lately include platforms, flared pants, and more.

Image credit: Andrej Lišakov from Unsplash

Music and the Vinyl Revival

Music media like cassette tapes and vinyl records have always had a way of displaying music, enabling a raw sound. Well, now, the recording methods of music are regaining popularity as popular artists release their new music on vinyl to capture that same authentic and raw sound. Psychologically, music powerfully links back to memory as the vinyl sound creates a sensory and nostalgic experience that streaming lacks.

Furthermore, music streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify seem to feature crafted playlists specifically labelled as “throwbacks” or “90s hits”. In a way, nostalgia through music, which is highly accessible through today’s technology, enables our generation to live through an era that we may have always wanted to live through.

In a way, nostalgic and older music will never be extinct, as artists can only inspire other artists. There are always modern-day songs that remind us of older songs, mitigating into new or improved genres. For example, music that has been revived has been genres like 80s synth or 2000s pop-punk.

Image credit: Jonas Leupe from Unsplash

The Psychoanalysis of Nostalgia

As we venture into the significance of nostalgia in our culture, it’s fundamental to explore the psychological explanation behind our longings for the past, as beyond fashion, music, and movies, it has deep psychological roots. Research shows us that people engage in nostalgic trances when they’re feeling low as an attempt to boost their well-being and mood, as it’s viewed as a positive emotion. It’s also shown through experimental evidence that nostalgia can increase one’s quality of life and optimism for the future.

However, a study of a time-log analysis carried out by University of Southern California psychologist David Newman and his colleagues on the relationship between nostalgia and mood state otherwise. They found that nostalgia does not correlate with mood and that it’s ineffective at boosting mood and can even cause feelings of depression. In their experiment, they used experience sampling to study nostalgia in everyday life, where participants reported their moods at random intervals throughout the day.

Image credit: Chris Liverani from Unsplash

Conclusion

To conclude, it seems that our obsession with nostalgia is rooted in the feelings that it makes us feel and that the underlying motivation for fashion, music, and movies from a different era making a comeback results in our personal feelings of longing. There’s a sense that nostalgia is another form of escapism from the reality that we are currently living in of social, economic, political, and environmental problems. Maybe nostalgia is the bridge that helps carry our past into the future.