Katharina Niemeyer, a professor at the School of Media and director of the research centre on cultures, arts and societies at the University of Quebec in Montreal, co-directed the work. Contemporary Nostalgia. Media, Cultures and Technologies. (Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2021), believes that the past, when not reduced to an emotional good, can sow the present.
It seems that nostalgia is now viewed positively, whereas historically this has not always been the case. How can we describe this development?
In fact, nostalgia seems to have a better reputation these days. It was psychology studies in the early 2000s that highlighted that it can be beneficial when we are feeling sad, lonely or grieving.
However, it is important to note that nostalgia can also lead to a slippage, especially at the political level, where the emphasis on a single idealization of the past can ossify the present and the future. Much research shows that nostalgia can open up new perspectives on the past, it can be reflexive and forward-looking. There is a difference between wanting to restore the past as it seems to have been and mobilizing elements of the past for a better present and future, while avoiding falling into unnuanced idealization.
The return of the Walkman Like Polaroid, motifs from the past are now present everywhere in a fetishized form. How can we understand this apparent omnipresence of nostalgia in our ultra-connected lives?
The return of old technologies cannot be explained by a single movement. On the one hand, there is what we call technostalgia: it designates the desire to rediscover old technologies, analogue or digital, to find out how they work. And on the other hand, the need to experience or relive the social moments associated with it: spinning a record, fiddling with VHS tapes. That said, it is not always nostalgia that is at the root of this craze: we must not forget that it can be a need to slow down or disconnect.
Do multiple crises act as a nostalgic accelerator?
In fact, the feeling of nostalgia arises more in times of crisis, as was the case during the Covid-19 pandemic, or of progress, in the form of resistance to change. Everything works like a real engine.
As for the return of certain fads, this is not new in history: nostalgia is cyclical, but there is more visibility for “the past”, particularly since the arrival of Web 2.0. So you can quickly feel nostalgia accelerating. Nostalgic marketing is not new either, but a nostalgic discourse or aesthetic (be it an advertising video, a retro TV series or even a political campaign) does not automatically mean that consumers or viewers feel nostalgic.
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