Old Videos and the Toxicity of Nostalgia 

As a kid, I remember hating how adults always said "back in my days..." and immediately hated anything my generation enjoyed. Now as an older teen, I've realized that I have adopted the mindset that I always hated as a kid.

If we use that b-roll footage and add a news headline that's similar to big news events in the 00s like store layoffs or shopping after 9/11 then you strip of that "cozy/comfort" feeling and are forced to remember why the past isn't as good as it really seemed. Thank you for making this video as I was personally getting more and more irritated by the "past good present bad" sentiment I'm seeing everywhere.

It also prevents a certain creativity that can spark with reminiscence if you're too focused on the negative aspect that "it could never be this good again" then you lose out on actually making that change.

I really apreciate this way of thinking about nostalgia, the aesthetics of the past, rememberance... Its nice to reminisce on a personal past, but it's becoming also a hijackable part of our minds, with all the attention economy and content platforms, so there is a new blurry line to divide personal nostalgia over artificial images the machine is trying to sell. Also, I would assume there's always been a marketable nostalgia being sold to previous generations, though I wouldn't have experienced that before. I'm just extrapolating this phenomenon and trying to imagine this has happened before to our parents, maybe, in some way

Everyone needs to watch the Rocko’s Modern Life special. It’s a great message about being in the now and appreciating the past and present at the same time.

In my opinion, one big aspect of toxicity of nostalgia, is that many people (especially older), remember things wrong. A lot of it had to do with the fact that as kids and teens (epseically pre-2000s), we were oblivious to the world around us (today thats not so much the deal due to social media). An example is a much older (white) friend of mine complains about how BLM is causing hatred towards the police and that such issues never existed before... forgetting completely about the LA riots of the 90s and the Detriot and Watts Riots of the 60s.

he mad because day by day nothing changes but when you look back it all different

I keep finding those videos of people hating on new stuff

Also to add to the people saying that workers are more rude. They thing is when you're like five or seven you don't really think about what they have to put up with for eight hours or so. Not being paid more than minimum, rude costumers (sometimes its the same costumers).

Well...Glad that I know the simpler word for toxic nostalgia now, because I have a movie idea that has a subtle but noticeable discussion on Declinism. I call it "Dusk of Yesterday, Dawn of Tomorrow" a fictional story of course.

Less than 30 minutes subscribers. This is when I was most happy as a child.

Such a good video about nostalgia! Thanks for that, dude. Nostalgia is a big topic since some time for me (idk how long, but too long) and I am aware that it took over my daily life. Such a shame! We have so much beauty around us and in our mind is just scene after scene playing all over again from years ago. It made me really sad, to know that I and a lot of people spend our time in the past and trying to numb ourselves with tiktok and instagram and those old videos to escape the reality. And yes, the crisis around us (socially, climate, etc) and the technology it´s just too much for us. We are after all humans, right? We can do it no matter what. Those memories can live in our hearts while we are in the reality (sounds cheesy but it´s true). Consent love and hugs to you all

With nostalgia for the 2000s, people really forget that the decade was really quite a disaster. Bookended by 9/11 and a global recession, with coutless wars inbetween it wasnt a very good time for a lot of people. Kids just didnt have to deal with those problems. Of course youre going to look back fondly on a time when you could play with toys all day and have everything bought for you. As for nostalgia for the 80s, i recently asked my parents whether they'd rather live in the 80s or now. They both said "NOW!" the 80s were cool, but it certainly wasnt the utopia we seem to remember it to be.

Great video dude, really informative.

remember kiddos, corporations are chomping at the bit to sell your own childhood back to you!

Although I'm about 2 months late to this video, after watching I felt like I really needed it. I've entered a similar slump in my life about reminiscing about the past so this really helped me open up a different perspective on things. Great and really underrated video dude ^^

as someone who's been plagued on and off by nightmares related to nostalgia and has now a general phobia of it mood

Love the video Adrian 🤩

I have similar feeling before watching this video.thank you for the aspect you shared about nostalgia.by the way your voice is suitable for the video , i feel calm after watched it👍 (I am not a native speaker , sorry for any imprecision in this comment)

This is such a great video

This is an awesome video man, good shit.

The king has posted 👑

Such a nice video :)

MY BOY ADRIAN DROPPED A VIDEO ESSAY, LETS GO

Oh this one's provocative as someone who loves 2000s nostalgia especially.

underrated vid

Trust me, in a few decades there are gonna be people saying, "I hate the 2050's, I wish I was back in 2023."

I always see so many people my age romanticize 2016 like if it was some perfect year. It's quite funny now that I think of it.

Any time i bring up the fact that the very people whining about their childhood was actually better than what kids today have, their vsey parents said "your childhood is bad and MINE was actually the good one" like you daid. The best times are when you, as an individual were young. These cry babies seem to refuse to listen though.

i'm glad you're back man :)

Am I dreaming or did the goat drop a video after over a year of no uploads?

The times the of 50s' '60 70s 80s, 90s, and early 2000s were better in my opinion because of the people yes the people. See people use to be cool and chill with most people use to be able to live with each other with out being constantly being at each other necks for stuff like who is more of a victim of white privilege and male privilege is females or literally any race under son because for some reason adults some how believe these crazy things not only that but they can not even put their differences a side and that is not cool or chill. heck it would seem to then most people want to be left alone. the perversive type people just want to not chill and put there differences a side something that was done back then. I think lift is to blame stoking the flames between people because to them white man are the devil for some reason.

I understand where you're coming from but it's... Pretty undeniable that as a general rule, life is worse now for most people (at least in America) than it would have been back in the 80s. I'm 24 and I have a lot of nostalgia for the early 2010s, but I recognize that even then, life wasn't as good for me as it was for the people that came before me. Nobody is saying that life was ever perfect, but it absolutely used to be better. Boiling down the belief that life as a whole used to be better to just "nostalgia" or "declinism" is extremely unhelpful. Because yes, mental health in America IS declining, and that alone ought to say something about our quality of life.

Its sad that you might be giving up youtube right after I found your channel, I really love your content. But I understand if its just not what you want to do anymore. Best of luck with whatever you do

dude im go do smth idk wut but its smth i havent done

KING KRULE MENTIONED RAHHHHHH 👏

i really dont think that we hate how stuff is today, but we loved stuff as it was. i think its because we were newer to this world and we were experiencing stuff for the first time and that gave us some sort of thrill. but whereas nowadays, we’re doing the thing that gave us a sense of excitement on a daily basis and it has became more boring and bland as time passes by.

My own theory of why nostalgia is so potent these days is, a certain amount of nostalgia is unavoidable. Hundreds of years ago, we would be nostalgic towards traditionalism, which is relatively healthier than what we have today: nostalgia for trends and currents caused by constantly changing public opinion. My guess is that nostalgia formed some sort of glue for tradition and culture. Unfortunately a lot of us have latched on to IPs, marketing, and things our capitalistic lifestyle told us were important but have died out. Capitalism feeds on this, and props up zombies of nostalgia with old IPs that just won't die, and even worse, doomer-style nostalgia where you sit in a miasma, trying to find the most nostalgia-inducing vapor-laced videos or music to binge with stylishly depressive art or music created from old cartoons and commercials. Nostalgia itself has become a commodity. People walking in dead malls, etc. Part of this is also Gen Z feeding into this as well. I think a lot of them really feel like they are born in a 'graveyard' of media and are just riffing on these old IPs. Unfortunately, I think it creates a weird symbiosis between the old generations reminiscing and the newer ones creating 'dead art'. One side is stuck in nostalgia, while the other keeps resurrecting it out of morbid curiosity.