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Deep inside our brains is an ocean of memories, emotions, and feelings that can be unlocked by the correct application of sights, smells, and sounds. Without warning, the theme song of a childhood cartoon or the smell of that one aisle in the corner store by your house can teleport you to another time. It might feel like magic, but nostalgia is a very real phenomenon.
The “Nostalgia” Instagram account is pretty self-explanatory, showcasing content that should be like a healthy blast from the past, both funny and relatable. So prepare for a little trip in time, upvote the images that unlocked some memories, and share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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Because nostalgia focuses so much on memories of how things used to be, both real and imagined, it’s important to keep track of what is a cherished memory and what is a specific, focused-tested set of concepts put together to evoke a specific memory. As cynical as it might seem, politicians, movements and advertisers are all wise to the idea of nostalgia as a method to manipulate people.
The “return to the good, old days” is a common promise for many politicians, and many products will try to associate themselves with potential consumers’ childhoods. Little reminders of childhood do often come with a comforting wave of emotions, just make sure that you don’t let people hijack it to sell you anything.
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That being said, it is a real and verifiable fact that nostalgia can provide a good amount of comfort through times of sadness and uncertainty. Psychologists believe that in certain “doses,” it’s actually pretty important to our mental health. Think of it this way, when current circumstances don’t provide joy, your brain has this nifty little ability to just reach into the past and scoop up things that made you happy before. There might be diminishing returns, but hey, it’s a start.
To maintain the metaphor of nostalgia-as-medication, it is possible to “take” too much. After all, if you feel the past was too good, you might end up longing just to return instead of focusing on the present. The Germans, as always, have a term for this, called “Sehnsucht,” which you can now use as a complicated and pretentious way to talk about longing, desire, yearning, and craving.
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Canadian Cobra Chickens 1 year ago
I'm convinced that if you didn't, you didn't have a childhood. Change my mind.
The origin of “Sehnsucht” (capitalized because the Germans capitalize every noun) is “suffering,” which is ultimately what someone would probably feel if they have trapped themselves in the thought that things will never be as good as they used to be. However, some psychologists believe that over time, this emotion can help a person start to develop and plan out the steps to actually improve things.
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Lady Snowfall 1 year ago
Ah yes, the shin shredders. If your foot slipped off of one of those puppies, it was immediate blood and pain and bandaids and getting your leg doused in hydrogen peroxide and triple bac.
Once you realize the potential of tapping into the past to draft people’s emotions, you might start to see how it’s used everywhere. You might notice that the Instagram logo is, in fact, a drawing of a Polaroid, despite the fact that 99% of the userbase are probably using a smartphone. But somehow, an old camera seems more special and emotional than the many, smaller and often more powerful cameras we carry in our pockets every day.
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And speaking of social media, you have probably seen how, for example, Meta products like Facebook and the aforementioned Instagram have “memory” functions that will randomly show you images from the past, normally on their one-year anniversary. This could of course be a bit misguided, as many people have documented randomly getting images from an illness or a breakup a year ago.
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Heleen the Feline Panda 1 year ago
I still do this when I forget to bring along my cellphone to the toilet 😬
Other companies do their best to tap into this feeling as well. The Nokia 3310 phone was legendary for a variety of reasons, but it seems its reputation for being indestructible goes beyond the physical, as the company relaunched it in 2017. The phone seems like stone-age technology compared to any random smartphone from the last few years, but people do want to relive that two-tone snake game and the feeling of pressing some buttons.
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Tuesday's child 1 year ago
Not a 90s kid, but I still had to learn this. I barely know my times tabels but I do know how to play 'hot cross buns' on the recorder 😁
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Grudge-holding Treefrog 1 year ago
The metal one at my elementary school had a 2 foot drop at the end. It was very dangerous, but so much fun! (Very few burns because of catholic school dress code)
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Upstaged75 1 year ago
Those plastic jugs of brightly colored sugar water! I never saw them in anyone's home - they only showed up at school or parties.
“Stranger Things” is another case-in-point, where much of the appeal is an idealized image of the 80s, alongside many of the tropes and cliches of 80s children's movies, such as the iconic “ET.” The show was a brilliant move by Netflix, as it managed to both attract gen x viewers who wanted to relive a past era while simultaneously creating nostalgia among younger viewers, a sort of self-perpetuating false memory of the past.
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Ken Beattie 1 year ago
Pretty sure my first mobile I had a certain number of free minutes talk and a certain number of free texts. It's why we evolved texting over talking, because we'd save the talk minutes for really important stuff and text the rest.
jon gilbertson 1 year ago
And th onver ations dur ad eather. And the conversations during bad weather.
Brian Droste 1 year ago
Who remembers when you had a phone line in the house and the phone companies had a set fee for local calls and charged you for long distant calls during prime hours. But if you called after a certain time, I believe in my area it was after 11 pm, the rate would drop.
TonyTee 1 year ago
I remember me and my folks having those phones too, anybody remembers the old Assurance Wireless cell? Or the T-Mobile Sidekick
Vasana Phong 1 year ago
Haha, my husband had that small assurance phone( still have it in basement as a memory item) he liked hot it fit in his pocket so never upgraded to another phone
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Brady Rhoads 1 year ago (edited)
Haha. Yes. Call me when my phone is free. Paying for texts got a lot of people in trouble.
Cat Conatser 1 year ago
And when Sprint came out with 7pm nights & weekends then if your friends had Sprint it was free anytime!
Channo Sagara 1 year ago
Not with that phone, though... Usually on home phone when my parents still need to make work calls.
Beck 1 year ago
To me the 90s were still using payphones and saying "heyitsmeimatthemallillcalllater" instead of saying my name during a collect call and hanging up. I didn't get caller id until about sophomore or junior year (1995/1996) so I was still able to get away with lying about where I was calling from. My boyfriend and and I were not at the mall🤣
Curtis Etcho 1 year ago
Grandfathered in at Verizon so I still say that since I have to still share my 1500 mins.
HalcyonVampire 1 year ago
Omg and having to pay for minutes.. and panicking if the phone accidentally went to the internet
SCP 4666 1 year ago
Who remembers hitting the internet button and being stuck in debt forever?
Curtis Etcho 1 year ago
There was a way to change some internal setting s so internet would use your minutes instead. I thought I was a genius at the time haha
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HungryPanda 1 year ago
This brings me back. Talking to crushes... you hang up, no you hang up 🤢
Dianellian 1 year ago
Ring twice, hang up and I’ll call you back. Thank you Friends with company phones.
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Some specialists have started to develop a concept of “forestalgia,” which is a sort of hopeful belief that in some imagined future, many things will be better. While an idealized future has existed for centuries, the advent of science fiction has created multiple generations who actively think about what the next few decades will bring.
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Audra Sisler 1 year ago
I was ALWAYS taking pictures in high school with camera like this! Such good times! 🥺
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Almarako94 1 year ago
I loved how the series got better with every episode. Not like most shows today
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ƒιѕн 1 year ago
Sugar, spice, and everything nice These were the ingredients chosen To create the perfect little girl But Professor Utonium accidentally Added an extra ingredient to the concoction-- Chemical X Thus, The Powerpuff Girls were born Using their ultra-super powers Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup Have dedicated their lives to fighting crime And the forces of evil!
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What do you think ?
TheReader19 1 year ago
I'm going to buy BGT Malakai Bayho's new CD tomorrow; still love CD's and records. Tapes are to much faff.
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TheReader19 1 year ago
Gen X from UK here could relate to a lot of that stuff; the rest reminded me of my kids childhood. Ps 1980 was 25 years ago OKAY
Janet Howe 1 year ago
I haven't had this much fun reading BP in a long time. Laughed my butt off at the comments. This nostalgia is great stuff! After a while, I get sick of all the retaliation, boo-hoo and in-law stories.
the quickening 1 year ago (edited)
Fanta or Jaffa (orange soda) for Finns. ✌️
Load More Replies... censorshipsucks 1 year ago
I knew most of these (South Africa). We had (have) a lot of american cultural influence.
Eva 1 year ago
I'm a late ish gen z kid and I understand a majority of this stuff, half of it because I went to a poorish, small, private Catholic school for 2-5, now 6-12 I'm in a richer public school, which was a culture shock on its own from the shared Chromebooks and the computer lab to having our own frickin frackin MacBooks.
Broncordelia 1 year ago
I am not a 90s kid, I was born in 2001 but I still related to a bunch of these
Michelle M 1 year ago
At the end of the thread, you’ll find a very tiny “Note: this post originally had 137 images blah blah blah.” Click on the 137 and that’s it. It’s in every shortened post. Hope this gets upvoted so that many people can see it.
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Michelle McCarson 1 year ago
This was one of the best meme feeds I have seen in a very long time. This made me very very happy although making me feel quite old. I will be sharing most of these photos
StitchIsCuteAndFluffy 1 year ago
There’s an Alec Benjamin song, called 1994 (when he was born), that describes some of these things! (Also the early 2000s)
the quickening 1 year ago
So 90s is now what 80s was when I was growing up; the cool period of time children wished they'd been born in. lmao
William Neal 1 year ago
HA! I recall ACTUALLY threading the 16 mm Birns and Sawyer projectors in grade school. Absolutely LOVED it. (No, I wasn't a teacher's pet otherwise.) But am ever indebted and grateful for being able to do this.
Moosy Girl 1 year ago
They should make a „57 glorious 30’s memes that you might be too young for” list.
TheReader19 1 year ago
I'm going to buy BGT Malakai Bayho's new CD tomorrow; still love CD's and records. Tapes are to much faff.
Load More Replies... TheReader19 1 year ago
Gen X from UK here could relate to a lot of that stuff; the rest reminded me of my kids childhood. Ps 1980 was 25 years ago OKAY
Janet Howe 1 year ago
I haven't had this much fun reading BP in a long time. Laughed my butt off at the comments. This nostalgia is great stuff! After a while, I get sick of all the retaliation, boo-hoo and in-law stories.
the quickening 1 year ago (edited)
Fanta or Jaffa (orange soda) for Finns. ✌️
Load More Replies... censorshipsucks 1 year ago
I knew most of these (South Africa). We had (have) a lot of american cultural influence.
Eva 1 year ago
I'm a late ish gen z kid and I understand a majority of this stuff, half of it because I went to a poorish, small, private Catholic school for 2-5, now 6-12 I'm in a richer public school, which was a culture shock on its own from the shared Chromebooks and the computer lab to having our own frickin frackin MacBooks.
Broncordelia 1 year ago
I am not a 90s kid, I was born in 2001 but I still related to a bunch of these
Michelle M 1 year ago
At the end of the thread, you’ll find a very tiny “Note: this post originally had 137 images blah blah blah.” Click on the 137 and that’s it. It’s in every shortened post. Hope this gets upvoted so that many people can see it.
Load More Replies... Michelle McCarson 1 year ago
This was one of the best meme feeds I have seen in a very long time. This made me very very happy although making me feel quite old. I will be sharing most of these photos
StitchIsCuteAndFluffy 1 year ago
There’s an Alec Benjamin song, called 1994 (when he was born), that describes some of these things! (Also the early 2000s)
the quickening 1 year ago
So 90s is now what 80s was when I was growing up; the cool period of time children wished they'd been born in. lmao
William Neal 1 year ago
HA! I recall ACTUALLY threading the 16 mm Birns and Sawyer projectors in grade school. Absolutely LOVED it. (No, I wasn't a teacher's pet otherwise.) But am ever indebted and grateful for being able to do this.
Moosy Girl 1 year ago
They should make a „57 glorious 30’s memes that you might be too young for” list.
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