[antinostalgia]

nostalgia is known to make us feel an array of emotions, good and bad. but in order for there to be nostalgia there has to be memory, memories which are linked to a bitter sweet sentimentality. i’ve noticed that when a nostalgic thought or memory brings out only the bitter of me it’s because it’s presenting me with a sense of nostalgia for a life i never had, only one imagined or observed. the feeling almost breaches on being something to indulge in - but since i’m romanticizing a life that isn’t really mine i decide it’s best to turn away. it seems as though my feelings are almost intentionally misleading me. i like to label these thoughts as antinostalgic, because they’re false and unappreciated.

this phenomenon is best exemplified, in recent cases for me at least, through early 2000’s media. take pop-punk for example: sum 41, blink 182, the offspring, etc. when i hear these songs i’m reminded of my developmental years, but it all represents a world i was never really connected to and cliques i was never a part of. it represents an era which i might think of somewhat fondly, but for no reason other than it was an era i participated in. the nostalgia is rooted in the familiarity and nothing more… because what is represented in the nostalgia isn’t something i’m familiar with; nor is is something i’d want to be a part of. degenerate acts such as milf-thirsting and one-night-stands were heavily propagated through rock music during this time, and that got me thinking of my outcast nature from a whole new angle. you want to be a part of the crowd, you want a group where you have a sense of belonging, but do you really want to do that at the cost of being untrue to yourself and buying into ‘nwozogchumpchowconspiracyworldcatchallphrase’? probably not, but the outcast has always been defined by whether they suit the norms, whether it’s by their conscious choice or not.

some people develop rose tinted glasses, others like me are trained to think back at things and see them even worse. the media i’m most fond of was consumed within the solitude of my personal mp3 player on my walks to school, or obscure directors i binge watched in my room, media that most others wouldn’t be familiar with at my school. media i’d get bullied for opening up about to others, leading me to recoil back into further privacy. someone else i knew at the time had a similar experience, and because of this he eventually made it a point to never listen to any bands or play any videogames if someone else he knew enjoyed them as well, because then they would be in turn less personal to him. even though him and i grew to be friends, he applied this rule to me as well, which made lan parties with him a very bad time…

i think that nostalgia’s a little bit too complex of an emotion for me. maybe antinostalgia is a completely useless term - it probably is, otherwise it would have been founded by now. at the end of the day what we’re nostalgic for has very little to do with the content of the memories themselves, they can all be filtered out and thrown away for all our senses truly care. what is really happening when we experience nostalgia is we’re being reminded of what it feels like to be young, naive, and innocent. and it will never stop as we continue to age, we will continue to miss the past, good times and bad, for no apparently obvious reason. i’m anti-nostalgic.