This is a constant argument seen across the Internet. The examples range from TV shows, music, video games, you name it, it has been used. Now going down memory lane and enjoying the nostalgia isn't a bad thing whatsoever, but it becomes bad when those memories give you elitist views towards new trends.
If you have been on popular websites, or even liked certain pages/groups on Facebook, then odds are you have seen pictures and/or posts proclaiming the greatness of the 1990's or whatever the person in question liked in their childhood. As I said there's nothing wrong with remembering great things from earlier times, but in many ways, we have turned into the very people that looked down on us when we were kids. I remember being told how some of the shows I liked to watch were dumb and not like shows from (fill in the era or show name here). I would just blow them off and watch what I wanted. Now that my generation is older, we have become those very people that look down upon the generation in front of us and say "These shows are terrible, shows in my day were much better." This has also been seen in video games in saying how much harder or scarier games were back in the day. Although I love how the Internet is great at bringing people together that have common interests or likes, it has served as a component that worsens this elitist view. It is kind of similar to that view when you're a freshman in high school or college and you swear you will not treat freshmen the same way you were treated when you're a senior and then when senior year comes around, you find yourself treating the freshmen in the exact way you were treated.
Now am I saying we have become our parents/older siblings? In this case, yes we have. People will of course deny this, so don't expect some revelation to occur and suddenly everything gets taken back. If I have learned anything from the Internet, it is that people will rarely, and I do mean rarely, go back on something they said beforehand. This issue can stem from nostalgia, but that is a different conversation that I have attempted to tackle twice now in this blog. Another thing that I believe contributes to this is the fact that people are unable to come to terms with the fact that their preferences or tastes in media will change over time. They can't handle the fact that a genre of music or type of TV show that they loved as a kid doesn't have the same flair now that it had then. I have seen it in my own life with old internet videos that I will watch sometimes because I will think to myself how great they were back in the day, but as I watch, it just isn't the same. The video itself hasn't changed at all, but my tastes in humor, or whatever the video dealt with, has changed as I have matured. This isn't a bad thing at all, and it should never be treated as such. People and things change over time, and we are only fooling ourselves if we think otherwise. Now are there shows, songs, movies, and games that have that timeless ability? There are many that are considered timeless. In fact, on Xbox 360, PS3, and the Wii, they have an entire section on their online store where you can buy old games to play once again. In the video game industry, there has been a big revival of having old games that are classic brought back and redone in HD so people can get a chance to play them again. Hollywood is cashing in on this as well with all of the movies they are re-releasing in 3D or having put out on DVD or Blu-Ray.
The reason I bring up this issue is for one reason:
1. This isn't something new and the cycle needs to be stopped
The 1st reason might be surprising. Unfortunately I could not find the source of this quote, though I swore it was from Mark Twain, but it fits very well here: "Every generation thinks that it is smarter than the one before it, and wiser than the one in front of it." Seeing people brag on the 90's being greater than the 2000's is no different than what people from the 80's said of people from the 90's and so on. There are pros and cons to when we were born and because of that, it doesn't magically make one generation greater than another. We should always cherish the things that helped us or gave us joy and entertainment in our childhood, but we shouldn't use it as a means to be elitist. So my hope is that the cycle can be broken and we just learn to get along just a bit better because the world is messed up enough with issues without us adding senseless arguing to the mix.
So here's hoping that this has perhaps shed a new perspective to you. If not, well then, I tried.
