Spoiler: No, millennials are not the most nostalgic generation — we’re just in a deeply nostalgic moment in our lives, reckoning (sometimes gracefully, other times less so) with no longer being the Main Character in the generational story. But this moment does give us opportunity to talk about the shape and purpose of nostalgia, how YouTube both amplifies and short-circuits it, and so much more — featuring one of my favorite nostalgia thinkers, Gabe Bullard. We talk about gum commercials, inflated Limewire persecution threats, Bagel Bites, and interrogate the idea of “core memories,” and I cannot wait for your thoughts.
The podcasting world is weird and precarious and getting weirder and even more precarious — and the only way for a show to really take off is through word of mouth. So if you like this episode, post it on Instagram, follow or subscribe to the pod on your podcast app, and/or write us a quick review on iTunes.
Also: we’ve made enough through subscriptions to pay Melody through July but without more… we can’t keep making the show. So if you like the pod, if you want it to continue, consider subscribing today. (And if you’re already a Culture Study newsletter subscriber, you get a screaming deal, but you have to click there to use it; it is *not* applied automatically).
….And if you’d like to add the subscriber-only podcast to your podcast app, here’s how. Also, you can now access the subscriber-only feed in Spotify!!! Go here to set it up.
Show Notes:
Subscribe to Gabe’s fantastic Substacks, Number One With a Bullard and Together, Alone (a magazine about watching TV)
Melody also highly recommends his episode of 99% Invisible on the Elvis stamp
Who wants to burn off their taste buds with some Big Red
Here’s Svetlana Boym’s obituary which nicely sums up her work on nostalgia (gift link)
Gabe also mentions writer and music critic Mark Fisher’s usage of “hauntology”— Fisher’s whole book Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology, and Lost Futures is available as a PDF here
You can read Fred Davis’s 1977 paper about “the current nostalgia wave” here
The ragtime song that made it to #3 on the charts because of The Sting
One listener’s question referenced the Richard Scarry books— here’s a round-up of some of the modernization that’s been done on them
We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:
Trad wives, featuring a co-host who used to be one
For our continuing series on romance novels: QUEER ROMANCE and ROMANCE BOOKSTORES
Artificial Intelligence (we’re gonna see if we can figure out an actually interesting theme here, so send us your weirdest or most mind-boggling questions)
The economy, a.k.a. why is everything so damn expensive right now (my dream here is like an Odd Lots guest who doesn’t have private equity brain, please let us know if you have suggestions!)
What’s up with food blogs in 2024
Contemporary ideas of self-care
Buy Nothing groups and/or the current state of the secondhand market
Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment
You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)
