Nostalgia Filter: Difference between revisions

[[File:NostalgiaGoggles.png|link=Goggles Do Nothing|frame|The nostalgia goggles you get today are crap; they were ''so'' much better back in ''my'' day.]]

 

 

There is a tendency for adults to see newer material in a medium (be it music, film, animation, or comic books) as inferior to the older 'classics' that they knew in their youth.

 

 

However, it is likely that the most important cause of this nostalgia is a consequence of [[Sturgeon's Law]] combined with the passage of time: As new material is released, the vast majority will be of mediocre or worse quality, but over time, a powerful selection pressure causes all but the best material (and in some infamous cases, the [[So Bad It's Good|worst]]) to be rapidly forgotten, leaving an increasingly inaccurate impression of the overall quality of the genre over time. This is known as "the nostalgia filter", and can be easily demonstrated by a careful review of the period works that are ''not'' remembered today.

Of course, this is certainly not to imply that newer is automatically better or that the Nostalgia Filter applies to every single case; just because a person prefers an older work to more modern things doesn't mean they only like it because of nostalgia. Sometimes the older work ''is'' better, or at least has its own appeal that the present things don't -- even beyond "Charm", which is often thrown around to describe stuff mostly to just mean "It's nostalgic".

 

 

You'll notice that this trope sometimes overlaps with the [[Periphery Hatedom]]. Almost always, when people complain about how new stuff sucks, they bring up examples of things which were marketed towards the youth of their own generation as examples of "good" or even "classic" works in the genre. Never mind that 20 years ago, when it was being marketed towards them, the adults back then were saying the ''exact same thing'' we are today. It's a neverending cycle.

See also [[Nothing but Hits]] and [[Nostalgia Ain't Like It Used to Be]]. Another reason for this trope is that [[True Art Is Ancient]]. Contrast [[Deader Than Disco]].

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* Invoked in ''[[Code Geass]]'', with a drug called [http://codegeass.wikia.com/wiki/Refrain_%28Drug%29 Refrain], that causes one to experience hallucinogenic flashbacks to past pleasant experiences.

 

== Comic Books ==

* In ''[[Sandman]]'', there's a scene in the 1480s, where the immortal Hob Gadling, now about 130 or so, overhears an old man complaining about these newfangled chimneys, and reminiscing about the days when "we did have a good honest brazier in the house," when nobody suffered from "rheumes and cattarhs" and the smoke was "good medicine for the man and his family." Hob mutters to Dream about how foolish the old man is, and how back then everyone was coughing and wheezing from the smoke, and occasionally you'd find whole families that had asphyxiated in the night.

* ''[[Lady Gaga]] #1'' has a middle aged man moping about how the music in the present is nowhere near as good as the music in his day (i.e. the second half of the 1970s).

 

== Film ==

** Also, all four boys smoke. At age twelve.

* This is a big part of the plot of Woody Allen's ''[[Midnight in Paris]]''. The story features Gil, a writer played by Owen Wilson, who is writing a novel about a man that runs a nostalgia shop, and the writer himself has a nostalgic view of the 1920s in Paris as a sort of Golden Age, something that his fiance and her family constantly rag on him for. Eventually, Gil discovers a mysterious taxi cab that arrives every night at midnight and transports him back to a nostalgia filtered 1920s Paris, where he meets many famous authors and falls in love with Adriana, a woman who is at the time Picasso's mistress. As time goes on, the writer discovers that Adriana has feelings for him too and decides to live in the 1920s with her. However, soon after Gil confesses his love for Adriana, they are picked up by a mysterious carriage that transports them back to late 1800s, where they meet various artists, writers, and other famous folk. Adrianna immediately proposes they stay here, as in her mind, '''this''' is the Golden Age of Paris. {{spoiler|Gil decides that despite the allure of the nostalgia filter, it's best to take the present for what it is, and decides to go back to the present.}}

 

== Literature ==

* In ''[[Time and Again]]'', Si Morley does his best to consider the ways in which life in New York in 1882 was inequitable and harsh... but after he goes back to the present (1970), he becomes overwhelmed by a preference for the lifestyle and people of 1882. Even though he's well aware of what working conditions are like for ordinary people, and his reason for returning was to escape from corrupt policemen who have not heard of Miranda rights...

 

* This was a story element in one episode of ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'', where a toy designer keeps lapsing into daydreams of his idyllic childhood while ignoring his slowly collapsing present. {{spoiler|In the end, it turns out he was repressing the memory of the day the other kids beat him up because they weren't invited to his birthday party, and he's forced to come to grips with the brutal truth that his childhood wasn't nearly the fairyland he wanted to believe it was.}}

* How the Doctor chooses to remember the Time Lords in the new series of ''[[Doctor Who]]''. Of course, viewers of the original series know they weren't sweetness and light, and when they {{spoiler|do turn up for a moment in the new series}}, it's clear the Time War disimproved them. Such that {{spoiler|the Doctor takes up a gun immediately upon realizing their return}}.

* The opening theme for ''[[All in The Family]]'' has Archie and Edith singing about how ideal their childhood was. Thing is, they boh grew up during the Great Depression.

* The entire premise of ''[[Happy Days]]'' is built on nostalgia for the 50s.

 

== Meta ==

* Nostalgia for the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome and the idea that the Middle Ages were 1000 years of Dark Ages was one of the things that inspired the Renaissance. Yeah, it's a real-life example, but still technically woven in works considering that it fueled a lot of the artwork at the time.

 

== Music ==

* [[Meat Loaf]], kinda. From ''Bat Out Of Hell 3'' is the song ''The Future Just Ain't What It Used To Be''. So, [[Captain Obvious|all about how the future looked brighter when he was younger]].

* "From A Dead Beat To An Old Greaser" by [[Jethro Tull]] has the main protagonist, Ray Lomas, bump into a man waxing nostalgic about his beatnik days. Lomas takes no interest in the beat's stories, saying "I didn't care, friend. I wasn't there, friend". If the comic from the sleeve of the song's parent album, ''Too Old To Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young To Die!'', is any indication, Lomas is just as prone to this, especially in the title track.

 

== Newspaper Comics ==

{{quote|'''Walt''': Did I hear what I think I just heard?!

'''Jeremy''': Dad, it's just a song lyric.

'''Connie''': Ouch. One point for the teenager. }}

* Ruben Bolling's comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug advanced a theory that popular culture was at its height when you, the reader, were twelve years old.

 

== Other ==

* The four audiobook volumes of ''The Alan Cross Guide to Alternative Rock'', based on the author's radio series ''The Ongoing History of New Music'', appear guilty of this: most of the bands are from the 1980s or early 1990s, several are from the 1960s and 1970s, and the ones from the 2000s that are covered are treated briefly. Cross, a history major, averts this by noting it's far easier to objectively measure the cultural impact of older artists, while for most newer artists it's too soon to tell if they'll be influential.

 

== [[Print Media]] ==

* Similarly, ''TV Guide'' compiled a list of the greatest TV shows in history. It was revealed later that the hardest decision they had was which of two shows should be named Number 1: ''[[I Love Lucy]]'' or ''[[Seinfeld]]''. They decided go with ''Seinfeld,'' and the decision was met with quite a lot of backlash.

* In these two cases, they were probably justified for the reasons given above in the introduction. It's far too early to be able to pick out what the good songs, or good TV shows of today are. The half century old songs and shows that are bad are forgotten so the ones that are remembered are, most certainly, among the best ever.

 

== Theatre ==

* ''[[Avenue Q]]'': 'I Wish I Could Go Back To College' is this combined with [[Growing Up Sucks]].

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Donkey Kong Country]]'': Cranky Kong ''is'' this trope. Three-fourths of the time, he's grumping on how better much games were back in [[Donkey Kong|his]] day, and how overrated our current gaming features are.

** Not to say he hasn't good reason to be bitter; he's supposed to be the the original [[Donkey Kong]] from the arcade game.

 

* Sent up in the paintball domain by ''[[The Whiteboard]]'', starting [http://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1143.html here].

* ''[[Not Invented Here]]'': Desmond feels like a kid again when his first computer is mailed to him by his uncle Lou. He snaps out of it when Geordi mentions every remaining computer of that model working together would roughly equal the computing power of one iPhone, but use way more electricity.

 

== Web Original ==

* In [[The Angry Video Game Nerd]]'s ''Castlevania'' videos, 100% of the death sequences are now considered "cheap" if they were done in a video game today.

* [[The Nostalgia Critic]]'s job is showing the world that the '80s and early '90s had their fair share of utterly terrible shows and movies, as you can guess by his name. The Nostalgia Filter attitude was also mocked in the end of his ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]: [[The Movie|The First Movie]]'' review, where after spending a good portion of the review complaining about the weirdness of the premise, comes to the realization that popular eighties cartoons like ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'', ''[[Alvin and The Chipmunks]]'', and ''[[The Care Bears]]'' had [[Better Than It Sounds|pretty ridiculous premises themselves]] before shouting "THOSE WERE THE DAYS!".

** In a video where he watches the first few episodes of the 80's Ninja Turtles cartoon, he's forced to admit that the whole thing is kind of dumb, [[Rule of Fun|but that doesn't make it any less fun]].

** [[The Nostalgia Chick]] does this too, just with girly movies and the occasional male-geek-adored [[Cult Classic]] like ''[[Dune]]'' and the ''[[Transformers]]'' film.

* In the ''Gundamn!'' podcast's segment on ''[[Transformers: The Movie]]'', they mention that most of the fanbase's regard for ''[[Transformers Generation 1]]'' really comes from the movie, rather than the TV series, which was pretty formulaic ("What stupid plan will Megatron come up with to steal more Energon cubes? How will Starscream try to betray Megatron and fail ''yet again?''")

* [[Image Boards|"Remember when /b/ was good?"]] [[Memetic Mutation|"/b/ was never good."]]

** For those who don't speak internet; the imageboard /b/, [[Small Name, Big Ego|the source of most memes]], is full of people who have matured to the point were the rather immature, gross-out and horrible humor of /b/ no longer amuses them, and complain about the new users, claiming that they are the "cancer that is killing /b/."

Don't give me that liberal bullcrap. }}

** [http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2253#comic And again.]

* This [http://twitter.com/#!/Discographies/status/5687865124069376 tweet] by Discographies on [[Journey (band)|Journey]] sums up the phenomenon perfectly.

* [[Candle Cove]] starts out playing this trope straight, but is later [[Subverted Trope|subverted]] as we learn about all the gory details.

 

== Western Animation ==

* People tend to forget that while the animation in the 90's and late 80's were indeed much better than in the 60's and 70's [[Dork Age]], a lot of the painted cels made the shows look VERY unprofessional by today's standards, where you can now use a computer to digitally color in hand-drawn animation.

* This trope is played with in ''[[Recess]]'', when Vince apparently does not notice that his brother (who was revered by Vince's peers around his age) was a stereotypical nerd, remembering instead how "cool" he used to be.

** And another episode, in when Timmy and his dad were cleaning their attic, Timmy finds his dad's tiny box of dreams. He picks it up and it breaks. Timmy's dad was OK with it though, because his dreams were crushed many years ago.

{{quote|'''Timmy''': How ''many'' years ago?

{{quote|'''Phineas:''' You know, I may have over-romanticized those memories...}}

* This attitude is called out in one episode of ''[[The Real Ghostbusters]]'', where Ray is talking about how the fifties were a much simpler time. Egon points out that there's no inherent proof of that, as each decade has its own individual challenges.

* Given a quick jab in the ribs from ''[[The Oblongs]]'', as Bob wonders fitfully about his children being sold drugs.

{{quote|'''Bob:''' This stuff wasn't around when we were kids.

 

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{{reflist}}

[[Category:Character Reaction Index]]

[[Category:Fora]]

[[Category:Public Medium Ignorance]]

[[Category:Double Standard]]

[[Category:Common Fan Fallacies]]

[[Category:No Real Life Examples, Please]]