The Past Is What You Make of It
by Ian Williams
I was at a bar with some younger friends recently and we talked about movies we’d been watching. I mentioned offhandedly that I appreciated the mid-budget films of yesteryear, and summer comedies, and that the disappearance of both those categories was a cultural loss. I got looks. That I was wearing a flat cap as I shared these views was, I was told, especially funny. Because really my problem was that I was old and nostalgic.
Early this month, on Bluesky, I saw an animated back and forth over whether the internet is getting worse. It was mostly a “forth,” since most agreed yes, the internet has always sucked so why even have the debate? Smart people whom I like and admire thought it obvious that being nostalgic for the pre-Web 2.0 internet is a foolish thing to be. Did you know (did you know I bet you didn’t) that the internet was created by the United States defense industry?
After David Lynch died I spent some time reading obituaries and revisiting some analyses of his work. I was surprised to see so many critics praising his transcendence of “hollow nostalgia” and “the sentimental commonplace.” Because the message was clear: nostalgia is terrible and there was one person in American pop culture who cataloged it correctly, unlike everyone else.
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