Not in defence of Nostalgia - Field of View

Warning Politics

So as part of re-uploading all and remastering all the old episodes of his Big Picture series Bob Chipman remastered and put out a piece in defence of nostalgia.

While I agree to an extent with the video. I'm doing this series of blogs I'm calling Field of View, that I will admit is inspired by Bob's Big Picture series, I thought I'd offer a different view and expand the discussion to show more about the topic.

Bob points out how Nostalgia has been successful and profitable for big companies and how Nostalgia is fine as a lot of the stuff brought back up. Then veers into talking about nostalgic attitudes of some fictional past, which again yeh can be harmful.

What Bob doesn't talk about and is becoming increasingly apparent is how Nostalgia has impacted the internet. I talked about the issue with algorithms in a previous piece, but yeh part of the problem with nostalgia is algorithms that mean statistically it's more profitable to talk about some well established nostalgia property that has name recognition than some strange new one. This actually reinforces said nostalgic properties popularity and the perception of it, but it also means it's actually seen as less of a reason to cover weird new smaller things or new properties that aren't already established. I mean it's one of the reasons I covered Carnival Row here because there was so little buzz about it. It's one of the reasons I talked about Killjoys here too. They're shows I like and they have had barely anyone really talking about them. This does cause stagnation and worse the question has to be if we don't have new properties showing up now what the hell will we be seeing remade as dark gritty reboots in the future other than maybe Steven Universe?

I wanted to try my hand at a blood spattered looking logo this was the result.

However stagnation and burring newer properties isn't the only problem with Nostlagia now. Nostalgia has been seen as a beacon for people to go to for ideological reasons, rather than reasons of genuine enjoyment or love of them. Now nostalgia and older properties are seen as a target for activists to go after because they often come with a built in audience, meaning they can actually more easily push any message they want to a larger audience more easily. OR they can just try to trash said older properties out of spite just because they dislike it or dislike what they perceive as the message from it. They'd rather be able to say they controlled it and burned part of the established culture to the ground to prove some stupid point than actually allow the property to keep standing. It's why there are constant calls by people who seem to be activists to make established characters or franchises what they want. I mean there was the radical feminist who wanted them to change James Bond from a male secret agent to a lesbian activist.

I will admit that was likely only somewhat serious and an attempt to get attention but that's also part of it. They can and will find a popular franchise and attach their nonsense to that rather than supporting and promoting what they claim to want. I mean why support Atomic Blonde, Hanna, Anna, Maria, Salt, or a Solo Kingsman member Roxy film when you can just go after the big name that is James Bond? The approach of why should they have to build a stage when in their mind they are owed control over an existing one as some imagined recompense for how the world was in the past when many nostalgia properties were built.

Placing such importance on nostalgic properties you love makes it easy for people to turn round and use them against you and even in modern culture it's quite easy to pretend to be a long fan of something and only end up being exposed when some-one who knows what they're talking about more spots how badly you screwed up. That is unless you make yourself out as a giant moron to begin with so obvious everyone calls you out.

Even then there will no doubt be cries of Gatekeeping from people because apparently it's elitist in fandoms to correct people. Which again is another tactic because people trying to push a message in said fandoms want the perceived authority of being long time fans and won't admit to being new to the fandom, hence any challenge or attempt to call out or even point out the persons mistakes and lies or misrepresentations eventually leads to cries of toxicity in the fandoms. I mean where have we heard some-one who was shown to have no knowledge of a medium really suddenly switch to claiming to be an expert on it?

I'm not saying throw away the past as some companies doing remakes and reboots do only to then realise why people liked said properties or what their modern properties are missing. I am however saying it's important not to get trapped by nostalgia and falling into the trap of having something become a "Lifestyle" brand for you. Not only does that mean companies will try to milk money from you for it but big nostalgic properties tend to have become giant magnets for both activist types or just those who wish to burn said properties down just because they can or out of spite. Try to branch out and find new properties you enjoy because at least then you aren't going to help make it easy for people to target properties as part of their stupid culture war where IP and franchises are just land for them to occupy and exploit for their own ends.