Nostalgia Summary

Nostalgia, as defined by Tom Vanderbilt, is a form of propaganda, an exercise in laughter and forgetting, in which the right visual iconography and perceived authenticity can create a longing for an existence which is no longer possible and was in fact never possible. There is no denying that no matter what year a person was born; they have experienced a form of nostalgia at some point in their lives. In The Nostalgia Gap, Tom Vanderbilt further explains nostalgia and the different ways in which it demands to be felt. Apart from that, his main purpose for writing the article was to bring forward the idea of what he calls “the nostalgia gap.”
Vanderbilt observed that “According to the historical precedent, the early twentysomethings should not be reminiscing about the 1970s, but the mid-to-late 1980s.” This is what he called the aforementioned nostalgia gap. He goes on to give examples saying that the ones who experienced events such as Woodstock in the 60s began to become nostalgic in the 80’s, twenty years later. The author makes an interesting …show more content…
He seemed to hold nostalgia in high esteem and Wilson, staying true to his opinion that his generation is anti-nostalgic, talks about how he ignored the changes he observed as the years went on. He writes “I shut my eyes to the slow reappearance of jean jackets, floral-print dresses, lace shirts and platform wedges.” Soon, he could not ignore the inevitable pull of nostalgia and found himself unable to ignore it anymore.” In comparison to Thomas Vanderbilt’s article, Wilson also writes about music of past decades and the attempts to bring it back. He says the revival of the old music and the artists behind it are made possible because people want to see the singers that they used to listen to in their bedrooms from their old cassette players live on stage. Those people keep the nostalgia