Last year, a Bush and a Clinton were running for office.  A Jurassic Park movie came out in theaters.  A new Star Wars trilogy made its cinematic debut.  Goku and Frieza fought each other, and Cory and Topanga had more brand new adventures.  What year is it?

You’re probably thinking it is 199-something.  It’s actually 2015.  The above examples (except the political one) show how nostalgic our 21^st Century American society has become.  There are so many older concepts and series coming back with fresh new continuations even after these shows and series ended years ago.

Our Nostalgic Generation has three strong forces driving it:

Picture © Daniel Hanna 2013

1. Usually 90s kids and for good reason

Last year, my brother and I planned to go see the new Dragonball Z movie: Resurrection F, which was only showing a couple of days in theaters.  It was the first time in 20 years that the original creator of the show had done a feature film, and we were both huge fans of the show growing up.  I called the theater couple of days in advance, and I asked how many tickets were available, and they said not one seat had sold in the theater.  So, I thought to myself, I will just wait and buy the tickets the same day: no rush, right?  The same day the theater was sold out, and for the following day’s showing, most tickets were sold out.  I bought the tickets quickly for the next day.  We went the next day, and early, but the theater was almost packed, and what I noticed was most of the people attending were in their 20s, meaning they grew up in the 1990s watching the original run of Dragonball Z.

It’s clear that this generation, which is the millennial generation, is nostalgic to such a point that it caused a theater (and others as well) to sell out its showings of a film based on an old series.  But, it made me think, it’s this same generation that saw the transition from analog to digital.  The way we do nearly everything has changed since that change.  Maybe this generation is so nostalgic because their past takes them back to a time where they grew up to make sense of the world in one way only to see that way be overtaken by another, which is through digital technology, and now they’ve had to make sense once more of the world.  Even digital technology changed midstream from being used primarily through computers to now through phones.

This generation, the millennial generation, can appreciate the difference between doing things the old fashioned way and doing things the digital way.  Not only are their old shows and series coming back, but also their flavors and messages, which is I will discuss further below in point # 3.

2. Creativity has stagnated a bit

For the past several years, creativity has stagnated across many areas of the arts.  Book sales are lower than they were in the 1990s.  New movies are usually adaptations of novels or comics, and there are not many original films coming out.  However, this was not the case in the 1990s.  The 1990s was rife with original works of art such as Harry Potter, Toy Story, The Lion King, Jurassic Park, Titanic, and so on.  There has not been as much original works of art as these movies and books as of late.

I still see teenagers talking about the above books and movies.  This indicates that they have a lasting quality, and maybe that’s why the millennial generation is quite attached to them because they have a quality that for the most part is not quite matched in today’s media.

3. It ultimately comes down to value

The 1990s television sitcom was Boy Meets World.  This show did something that 1990s shows generally did, which was to teach some type of life lesson in the show.  Boy Meets World was especially good at it, whether it was teaching what true friendship looks like, the importance of teachers, or the value of a loving family.  There were lessons to be learned regularly.  This feature continued with early 2000s shows but afterward up until today television shows have lacked life lessons.  Without life lessons shows are empty, and to be honest, they become meaningless.  This was to the point that I gave up on television altogether, then I turned to Netflix (to watch older shows).  I was not alone; millions did the same.

Then, I heard that there was a sequel being made to Boy Meets World called Girl Meets World.  This was 14 years after the end of the first show.  I’ve viewed the new show, and I like what I see, because this show has something that is missing and sorely needed in television shows, which is that it teaches life lessons much like the original show, although not quite to the same degree.  This is something that the younger generation of teenagers and tweens needs today in a world that is rapidly changing and more and more losing focus on meaningful activities and relationships.  The reviews for the show are very high too (and they are not coincidentally so) because the show taps into what made its predecessor and other shows so successful and lasting, which is the feature of life lessons.

There are still works of art and shows and movies that have a lasting quality being released and which teach life lessons but not like in the 1990s and before.  This is the reason why the millennial generation is the nostalgic generation whether they are consciously aware of it or not.  It takes some thinking to find out why we long so much for these works, but the answer is clear: it is the quality of these works.

We can achieve the same type of originality that the 1990s and earlier generations did if we allow ourselves to focus on creating meaningful works of art that impart some type of life lesson to the viewers and leave them with something more than a couple of laughs or special effects shots.  Maybe that’s what is driving the millennials to be nostalgic.  It’s a silent cry for meaningfulness and quality.

What books, shows, or series from the 1990s and earlier do you still enjoy?  Why?  Did they impart something more than entertainment?  What is lasting about their quality?