Resist nostalgia

Maybe in our culture nostalgia is a real problem for building the future. We tend to idealize the 80s or the 90s for example and have some kind of romantic fascination with the past. And probably, in the future we’ll idealize today. Maybe this is a symptom showing how much we have trouble appreciating what is in front of us. But we have everything today: we can easily connect with each other and have conversations with anybody, available to listen. We can access all the cultures of the world for free to build ourselves as individuals. We basically have all the necessary tools for building new projects. So why coming back to the past? Why do we sometimes have this feeling of nostalgia?

Ian Bogost is wondering why we don’t have the same level of fascination of the objects of today as the objects of the 70s or the 80s. Isn’t the personal computer an amazing tool? The internet box or the game console, motivating you for your fitness is actually really important for us and beautiful. Or your smartphone with all the apps that are helping you daily getting better could be a tool as important as the light bulb or the printer.