As of the writing of this article, I am freshly 24 years old. In the grand scheme of things, that’s still young, but I can’t help but feel like I’m totally out of the loop. I’m no longer part of the group making things cool, but since I’m not old enough to be totally wrapped up in my career/family/etc, I’m painfully aware of how quickly culture is progressing. And one of the most jarring parts of this is being a bystander to the latest wave of nostalgia: the mid-2000s.
This isn’t my first run-in with rampant nostalgia. When I was a kid (which feels like about ten minutes ago), the 90s were all that. And though I wasn’t old enough yet to articulate my pop cultural musings, something about the glorification of a bygone era confused me. Particularly the “90s kids” who were born in ‘95 and couldn’t tell a Tamagotchi from a Giga Pet. And of course, companies like Hot Topic who cashed in on the throwback trend by marketing Nirvana t-shirts to every edgy teen who wanted to telegraph their “unique” taste in music.
“Wow, Lyle,” some of you may be thinking. “Pretty sure this is not your gate to keep. Also, isn’t there a Nirvana t-shirt hanging in your closet at this very moment?”
First of all, stop going through my closet. And second of all, yes: I am proud to say that my stances on MANY issues have evolved since I was still in the single digits. My annoyance with 90s kids has diminished greatly, and not just because of my own appreciation of the decade and its music. The way I see it now, if someone wants to rep old-school band merch for the aesthetic, who is it hurting? One of two things will happen: they’ll wear the shirt without a second thought, and the world will continue to turn as it always has, or they’ll be intrigued enough by the design that they’ll check out the music. Either way the band gets a little free publicity and a little royalty revenue. And yeah, cool guy, I get it. We all hate posers. But these are kids we’re talking about! Let ‘em figure it out on their own time.
It’s harder to maintain that happy-go-lucky attitude with this round of 00s nostalgia. And that’s because for the first time, I was around for the era being romanticized. I remember hearing those bands being spoofed in viral TikToks on the radio. So every time I see a reference to something from my childhood, the urge to gatekeep rears its ugly head. Even when I had no appreciation for (or awareness of) said thing at the time.
I promise, I’m doing my best to fight that urge. It’s easy to look down from my lofty late-millennial tower and lord my four to zero years of seniority (depending on how you define generations) over a legion of teenagers engaging with culture in greater depth than I ever did, just as a defense mechanism against the feeling of aging out of the conversation.
Instead, I’d rather appreciate the net benefit of nostalgia. It’s fun to see the music I have my own soft spot for getting attention from a new generation of fans. It’s affirming to know that the music that influenced my life-long passion for the art form hasn’t been cast away as just another product of its time. And most of all, it’s cool to see how the music of the 2000s has informed the musical trends of today.
So if you’re as cynical as I am, I encourage you to put aside your urge to gate-keep and embrace the nostalgia. Maybe even cash in on it yourself! I hear blogging is a good place to start.
Lyle B.
