Nostalgia

In December, the hardest working man on YouTube, KillianM2 uploaded a copy of the Late Late Toy Show from 1985. The entire thing¹. For a little context, I’m a 41 year old man with two children and a mortgage. The toys and gadgets I currently have in my house are so fantastically beyond anything 1985 could even imagine that they even go beyond science fiction for them. In my phone, I have something with more computing power than basically all the computers in 1985, and with it I can access any information I want, read any book I want, watch any film I want, listen to any music I want.

Even still, as I was watching this flashback where Gay Byrne in his slightly snarky, slightly soused manner demonstrated the year’s popular toys to the mammies and daddies of Ireland in 1985, I found myself with this deep, deep pain and sadness bubbling up inside me. Because I would love to have – I dunno take your pick of all the crappy toys – some shitty remote control Nissan outlander. I would give up my iPhone to have one. In a fucking heartbeat, I would.

As they say, nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

Of course it’s not about the actual toys on the show. I don’t actually want a remote control Nissan Outlander. Looking at the toys with grown-up eyes, the logical part of my brain can see that they’re all cheap Chinese garbage and the ones that aren’t changing hands for obscene amounts of money on eBay are all piled up in a landfill now. It’s everything around the toys that got to me. It’s the design of the toys, the boxy shape of the cars, the vibe of the thing, the hairstyles, the clothes (the audience are dressed like normal people, not an ironically awful Christmas jumper to be seen). These are the thing that remind me of home. They remind me of my childhood. Of that special feeling of safety I was fortunate enough to experience as a child. Of feeling looked after. Too right that’s a powerful thing. At one point, the show covered some toys I actually owned back then and I swear to god right then I could smell the room in my house where I used to play with those toys, I could feel the carpet.

Create a weapon that can trigger that sensation and you’ll end all wars forever.

But I don’t think nostalgia is necessarily a bad thing. Especially now, what with one thing and another. It’s easy to dismiss nostalgia as something to be avoided, like some pithy aphorism embroidered on a tea towel: “you never move forward when you’re living in the past”. But at the same time, this kind of nostalgia can be a reliable way of recreating a feeling of safety. It’s a way of self-soothing.

As I said, I’m a 41 year old man with two kids and a mortgage and, to top it all off, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic. This is my reality and I can’t escape it. Wait, no. This is our reality and we can’t escape it. I’ve found myself struggling to engage with things. I’m sure you’re the same. I start a new book and I can’t focus on the words because my brain goes elsewhere. I start watching a film and I end up checking the latest infection figures. And so I’ve found myself going back to familiar things – rewatching Parks and Recreation, for example – because they make me feel safe and looked after.

And this, in turn, lets me try to make my kids feel safe and looked after so that when they’re in their 40s and they watch a video of the Late Late Toy Show from 2020 (assuming it even happens, of course), they won’t have any memory of feeling fear or anxiety about the state of the world., they’ll just have the same warm, comforting feelings I’m talking about here.

So whatever it takes for you to get through this, whatever media you need to consume to make you feel all right, don’t feel ashamed, just do it.

Stay safe.