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How will this nostalgia help or hinder us, specifically 90′s kids, going forward?

It’s no secret that people of all generations are nostalgic for simpler times, especially times with less or no technology. I think this will affect our generation as we get older. Technology has already advanced at an extremely fast pace in our lifetime. And, it is going to be exponential going forward. As we age, we are going to be very nostalgic for simpler technology. We will be nostalgic for the grainy, pixelated cartoons we watched over and over in our childhood. 

Due to this, we will most likely continue to watch certain episodes or cartoons in our adult life. And, just like the parents of today, we will force our nostalgia onto our children. They will have to sit through the cartoons, movies, and TV shows that we watched just like I had to sit through Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Andy Griffith almost weekly. 

However, there is one setback to this. Most of the cartoons that 90′s kids watched were on cable TV. In today’s world, cable TV is quickly falling to the background. Soon it might disappear. Most viewings are now on streaming networks such as Netflix and Hulu. And these streaming devices don’t have every cartoon that our nostalgia pulls on. A lot of the newer TV shows on said devices are just that, newer. They are geared towards a specific audience. Unlike the old cartoons, that are more generalized and family fun, Netflix Originals - for example - are made with a certain type of person in mind. 

This is something that will harshly affect our generation’s nostalgia. We grew up with “family TV time,” much like the generations before us. The whole family would tune into specific shows on certain mornings or nights of the week. Because of streaming, we have a chance to lose this experience. 

Now, this all sounds very cynical and drab. It might be. However, there are positives. The future always holds something, we just don’t know what. We can’t let our nostalgia hold us too far in the past or we will lose the experiences ahead of us. 

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And for all the readers out there who aren’t as familiar with the 90′s, I will give a little context to the issue.

The 90′s as a decade was characterized culturally by the rise of alternative media. Many movements occurred such as grunge, hip hop, and the rave scene. These movements spread throughout the world thanks to the new technology of the era such as the invention of the World Wide Web. The Internet was technically formed in 1983. However, it was adopted into society during the 1990′s as a more recognizable form of media. 

Also, the quality of television improved greatly. This allowed for the digital age to get fully underway. Thus, providing our generation along with others access to great shows and cartoons. 

However, as I mentioned briefly in an earlier post, nostalgia is linked to bittersweet emotions - with emphasis on the sweet. This is because we tend to ignore the harsher parts of our memories to remember the good. This is clearly outlined in the New York Times article from 2015 titled “The Best Decade Ever? The 1990s, Obviously.” 

“Over the last half century, we Americans have come to create and consume automatically and continuously a kind of recent-past wistfulness. But what about the 1990s? Nostalgia for the era in which you were young is almost inevitable, so people born between 1970 and 1990 feel a natural fetishistic fondness for that decade. But even for the rest of us, the ’90s provoke a unique species of recherche du temps perdu, not mere bittersweet reveling in the passage of time. No, looking back at the final 10 years of the 20th century is grounds for genuine mourning: It was simply the happiest decade of our American lifetimes.���

The article goes on to highlight the amazing things that happened within the decade such as the growth of average household income, the federal budget surplus, the dismantling of the South African apartheid, and the start of the Harry Potter novels. 

This is outright nostalgia for a specific decade. However, the article does touch on our ignorance when nostalgia is involved. “Were there real problems in the ’90s? Of course. But they weren’t obvious, so ... we were blissfully ignorant!”

The article continues by stating how Americans, because we are so nostalgic for the era, ignore issues such as global warming, the precursor for the 2008 Wall Street Crash, the struggles occurring in Rwanda at the time, and so on. 

Nostalgia tends to blind people from the unhappy times in the past. All we want to remember of the 1990′s is the great TV shows, the Internet, and Bill Clinton’s famous quote - “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

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However, this recycling of nostalgia is not always a healthy habit. There is no harm in reflecting on the past. It may cause a few bittersweet emotions - with a little bit more emphasis on the sweet. But, reminiscing isn’t harmful. It is when the past is attempted to be recreated that things get a little gray. 

Restorative nostalgia isn’t twinkly memories floating through a perfect past just waiting to be remembered. It is the strained attempt to reconstruct something that cannot be rebuilt. Nick Carraway states in The Great Gatsby, “You can’t repeat the past.” And this is true. Trying to repeat, or recreate, the past leads to an unhealthy longing for a previous time. 

So as long as 90′s kids continue to re-watch their cartoons just because it makes them feel warm inside or to avoid the stressful responsibilities of adulthood, everything will work out fine. It is when we forget about the future and move back into our parents’ house that you might start to worry. 

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But, what is a collective generational sense of nostalgia?

It relates very closely to collective memory. Collective memory is the shared knowledge or information within memories between two or more people. And for this specific project, the collective memory of SpongeBob and the 90′s is shared among an entire generation. 

According to Diana Mendes of ISCTE Business School in Lisbon, our collective nostalgia is generated through mass media. Even further representing the effect cartoons had over 90′s kids’ childhood.

“The twentieth century began with utopia and ended with nostalgia. Optimistic belief in the future became outmoded, while nostalgia, for better or worse, never went out of fashion, remaining uncannily contemporary.” - Svetlana Boym

This quote was used by Mendes in her paper Nostalgia: “in second hand”: Memories mediated by the media in Millennium generation. This paper is where she discusses the effect of mass media on our culture. It continues on with evidence that provides justification for nostalgia being shaped in our formative years. And, each age group experiences that formative nostalgia as a shared one. In addition to this, we grew up in a very technologically friendly environment which provides us an outlet to share our nostalgia through mass media such as cartoons. 

We are able to recycle our nostalgia because we can continue to watch it over and over again. 

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& how does all of this tie back to nostalgia?

I think it is easy to draw the conclusion on this one.

Nostalgia as defined earlier is simply this: a wistful affection or longing for the past. Many of the interviewees throughout my research project identified with this term nostalgia. As mentioned before, some individuals stated that their era is better than any other, especially the cartoons within. They truly believe that the cartoons today are lesser than the cartoons of then. Many still carry this affection for their era, nine out of the twelve to be exact. And, they continue to live out their nostalgic emotions through watching their favorite childhood cartoons.

Every single answer I received on the first question I asked, “What are your favorite memories from your childhood?” was answered with some form of watching cartoons. “Laying on the floor watching TV with my brother,” “Traveling. The cartoons I watched really helped build my sense of adventure,” “Watching cartoons at my grandparent’s,” “Watching Boomerang with my sister,” “Watching TV with my dad late at night while we ate huge bowls of ice cream,” and so on. 

It seems as if the childhood all of these individuals experienced, and myself included, was based around cartoons.

So, in order to find if this was a shared cultural childhood, I probed into the cartoon specifics.

One of the many questions I asked each interviewee was “What were your favorite cartoons of all time?” Ed, Edd, & Eddy, Scooby Doo, PowerPuff Girls, Looney Tunes, Samurai Jack, Teen Titans, The Fairly OddParents, Phineas & Ferb, Hey Arnold, Little Bill, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Sesame Street. As you can tell I received a variety of answers. However, there was one cartoon that eleven out of the twelve candidates responded with.

SpongeBob SquarePants.

And very specific emotions were tied to this cartoon. 

Evan Halsey explained his nostalgia as a routine. “I would wake up every single morning at 7:20 so I could watch SpongeBob at 7:30. There were no worries attached. I had no responsibility. It definitely relates back to a sense of nostalgia. I don’t actively want to go back, but I miss it at times.” Another individual, not to be named, stated that she still enjoys watching the cartoons as an adult, specifically SpongeBob. Kian McIntosh very exactly quoted a SpongeBob episode when he was asked about his memories of his favorite cartoons. And yet another individual, Charlotte Reilly, gave specific examples of the yellow, porous cartoon character. She also explained how she would watch the show every Saturday morning with her brother. 

Many of the other interviewees claimed that they still watch this cartoon in their adult life. Others also explained that the emotions attached were ones of security and happiness. 

This all seems to check out as a very much shared experience with the 90′s kid era. I can verify this because this also rings true for myself. I still watch SpongeBob today. I can still quote almost every single episode. And, it one hundred percent takes me back to my childhood.

So through my time spent researching this classic phrase, I have come to realize its connection to a very collective generational sense of nostalgia. 

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What does the phrase 90′s kid mean?

Urban Dictionary defines this expression as follows: 

Someone stuck in the 90′s, a few of them not being from the 90′s but into its shows and culture. Most 90′s kids did grow up in the decade but don't realize half the stuff they 'remember' is stuff kids from the 2000′s also remember. They're stuck in a decade and won't let go of it, for better or worst. Most 90′s kids say everything in the 2000′s sucks because it wasn't from their generation, and most of the time they haven't even watched said shows that 'suck' without giving any backup to why except it not being from their decade.

Now, this definition is slightly offensive to someone who claims themselves to be a 90′s kid. I have a feeling that the author of this urban classification of the phrase was not a child from this decade. 

In order to find the most accurate meaning behind the iconic term, I took matters into my hands by interviewing twelve individuals that were born in the 90′s. Some might say that being born between 1990 and 1999 is too late to consider yourself a 90′s kid, but almost all interviewees identified with the well-known phrase.

Super soakers, cargo shorts, Smackers lip gloss, cheesy commercials, MTV, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon: these are just a few of the things that the people I interviewed related to 90′s kids and culture. And, ten out of the twelve connected or associated themselves with this era. 

Even though the aforementioned definition has a slightly negative connotation, some of the answers I received did endorse certain aspects. No one admitted to being “stuck in the 90′s,” however, a few interviewees mentioned how the culture they grew up in was ‘better’ than today. 

Cynthia Aspegren, just one of the people throughout the interviewing process, stated that she was born “during a cool time.” Another individual, Abby Magdanz, explained it as “I’m so thankful I was born in that decade, because I feel bad for all the children who missed out on those cartoons and all the things before technology took over like iPads. It was probably the most badass decade to be born in.” And yet another, Grant Nanninga, claimed “I think of kids who grew up watching good TV while the kids nowadays watch awful cartoons.”

Of the individuals who related to the culture in this decade, many assumed it to be better than all the rest. 

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nos·tal·gia

noun

a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.