#It's nice when the void shouts back.. unless its in Minecraft
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90frogsinatrenchcoat · 1 year ago
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Minecraft: A short Essay on Nostalgia
I'm writing this rather late at night so excuse any spelling errors (Sorry it's not in MLA format, I'm not back in school yet and need a break)
I often find myself scrolling online late at night, stuck in the rabbit hole of youtube shorts, wondering how in the world I'll be able to function the next morning. Many times, the only thing that puts me to sleep on those restless nights, are playlists of "nostalgic" minecraft music. Why is that? Why is the music considered "nostalgic" in the first place?
Nostalgia is defined as making one think of or long for a familiar or comforting time. When I first received Minecraft back in 2016, I was still a little kid. I was in fourth grade and was longing to know what all the fuss was about. I remember booting it up for the first time, my sister sitting eagerly next to me. We only had one controller, so we had to take turns. In true older sister fashion, I did not share as I was supposed to. Eventually, though, I learned to share the game and enjoy what my sister created. I found that I was a natural at this game, I learned all of the mechanics with ease. My sister was not so lucky, she still struggles to fight in the game to this day. We spent many nights playing Minecraft. My mother worked the night shift at her work, and my father was always working on schoolwork to get his second degree. This left me and my sister to eat our spagettio's and play minecraft all night. I remember one night in particular, playing the "Little Big Planet" Mash up pack for the PS4 Edition of the game. We knew that nothing we did would be saved, but oddly enough we liked it that way. I was usually a creative player and my sister liked survival, though she wasn't very good at it. When we did play on a saved world, we would build massive cities and marveled at our own architectural prowess (Or, more often, the prowess of those we watched on youtube). I still have these old worlds, I visit them from time to time. I used to entice my sister to play with me by telling her I would do whatever she wanted me to in the game. This usually ended badly. Still, there are many old save files titled, "E's the Boss". I was young and simple, a stable built out of pink wool was just fine for me.
As I work with my therapist to uncover certain things about my past, I remember the nights that I would spend playing this game, desperately avoiding my bed time. This game, this simple game comprised of blocks and some funny red powder, had become virtually the only escape I had from the harsh reality that attacked me every time I left that infinite green wasteland that was a superflat world. Long before the aquatic update or the remodeled horses, I was building houses to replicate my own, creating worlds to escape the one that so vehemently tortured me each day. I remember, on the days that we were aloud to have the sound on on the TV, I would always play my favorite music disc. It was the one simply titled C4-18. I have so many memories attached to the music that plays in this game. And the only reason those memories mean so much, is because that is how I coped. Gen-Z, the silent generation, the generation that inherited all of the problems that everyone else was to stubborn to settle, has been left to our own devices to find some way to be happy in a world that revolves around hate. And for many children, including me, that device just so happened to be digital. We found some sliver of hope in the notion that we could still shape out destinies. The thought that we could choose to survive, adventure, or create was so enticing that we put hundreds of hours into buildings and bases, maps and achievements. On the occasions that we couldn't play the game, we would watch others play it. Roleplay channels like Little Kelly and Little Carly, mod channels like Unspeakable and Moose, Pat and Jen, even DanTDM, shaped out childhood. Often these channels exposed us to more mature themes through contact with more mature channels, such as Markiplier, JackSepticEye, and Pewdiepie. Now, we're all grown up. Many of us are going to college, getting jobs, some are even starting families. And so are our heros. Dan is a father, and Felix will be too. Mat has a son and wife, Pat and Jen split up, Jack has Evelyn, Mark has Amy. As we matured, so did our heros. And what does it al come back to?
A simple video game based on mining blocks, and using them to craft different blocks. I guess, what I'm trying to say, is that the Minecraft soundtrack is so nostalgic, because it takes us back to a *bad* time. It reminds us of when everything was going downhill, and all we could do is watch and hope we didn't get hit when crap went flying. Minecraft, for many of us, was our first step into healing, our first step towards maturing, and our first step towards becoming our own people, all be it far to soon. Minecraft music makes us cry, makes us feel this deep nostalgic sadness, because we don't know if we'll be able to find that again. We're grown ups now.. there's no one else to guide us, and video games can only take us so far. How do we know what to trust, what to watch, what to smile and laugh at..
We don't. That's the unfortunate truth of nostalgia. We don't have that wonderful thing, that guide to help us through the tough times. Now we are the ones guiding, building, surviving.. In a weird way, Minecraft prepared an entire generation of struggling kids with a blueprint for life. It's as simple as this:
Start your Journey
Find someplace you like, and settle down there.
Go on adventures, make friends, learn new things, and never go into the dark without a light.
And if it all comes crashing down...
respawn.
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