Posters featuring rock bands along the likes of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd line the walls of your room. An array of vinyl records, music from a multitude of genres and artists, are lined on your shelves. You grab one and slide the round vinyl disc out from its slipcover. You lay the wax onto your turntable and lower the needle.
Static.
Then, as if the “vintage gods” came down to personally congratulate you for using an outdated medium, the first notes of Come Together, by The Beatles ring out, and oh, is it a beautiful sound. John Lennon’s voice and George Harrison’s rhythmic guitar licks, they could not sound so amazing played on spotify or even a CD for that matter. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves.
Our society is obsessed with the past. Things always seemed to be better back in the “good old days,” (a term that changes definitions from person to person). When the discussion of the “best era’s” comes up, it’s easy to become wrapped up in one singular aspect of life. Someone who values the culture of a society might point to the 70s-90s, a time where Hollywood and the “modern blockbuster” blew up, consumerism was at a peak, and music was becoming more and more inventive. Others who value the economy and cost of living might point towards the 50s or 60s. This was post World War II, and the economy was rapidly expanding. It’s coined the “Golden Age of Capitalism,” businesses boomed and the workforce became even broader during this period, including an influx of women and veterans.
In the face of nostalgia though, many will gloss over the bad that came with these times. Sure the 70s was a great time for music, but the Vietnam war, a war that divided the generations, set the background for this decade. The 80s and 90s also contained the AIDS epidemic which brought homophobia towards the forefront of society. Cold war tensions were still ongoing in the 80s, and the desert storm conflicts arose in the 90s.
Why is it that we look back on the past with such rose-tinted glasses? Our society now has technologically evolved past what we could have ever thought was possible. But just like the eras before us, we have our own problems. Political polarization has drastically increased in the past couple of years spawning a whole new wave of hate.
“Nowadays, it’s harder for Republicans to get along with Democrats and vice versa,” Mrs. Carrillo, Selma High math teacher, stated on the topic of political polarization.
This issue is something that affects everybody and is very representative of the way our society views each other. Much of this can be attributed to the way that we consume media now, how easy it is to hear one thing from one source and something different from another source.
“It’s very hard to get news because there’s so much misinformation. It’s very scary,” Leadership teacher, Mrs. Garcia adds.
These societal pressures, along with others, build up and it’s no wonder why we look towards the past for comfort. Instead of focusing on our society right now, we focus on the comfort that previous eras have brought us, despite their undeniable shortcomings as well. It’s just easier to live in a familiar, cozier world.
Our culture is plagued by this. Everyone wants to be vintage and Disney can’t make anything other than a remake in fear of failing with something new. Our society seems like a rehash of things that we’ve already seen. We want to play the greatest hits of all of our ideas from the “Golden Ages,” before we have to make anything for ourselves again.
Recently though, there’s been a noticeable shift of mindsets. Mrs. Garcia stated that she thinks recently, horror movies have been getting better. She used 2022’s Smile, as an example. This film, along with many others in the past couple of years have looked towards horror films of the past for inspiration. Films like Rosemary’s Baby, and The Ring, help shape Smile into its own original, effective, and impactful film and viewers can see this.
We are in an age in which content from all types of eras are available at our fingertips. At any point we can listen to, watch, or learn about something from our past. All of these influences are able to come together to help guide us and the choices we collectively make. With every passing decade, we learn more and more about how to get by in this world and although we’re not a perfect society, nor will we ever be. The best time to be alive is always going to be the present day because it’s the only time in which we have the ability to look forward to the future.
We can play our old vintage records, analogue, and full of warmth. Their discs spin and play familiar harmonies. We can lift the past up and praise it for the comfort it brings, arguing it was better, but there will always be a subtle crackling of the vinyl, an unavoidable imperfection. We should rather move on from this nostalgia slump and make some new records.
