How the World Weaponizes Our Nostalgia Against Us
Hauntology and its pernicious effects on media and thought
It’s not a secret that corporations are manipulating the popular consciousness by profiting off of standardized and reinforced “nostalgic waves” every 20 years or so after a trend’s initial peak. The idea is that any given time, the young people of that time feel a mass sense of nostalgia for the popular culture of around 20 years prior. Armed with that info, clothes manufacturers have pushed the appropriately timed throwback styles, movie producers have rebooted the trendiest nostalgic franchises, and music producers sign artists with passing resemblances to stars from that hottest era. It’s no coincidence that y2k is everywhere now right after 90s nostalgia was finally sucked dry.
Which is all common knowledge, right? And not especially surprising, either? Corporations profit off of everything; did anyone expect their nostalgia to be sacred? But it goes deeper than that, of course, and it only ever gets worse. It’s not just that Hollywood execs are money-hungry and morally bankrupt. It’s that not one sector of entertainment — not movies, music, books, theater, sports, seriously, anything — has made the choice to innovate over just mindlessly retreading old formulas for success ad infinitum. It’s not just that any one industry or any one…
