I swear to god I spent ten minutes poking around to make sure this wasn't some kind of hoax—a story written in the last ten years, falsely attributed to Forster, and given a spurious paper trail by Wikipedia vandals. The ghost of H.G. Wells *wishes* he wrote anything so prescient.
Like many from our generation I went through this cycle of bringing the past forward into the digital world.
I will always remember my roommate and I, first-year university, downloading the entire NES rom library from a warez site (oh yeah, warez baby! ). Neither of us had touched a NES since we were kids and were currently running daily marathon sessions of Counter Strike 1.4. You have no idea how hyped we were as we got ready to stay up all night to conquer all our childhood favorites.
That thrill lasted all of about 5 minutes.
I realized a lot in those 5 minutes.
I immediately understood that nostalgia can only be remembered, not relived. Once you attempt to relive that experience it ceases to be nostalgia. You can no longer remember that experience through the rose colored glasses of memory. You are now forced to live the experience through your current frame of reference. The two experiences do not remain in parallel. The new overwrites the old instantaneously.
In those 5 minutes I immediately lost the entirety of my blissful NES youth. My older self found these games to be unbearably simple, repetative, ugly, and generalynatupid. How could I have ever thought this was worth anything? It dawned on me that I somehow innately understood this would happen, which is why I never liked (and still don't like) taking pictures at events. I'm like Bill Pullman's character in Lost Highway; I like to remember things the way I remember them, maybe not necessarily the way they happened.
To say that The Great Gatsby took on a whole new meaning would be an understatement.
I actually think that the generations born in the digital age may be free from the trappings of nostalgia specifically for the all the things you've described about the digital age and my opinion is that is one good thing this age may bring.
1. Add a couple of lines about Reggie Something and David Duchovny, and this could be a thoughtful effortpost response to "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat."
2. In the early 2010s, a friend and I decided to revisit Gundam Wing. We hadn't watched Gundam Wing in years, but we *loved* Gundam Wing when we were teenagers! It was so cool! Halfway through episode two we agreed we were done. It is for this reason that I will *never* revisit Outlaw Star or Tenchi Muyo, and am wary of having another look at Evangelion and FLCL. I want my appreciation of them to remain intact. (I'm pretty sure I have less to worry about wrt the Gainax stuff, but still.)
3. For me the most arresting line in the Great Gatsby will always be Nick's realization that he just turned thirty. I need to revisit that one sooner than later.
R2. Man that hilarious. Just like a month ago or so I listened to the opening theme from Wing and I was like "man, I wonder if that show holds up" (that show was AMAZING to us as teens) but then immediately stopped myself for reasons discussed.
R3. Without googling, I believe in addition to his description of lines on his face, it was something like "thinning hair and thinning opportunities". I'm sure there was more but that always stuck with me too.
As for revisiting it, I'm not sure that's the best idea. While unlike rosy nostalgia, Gatsby does improve with your own age, I wouldn't say that makes it more enjoyable. That extra time really just sharpens the blade.
You should read "The Machine Stops". It starts with a youtuber complaining that airports all look the same. It was written in 1909.
I swear to god I spent ten minutes poking around to make sure this wasn't some kind of hoax—a story written in the last ten years, falsely attributed to Forster, and given a spurious paper trail by Wikipedia vandals. The ghost of H.G. Wells *wishes* he wrote anything so prescient.
Like many from our generation I went through this cycle of bringing the past forward into the digital world.
I will always remember my roommate and I, first-year university, downloading the entire NES rom library from a warez site (oh yeah, warez baby! ). Neither of us had touched a NES since we were kids and were currently running daily marathon sessions of Counter Strike 1.4. You have no idea how hyped we were as we got ready to stay up all night to conquer all our childhood favorites.
That thrill lasted all of about 5 minutes.
I realized a lot in those 5 minutes.
I immediately understood that nostalgia can only be remembered, not relived. Once you attempt to relive that experience it ceases to be nostalgia. You can no longer remember that experience through the rose colored glasses of memory. You are now forced to live the experience through your current frame of reference. The two experiences do not remain in parallel. The new overwrites the old instantaneously.
In those 5 minutes I immediately lost the entirety of my blissful NES youth. My older self found these games to be unbearably simple, repetative, ugly, and generalynatupid. How could I have ever thought this was worth anything? It dawned on me that I somehow innately understood this would happen, which is why I never liked (and still don't like) taking pictures at events. I'm like Bill Pullman's character in Lost Highway; I like to remember things the way I remember them, maybe not necessarily the way they happened.
To say that The Great Gatsby took on a whole new meaning would be an understatement.
I actually think that the generations born in the digital age may be free from the trappings of nostalgia specifically for the all the things you've described about the digital age and my opinion is that is one good thing this age may bring.
1. Add a couple of lines about Reggie Something and David Duchovny, and this could be a thoughtful effortpost response to "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat."
2. In the early 2010s, a friend and I decided to revisit Gundam Wing. We hadn't watched Gundam Wing in years, but we *loved* Gundam Wing when we were teenagers! It was so cool! Halfway through episode two we agreed we were done. It is for this reason that I will *never* revisit Outlaw Star or Tenchi Muyo, and am wary of having another look at Evangelion and FLCL. I want my appreciation of them to remain intact. (I'm pretty sure I have less to worry about wrt the Gainax stuff, but still.)
3. For me the most arresting line in the Great Gatsby will always be Nick's realization that he just turned thirty. I need to revisit that one sooner than later.
R2. Man that hilarious. Just like a month ago or so I listened to the opening theme from Wing and I was like "man, I wonder if that show holds up" (that show was AMAZING to us as teens) but then immediately stopped myself for reasons discussed.
R3. Without googling, I believe in addition to his description of lines on his face, it was something like "thinning hair and thinning opportunities". I'm sure there was more but that always stuck with me too.
As for revisiting it, I'm not sure that's the best idea. While unlike rosy nostalgia, Gatsby does improve with your own age, I wouldn't say that makes it more enjoyable. That extra time really just sharpens the blade.