Of course, with all those pictures, recordings, and movies, there is now a nonstop nostalgia market.
Nostalgia is evolving - it is now considered a shaping cultural force. Looking back to a "Golden Age" became a common experience in the 20th century. It now is associated with the cherished notions of identity, rather than just the concept of place.
I found a website where I get to read the abstract or introduction of scholarly articles - on the topic of Nostalgia. The website is Taylor Francis Online. It is a scholarly website for peer-reviewed journals and articles. Too bad I can only read the beginning of things.
Another article by Andrew Higson gives the sense of where nostalgia is heading:
"Nostalgia is not a singular phenomenon; it is multi-layered, diversely experienced and variously exploited, as I demonstrate by briefly outlining the history of nostalgia, especially the recent shift from modern to post-modern versions of the experience. The modern, temporal version of nostalgia is founded on the unattainable distance between the past and the present; the post-modern, atemporal version erases this sense of distance. Central to the modern concept of nostalgia is the experience of wistfulness, a hopeless longing for something lost and irrecoverable.
But for post-modern nostalgics, the irrecoverable is now attainable, the difference between past and present flattened out. This is partly because post-modern nostalgia re-cycles images, objects and styles associated with the relatively recent past, a prime site of such re-cycling being the Internet."
Just casting one's gaze about, it is easy to find 5 vintage clothes trends for 2022 - I am expecting to see some psychedelic prints this summer. And home decor has more vintage revival as well. Architectural Digest is going way back in terms of vintage trends: think antique tapestries, furniture, upholstery and wallpaper. It makes me think of Brideshead Revisited. Don't forget classic car trends - the phrase is modern classics.
Here's a great one for me. This website features a series of images submitted by users who hold up an old photo against the same location in the present day. It is Dear Photograph. I really like the idea of this one - it can be downloaded for you to use, or you might buy the book with people's photos in it. You can scroll through the various submitted pictures. Now that's a fine Nostalgia product. Check it out.
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