’ve been really fascinated by nostalgia recently, specifically how it defines culture and therefore the economy (such as the Super Mario Bros movie, Marvel Cinematic Universe, constant reboots, the monetization of familiarity). We love the past.

Susan Sontag’s view on this was that that we engage in a cult of nostalgia allowing us to focus on commemorating the past vs critically engaging with the present. We like to stay in pristine museum walls versus building new things! As Svetlana Boym wrote in the very poignant The Future of Nostalgia -

What is crucial is that nostalgia was not merely an expression of local longing, but a result of a new understanding of time and space that made the division into “local” and “universal” possible. The nostalgic creature has internalized this division, but instead of aspiring for the universal and the progressive he looks backward and yearns for the particular.

And to be fair, I do think there is a place for nostalgia!

It’s nice to share the past with people, and memories are the foundation of our personhood. But from an economic perspective, it can get a bit skewed. As Derek Thompson1 points out -

It's crazy how many different forces in Hollywood are pushing toward infinitely recurring IP loops. Original stories need to shoot the moon with reviews and buzz to have a chance at $100m, while middlingly reviewed renditions of familiar IP throw up $200m w/o breaking a sweat.

It’s cheaper to be nostalgic!

Less risk, both for the consumer and the movie producer.
We operate in a risk minimization bubble with these really big cinematic productions
But this can be problematic because these big movies often serve as a cultural anchor, giving us a sense of who we are on a really, really big generalized scale (I don’t personally align with these movies, I am sure many others don’t but I am generalizing). And when the anchor is floating in a sea of endless iterations of the past, how can we imagine anything different as a collective? The stories that we tell define us.

As Stephen West said:

The focal point of your life is on commemorating the past as opposed to changing the present. Your memories are more important to you than your dreams.

How do you dream about the future when you're always looking backwards? The endless repetition prevents us from iterating on new culture2 and when that happens, there’s room for brands and corporations to begin defining that culture for us, as Toby Shoring writes in Life after Lifestyle.

Full article: https://kyla.substack.com/p/the-commo...00:00 - Intro
04:51 - Dedollarization
06:15 - Delusion
08:13 - Digitalization

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