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THE NOSTALGIA FACTOR: TAKIN' US BACK TO THE PAST!

Nostalgia:

-noun

1. A bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past.
2. The condition of being homesick; homesickness.

Nostalgia comes from the greek words “Ν?στος” and “?λγος” (“Nostos” and “Algos”).

Nostos = Longing to return somewhere, usually home. Algos = Pain. A painful longing of your home and/or to return to it.

But where is “Home”? Is it the country we are born? Is it our house? Is it our memories? Answer: All of the above. Home is where the heart is.

So, it’s really a matter of where our hearts are. I for one, remember the late 80’s and the 90’s as my own childhood.

And you know what? I’m nostalgic about them. For many reasons. First of all, innocence. The 8-bit era, Nintendo, Sega, the arcades, the cartoons, the clothes, the music, al these stuff, were my innocence. I was younger, and everything was Magic to me. For example, i remember the extreme joy and anticipation of waking up early Saturday mornings, to watch an endless stream of my beloved cartoons back then.

Everything was different then (or maybe it wasn’t, but I remember it that way cause I was younger. Makes no difference though to me).

Looking back at that time, I can’t help but wonder what happened to the Magic. Is it me? Have I grown up to be a realist and a cynic? Is it the times that have changed? To be honest, I think it’s a little bit of both. I remember hanging out with my friends and talking about the latest videogames, movies, songs and many other things, and we did all that, with genuine excitement, not the more-or-less, forced hype we get these days about something!

Take a look around you. How many things are so over-hyped? Especially with the Internet and the viral campaigns, the ARGs, one has almost no choice than to be “excited” about something. But the truth is that this “excitement” is not the true, pure, overwhelming feeling that filled us with fiery anticipation. But I digress.

So it’s all about Nostalgia right? But what does this mean? I think that it is a generation’s longing for things that were and it’s lost innocence. For feelings that we had. For the Magic. And of course, this generation had to express its self somehow.

Enter the Internet: Many people are talking, chatting and writing in a nostalgic way about their memories. Whole sites are dedicated to retro-stuff (movies, games, music, clothes, TV e.t.c.) In the last few years, we also have videos with people reviewing or talking about nostalgic things. Youtube was a major factor to that end. I believe that the 2 most prominent video reviewers are James Rolfe, a.k.a AVGN: Angry Video Game Nerd, and Doug Walker, a.k.a The Nostalgia Critic.

Both of them have many fans and both are very good at what they do. But what is it that they actually DO? Entertaining us and making us laugh? Yes. Making clever use of the Internet as a medium? Yes. Promoting themselves and their work? Yes.

But what they really do, is taking us for a ride to the past. Reminding us of things that we might have forgotten.

They say to us: “Hey dudes! We remember the Magic! We remember it, it was totally rad and we wanna remind you too. We wanna share it with you.”

And they do just that! They are people like us, and they have their own fond memories of the past. And they are making us talk to each other about all these things again!

Yes, James and Doug. We remember alright. We watched all these shows, all these cartoons, we played all those games. And you know what? It was awesome man!

Now some may say: “They are Internet celebrities and they make money out of it, and that’s why they do it”. Nope, I don’t think so. You gotta have it, to remind it. They are making this into a sub-culture.  And I don’t see anything wrong about making a living, while they are having fun. The thing is that they are sharing this fun with us.

Hell, they are geeks like us! And no, “geek” is not a demeaning word. These days to be a geek, is to be an intellectual person who has great knowledge of one or more sub-cultures. Since when thinking is bad? 

Have you ever heard of the word “Escapism”? No? You are living in it! We all are! Movies, comics, gaming, hell everything is an attempt to escape and take our minds off some very disturbing and harsh truths! Its humanity’s FUCK YOU to entropy and realism.

So, in a way, we all are geeks! Now, some of us have the need to understand and learn “Escapism” better than others. So a geek is a person that seeks and wants knowledge, at least in my humble opinion.

But I digress again. The Nostalgia Factor is and will be the driving force for many things. It’s only natural to be nostalgic. Don’t be afraid to be. Embrace it and accept it. Reminiscing about the past, makes us think of how to improve the future. And in the end, we all have fond memories from it. And it is a whole sub-culture. It’s a movement. It’s who we are!

Closing this article, I’d like to say 2 things to James, Doug and all the other people who make us nostalgic:

1)      FUCK YOU for making us feel old and making us realize that we are no longer as innocent as we used to be.

2)      But on the other hand… THANK YOU GUYS… Thank you from the depths of my geeky little heart, for reminding us of the Magic. Of taking us back to the past. Of remembering things and telling us about them. For making us laugh. For being geeks just like we are. For taking this nostalgia and turning into a “current”, a culture. Just keep being who you are and do what you do best. We are with you and you know it!